This is pure truth. If someone wants to build a more budget friendly PC that can keep up with the consoles for the rest of the generation they now have some options. Before the 6700XT got as cheap as it is or the 7600XT launch you had to pay quite a lot more for a GPU that had that balance and it was not worth it over just buying a console unless there were specific PC only games you wanted.
Sure you will need to make compromises but you should be able to maintain console like IQ and have more FPS or have the same FPS and higher IQ, sometimes you will be able to turn on RT if the game has a console like RT setting available (how worthwhile it is to turn on is upto the user).
Neither of these parts will hit VRAM walls at certain settings combinations like the 3070/3070Ti and other more power 8GB cards do. Just look at the Ratchet and Clank example at 1080p. The 6700 XT is 2x faster than the 7600 and the 6700XT is no where near 2x the compute performance. I fully expect the 7600XT hit more than 60 fps in that game at that setting, maybe even more like 70+ depending on how VRAM vs compute vs bandwidth limited the bottlenecks are.
1080p is the area where any upscaling performs poorly. Hitting 60 FPS with 6700 XT, let alone 7600 XT, will require from the user to go below Ultra settings in many upcoming titles. Hardware ray tracing on these GPUs is obsolete already; software ray tracing is gonna survive but it doesn't contribute much to both IQ and VRAM consumption. Of course you can live with that and both GPUs technically will do just fine if you're content with minimum settings/30 FPS. VRAM staying at 8 GB is only an issue in two or maybe three games that aren't absolute rubbish.
1440p is the area where DLSS starts making sense whereas FSR is still bad. GPUs such as RTX 4060 non-Ti are doing just fine with DLSS Balanced turned on and they will do just fine for extended amount of time, even longer than in "pure" 1080p. Either of these three GPUs will hit their calculating power ceiling long before hitting 8+ GB being an absolute necessity.
4K? These GPUs ain't about that. If you can play games at 4K with such GPUs it's cool but that's not intended. And this is the only resolution you can realistically hit 8+ GB requirement on a somewhat regular basis next three or four years.
It's not nonsensical to assume that the 16 GB version of 7600 will get more longevity than the 8 GB variant. Yet, it's still losing to:
• 6700 XT in basically everything that's not power efficiency. 16 GB over 8 GB can make a difference but 16 GB over 12? No way, both GPUs will run outta steam long before hitting 11+ GB VRAM usage.
• 4060 in everything that's not VRAM capacity. 4060 will provide better experience in 99% titles next couple years and by 2027, GPUs of such calibre are essentially $50 worth e-junk.
• 3060 Ti, or 3070. Same story as with 4060 but these GPUs have more horsepower and will provide more value at higher resolutions due to actually existent VRAM bandwidth.
• Intel Arc A770 16 GB. Essentially cheaper and much more powerful as you increase the resolution and/or RT load. Of course Arc GPUs are still in their beta stage but don't forget about XeSS: it's superior to FSR.
• Its own 8 GB variant just because it's so much more expensive.
• Second hand 6800 non-XT. Nuff said.
It doesn't achieve anything. Would've been somewhat good as a replacement at the same MSRP of ~260 USD but AMD are willing you to sacrifice almost 30% more than that. It's horrendously slow for its money considering available options. Its 16 GB VRAM buffer only pays off in a couple certain games and gambling about VRAM hogging becoming a trend rather than an incident-based happening, this makes minimum sense. Spend 70 bucks more = get a new RX 6800 with 60+ % performance advantage. Spend about 40 dollars less = get an RTX 3060 12 GB which has essentially the same longevity. Or an RTX 4060 that's even more superior if we account it being 80 Watts easier on the PSU.
