Hi everyone,
It’s been many years since I’ve last built a PC from scratch or even upgraded any parts. I’ve been using a prebuilt Lenovo Legion Cube C530‐19ICB for several years now and I’m generally happy with it mostly because the case fits nicely in my living room cabinet (hooked up to the TV).
I have an option to purchase a new RTX 40 Series card in a few days for a decent price and I’m wondering which of these will be compatible to my existing PC:
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4060Ti (8GB)
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4070 Super
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4080 Super
I assume I need to check dimensions (not sure if everything has a standard like “full height” etc.) and PSU Watts (how strict are these requirements?). Not sure if there’s PCI type/width issues or anything else I need to cover, or what do I get the info for both my PC and each card from.
If anyone can help guide me through figuring out which of these cards could be compatible, I’d appreciate it a lot!
Edit: Seems like the 4080 is too much for my current build (card length, PSU, etc.) but both the 4070 and 4060 could work. Thanks everyone for your advice!
Yes.
Pcie x16 slot? (you could look up in the board manual how fast it is - number of lanes and pcie version. But basically the standard is downwards compatible - newer cards work in older slots, but slower. )
Dimensions: does it fit in the case? Is the cooling (outtake of the case) sufficient?
Power supply ready? Check if the psu (power supply unit) delivers enough power to supply the new gpu. Check if there are the right plugs/ cables to feed the gpu - some require one 75w-connector, some even two.
Seems like it’s a PCIe 3.0 x16 slot. Do you think I should expect a significant bottleneck here? Enough to make the 4070 Super not worth it compared to the 4060ti?
I tried to figure the measurement the best I could, I hope I’m right. Can’t really say regarding cooling, is there really a way to know beforehand?
If I understand it correctly, the pcie version affects the transfer speed for data (i.e. textures) between the system ram and the gpu ram, only. This shouldn’t affect game performance much if the gpu itself has enough RAM. When it has 12 or even 16GB I wouldn’t worry too much. The gpu doesn’t work slower if it doesn’t have to wait for data from the Mainboard.
Measurements: 3 slots wide starting from the pcie slot measuring on the direction where the other slots are away from the cpu) . Height: Full height of a PCIe card. The limiting factor should be the length of the card.
Cooling: if there is a second 120mm case fan that blows warm air outside of the case (besides the one in the psu) you should be fine. If not: can you add one in the case? Mainboards often have one or more pin headers to connect the fan to (should be 4 pins). Just check the thermal sensor readings of gpu, CPU, board and add more fans if needed. ;) the pc can’t break, it just gets slower or in the worst case does a shutdown.