Which low - mid tier GPU's are better right now?

[AleXXX666]

Look also for new RX 6600 $200 or second hand RX 6700.

5700XT will blow away 6600 non XT, lol

Hey everyone, I've been looking into upgrading my GPU recently, originally I wanted a 3060 but I decided that the price at the moment is a bit more than what I might want to spend and it's also probably just not necessary for the games I play (Mainly Fortnite).

So I then started looking at a 1660 Super but I've found that a 5700XT is cheaper. I was wondering if there was any other GPU that's good for a price of around 200 dollars (Or any reputable refurbished/used places to get a GPU) and if anybody has input on a 1660 super vs 5700XT. I know 5700XT on pure speed is faster but are Nvidias features worth the more expensive price?

for "nvidia features" it's worth the price when they work. for "features" you need the 3060, or, "1660 super analog with dlss" - 3050 (but beware, original 8 gb version, there is crap with 6 gb which is more cheaper it's worse than 1650 lol)

 

[Vayra86]

The top 9 GPUs currently most popular according to steam all have 8GB VRAM versions.
Game developers who choose to develop games that do not run perfectly with 8GB VRAM simply shoot themselves in the foot.
The largest group of gamers simply won't be able to run the game optimally then, and a game developer loses a lot of potential buyers that way.

You also used to have this debate between 4GB and 8GB, but the reality is that with 4GB VRAM you can play >95% of the old games.
And a lot of the new games actually still run well on old mid-range cards with 4GB VRAM too.

Some new games that still run acceptably on old 4GB VRAM cards.
RX 580 4GB

RX 580 4GB & RX 470 4GB

RX 580 4GB

RX 580 4GB

GTX 1650 4GB https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Satisfactory+1.0+gtx+1650
RX 580 4GB

RX 6400 4GB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_AUi3Oij1E
RX 580 4GB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2n1w0re4Yc
RX 580 4GB

Ghost of Tsushima (PC) - RX 580 - All Settings Tested - FSR 3 Frame Generation OFF/ON

Ghost of Tsushima (PC) - RX 580 - All Settings Tested - FSR 3 Frame Generation OFF/ON00:00 1080p Very Low Settings01:13 1080p Very Low Settings - FSR 3 Quali...

www.youtube.com

The above cards also just have little processing power on top of the 4GB VRAM limit.
With more processing power, they could obviously run the games better.

The number of new AAA games that 4GB VRAM owners can still run just fine is at least 30 times higher than what most 4GB VRAM gamers will ever be able to play.
On top of that, you have the fact that they can run pretty much all old games perfectly on high/ultra 1080p settings.

Was 4GB a wrong choice for the RX 570/RX 580?
I guess that it hardly matters to most gamers whether they chose the 8GB or the 4GB versions back then.

'Can play', sure, but then you've barely got texture details in lots of places, geometry is reduced to weird blobs more often than not, and its stutter heaven. Frametimes are often all over the place. That's where the price of 4GB is paid, not in the 30-50 FPS number.

 

[Zach_01]

The top 9 GPUs currently most popular according to steam all have 8GB VRAM versions.
Game developers who choose to develop games that do not run perfectly with 8GB VRAM simply shoot themselves in the foot.
The largest group of gamers simply won't be able to run the game optimally then, and a game developer loses a lot of potential buyers that way.

You also used to have this debate between 4GB and 8GB, but the reality is that with 4GB VRAM you can play >95% of the old games.
And a lot of the new games actually still run well on old mid-range cards with 4GB VRAM too.

Some new games that still run acceptably on old 4GB VRAM cards.
RX 580 4GB

RX 580 4GB & RX 470 4GB

RX 580 4GB

RX 580 4GB

GTX 1650 4GB https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Satisfactory+1.0+gtx+1650
RX 580 4GB

RX 6400 4GB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_AUi3Oij1E
RX 580 4GB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2n1w0re4Yc
RX 580 4GB

Ghost of Tsushima (PC) - RX 580 - All Settings Tested - FSR 3 Frame Generation OFF/ON

Ghost of Tsushima (PC) - RX 580 - All Settings Tested - FSR 3 Frame Generation OFF/ON00:00 1080p Very Low Settings01:13 1080p Very Low Settings - FSR 3 Quali...

www.youtube.com

The above cards also just have little processing power on top of the 4GB VRAM limit.
With more processing power, they could obviously run the games better.

The number of new AAA games that 4GB VRAM owners can still run just fine is at least 30 times higher than what most 4GB VRAM gamers will ever be able to play.
On top of that, you have the fact that they can run pretty much all old games perfectly on high/ultra 1080p settings.

Was 4GB a wrong choice for the RX 570/RX 580?
I guess that it hardly matters to most gamers whether they chose the 8GB or the 4GB versions back then.

If the idea of playing games is getting simmering effects all over the place and/or missing textures and roller-coaster frametimes...
then yeah, 8GB "ought to be enough for anybody"

 

[rusty caterpillar]

You'd be surprised. Some games are just dumb and eat vram and I've seen the 1080ti vram get filled. Have one on my bench currently for BOINC purposes but do game test here and there.

Dumb or not most of the games are optimized, at least partially, on 256 bit memory, and one reason is that 256 bit cards are present in Xbox and PS while is common ground or it was for PC cards to.

Yes are plenty still badly optimized but, than you gonna see that often reflected on the system RAM high usage. Also how often HEAP is reported on that title by Windows.

For example Diablo 2 Ressurected pulls 270 Watts from my 1080 Ti just doing nothing the in the game menu.
CoH3 pulls 250-260 Watts just scrolling out on the map Italian campaign yet in the heat of the battles with fire explosions and smoke doesn't exceed 150 W.
Last Train Home pulls 280 Watts(DX12 2k, all maxed) from my card battles or campaign map, doesn't matter but, doesn't exceed 8.5 GB VRAM usage. Same on Anno 1800 with 100k population.

If you have some demos I would test those games but, as I said nothing exceeds 8.7Gb VRAM usage on my card in 2 K .
I'm curious about if VRAM usage will raise on Lord of the Fallen, Space Marine 2, Wukong

 

[bug]

Looking into RX 6600's now. I honestly don't need amazing graphics (I prefer pure performance) for what I need its at a good price of around 200 dollars and gets solid performance (Though worse than 5700xt or a 3060). It might be what I look into the most. Only 8gb of vram but like I said earlier I don't worry too much about amazing graphics. Open to more suggestions as well.

Edit: I'd prefer a 3060 obviously but it's a bit more expensive and the used/refurbished market for it seems very sketchy. I'm just not sure about it yet.

'Can play', sure, but then you've barely got texture details in lots of places, geometry is reduced to weird blobs more often than not, and its stutter heaven. Frametimes are often all over the place. That's where the price of 4GB is paid, not in the 30-50 FPS number.

Still looks like it would fit the bill

 

[SchumannFrequency]

If the idea of playing games is getting simmering effects all over the place and/or missing textures and roller-coaster frametimes...
then yeah, 8GB "ought to be enough for anybody"

RX 580 4GB - Star Wars Outlaws --> Low 1% = 28 FPS (with the correct settings)
RX 580 4GB - Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 --> Low 1% = 52 FPS (with the correct settings)
RX 580 4GB - Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown --> Low 1% = 38 FPS (with the correct settings)
RX 580 4GB - Cyberpunk 2077 Patch 1.61 --> Low 1% = 38 FPS (with the correct settings)
RX 580 4GB - Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2 --> Low 1% = 34 FPS (with the correct settings)
RX 570 4GB - The Crew 2 --> Low 1% = 47 FPS (with the correct settings)
RX 580 4GB - Black Myth: Wukong --> Low 1% = 47 FPS (with the correct settings)
RX 580 4GB - Ghost of Tsushima --> Low 1% = 75 FPS (with the correct settings)

Graphically, each of the above games can be played with graphics between PS4 and PS5 level.
Literally every one of these games (with an RX 580 4GB) has better graphics than a PS4.

Whether this is not sufficient is highly questionable by anyone with basic thinking skills.
My old PS One, GameBoy Pocket and Xbox were the stuff I could sell second-hand most easily.
I put an old 5’ TFT monitor from the PS One online yesterday and I got an immediate message the same day from someone wanting to buy it.

Control runs like BALLS on consoles, drops to as low as 10FPS

Control runs like BALLS on consoles, drops to as low as 10FPS

Control drops to an unplayable 10FPS on the base Xbox One and PS4 consoles.

www.tweaktown.com

Rating Control on PS4: https://www.metacritic.com/game/control/
(About exactly the same rating as the rating on PC)

I played PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4 games with dozens of people and they often ran at maximum FPS of 30FPS and had very frequent drops to less than 20 FPS.
None of the dozen people ever told me that the game would be much better with higher FPS.
None of the dozen people ever told me that the performance was distracting or sub-optimal.

Your type of comments are obviously what people are brainwashed with by Nvidia, Intel, Microsoft, Sony and AMD.
But these comments have nothing to do with the reality of Xbox/Nintendo/PS popularity.
These consoles have demonstrated for decades that your type of reasoning is nothing but snobbery.

 

[docnorth]

What part is nonsense? Where do you get that idea from?

There's a version of the 3060 that has 8GB so it has 33% less VRAM and 33% less memory bandwidth than the original 12GB 3060 version included in all reviews. But Nvidia still calls it a 3060 which is a crap deceptive naming system. This is it right here:

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 8 GB Specs

NVIDIA GA106, 1777 MHz, 3584 Cores, 112 TMUs, 48 ROPs, 8192 MB GDDR6, 1875 MHz, 128 bit

www.techpowerup.com

This isn't some newish 3060, it's the 3060 8gb and is indeed slower than the 12gb version, probably due to the crippled memory bandwidth. There is a reason that many people (me included) avoid those videos.

 

[Macro Device]

5700XT will blow away 6600 non XT, lol

Whilst consuming twice the power and being one generation closer to EoS.

I would seriously have considered an RTX 3070 or 3060 Ti with G6X. If DLSS and RT don't mean crap to you (and you MEAN it) you might find your happiness with an RX 6800 series GPU which are also going cheap lately (at least in Russia). 6700 XT is overrated as of now.

 

[SchumannFrequency]

This isn't some newish 3060, it's the 3060 8gb and is indeed slower than the 12gb version, probably due to the crippled memory bandwidth. There is a reason that many people (me included) avoid those videos.

192-bit vs 128-bit memory interface is a detoriation.
My old (cheap) PowerColor ATI Radeon HD 5830 1GB had a 256-bit memory interface.
This is really greedy of AMD and Nvidia to downgrade the memory interface to make extra profit.

 

[Macro Device]

None of the dozen people ever told me that the game would be much better with higher FPS.

They'd change their minds the moment they tried playing at 60+ FPS. It's just their coping mechanism cranked to eleven. Almost any first person shooter is almost unplayable at 30ish FPS but is great at 100+ thereof.

 

[AusWolf]

They'd change their minds the moment they tried playing at 60+ FPS. It's just their coping mechanism cranked to eleven. Almost any first person shooter is almost unplayable at 30ish FPS but is great at 100+ thereof.

Depends on your play style. I'm totally fine with 60 FPS (says someone with a 144 Hz monitor).

 

[lexluthermiester]

I would seriously have considered an RTX 3070

Same here, if the OP is willing to look at the used market.

Depends on your play style. I'm totally fine with 60 FPS

Same here.

 

[Macro Device]

I'm totally fine with 60 FPS

Yeah, me too. However, more is better but it's not supported by my monitor.

My point is if you can afford it you should get it. No reason to settle on inferior hardware.

 

[AusWolf]

Yeah, me too. However, more is better but it's not supported by my monitor.

My point is if you can afford it you should get it. No reason to settle on inferior hardware.

My monitor supports it, but I still don't care for more. My point is that 60 FPS isn't necessarily inferior to 100 or 140, depending on one's perception and play style.

 

[SchumannFrequency]

They'd change their minds the moment they tried playing at 60+ FPS. It's just their coping mechanism cranked to eleven.
Almost any first person shooter is almost unplayable at 30ish FPS but is great at 100+ thereof.

I think the point where higher FPS no longer matters (for most persons) is around 80 FPS.
I'm pretty sure this is easily demonstrated that most gamers are not going to be able to tell in a blind test what the 80 fps monitor is and what the 240 fps monitor is.
At stable frame rate at these specific values.

Know that many gamers wear glasses.
I had put together my youngest sister's gaming PC myself. She has better eyesight than most people.
To test how well the computer I had built worked, she played Fortnite on Epic settings for half an hour.

After half an hour, I asked her if she noticed the heavy screentearing that was clearly constantly visible.
She hadn't noticed.

People with above-average vision often do not even notice (heavy) screentearing.
We fixed the screentearing by enabling VSync, but if I hadn't mentioned it, she would have possibly gamed with heavy tearing for years without noticing.

I may see the benefits of high-end hardware (because I have an eye for detail and sharp eyes), but most people don't at all.

 

[Macro Device]

After half an hour, I asked her if she noticed the heavy screentearing that was clearly constantly visible.
She hadn't noticed.

Then I doubt her vision even exists, sorry. I'm about 30 y.o., had about a dozen serious head traumas, almost went blind at some point, yet still can clearly see even slight tearing.

Also... 1440p VS 2160p on a 27" display? Night and day. 80 VS 144 FPS? Night and day. Hard to tell if you're joking there:

most gamers are not going to be able to tell in a blind test what the 80 fps monitor is and what the 240 fps monitor is.

because having a brain slower than mine is an achievement in itself.

 

[SchumannFrequency]

Then I doubt her vision even exists, sorry. I'm about 30 y.o., had about a dozen serious head traumas, almost went blind at some point, yet still can clearly see even slight tearing.

She could clearly see the horizontal line in the centre of the screen once I drew her attention to it.
But it was only because I drew her attention to it that she saw it. She was so focused on Fortnite that she did not notice it.
I am pretty much 100% sure she herself would never have enabled VSync if I had not made the screentearing comment.
She also definitely has better eye vision than most people and is ‘OK’ in gaming, above 3000 MMR in Dota 2, which is above average.

Average was ~2.2k for years.

 

[Vayra86]

RX 580 4GB - Star Wars Outlaws --> Low 1% = 28 FPS (with the correct settings)
RX 580 4GB - Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 --> Low 1% = 52 FPS (with the correct settings)
RX 580 4GB - Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown --> Low 1% = 38 FPS (with the correct settings)
RX 580 4GB - Cyberpunk 2077 Patch 1.61 --> Low 1% = 38 FPS (with the correct settings)
RX 580 4GB - Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2 --> Low 1% = 34 FPS (with the correct settings)
RX 570 4GB - The Crew 2 --> Low 1% = 47 FPS (with the correct settings)
RX 580 4GB - Black Myth: Wukong --> Low 1% = 47 FPS (with the correct settings)
RX 580 4GB - Ghost of Tsushima --> Low 1% = 75 FPS (with the correct settings)

Graphically, each of the above games can be played with graphics between PS4 and PS5 level.
Literally every one of these games (with an RX 580 4GB) has better graphics than a PS4.

Whether this is not sufficient is highly questionable by anyone with basic thinking skills.
My old PS One, GameBoy Pocket and Xbox were the stuff I could sell second-hand most easily.
I put an old 5’ TFT monitor from the PS One online yesterday and I got an immediate message the same day from someone wanting to buy it.

Control runs like BALLS on consoles, drops to as low as 10FPS

Control runs like BALLS on consoles, drops to as low as 10FPS

Control drops to an unplayable 10FPS on the base Xbox One and PS4 consoles.

www.tweaktown.com

Rating Control on PS4: https://www.metacritic.com/game/control/
(About exactly the same rating as the rating on PC)

I played PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4 games with dozens of people and they often ran at maximum FPS of 30FPS and had very frequent drops to less than 20 FPS.
None of the dozen people ever told me that the game would be much better with higher FPS.
None of the dozen people ever told me that the performance was distracting or sub-optimal.

Your type of comments are obviously what people are brainwashed with by Nvidia, Intel, Microsoft, Sony and AMD.
But these comments have nothing to do with the reality of Xbox/Nintendo/PS popularity.
These consoles have demonstrated for decades that your type of reasoning is nothing but snobbery.

Its all about options and knowledge isn't it.

If you've always gamed on consoles, that's your norm and you've conformed to it.
If you've experienced high refresh rate gaming on a PC with decent horsepower, you'll know the difference.
And then there's preferences. There's a place for consoles, certainly and nobody is denying that. But to say that smooth, high image quality game experiences are snobbery is taking things way out of context. That's just something you think. And that's fine, but its not a/the norm. The norm is that your entertainment runs with relatively stable framerates, because even on consoles that might dip to 25-20 FPS... and I've experienced that too... you definitely do notice this as a player, and its definitely not adding immersion to the experience, but rather detracts from it. Its just that simple. We cope, and we can deal with it, sure, but its sub optimal, simple.

The same sub optimal situation arises with low VRAM/performance cards. You can go pretty far down that rabbit hole as you've shown with the examples, which are really good ones and they DO show that you CAN play those games with a weak GPU. But its sub optimal, there's no denying that. Elevating that 'sub optimal' experience to the norm is exactly what people on consoles do. Its not even a conscious thing when you do that to yourself. It just happens. We adapt. I've played lots of MMO's on throttling laptops with FPS all over the place and as low as 4-10 FPS at times. I adapt. I finished those raids, I collected the gear and I played thousands of hours like that. But it wasn't great. It was a struggle, with a reward at the end (loot). Now, I play GW2 at >60 FPS everywhere and its a whole other, much better experience, to name just one example. PVP is now actually suddenly playable, for example. The lower latency in PVE vastly increases your performance in those same raids, etc. The differences are so immense, its like playing a whole new game that you can now actually enjoy, combat actually flows normally now, you can time rotations better, etc etc. That's not snobbery, is it?

 

[SchumannFrequency]

but its sub optimal, simple.

My take is that for most people, the difference in graphics performance/quality is irrelevant.
That is also what the statistics show pretty strongly.

'Control runs like BALLS on consoles, drops to as low as 10FPS'

Control Reviews

After a secretive agency in New York is invaded by an otherworldly threat, you become the new Director struggling to regain Control in this supernatural 3rd person action-adventure from Remedy Entertainment and 505 Games

www.metacritic.com

Control user reviews on PS4: 7.4
Control user reviews on PC: 7.3
That is a first statistic.

Control was also frequently awarded graphically the most advanced game by many well-known media at the time.
Second stastic: The stats show that twice as many people played the (graphically the most advanced) game on PS4 than on PC.

Why are the games with the best graphics played twice as often on PS than on PC according to your pro analysis?
A fairly obvious explanation would be that most people don't find ‘optimal graphics’ a strong value-add.

 

[Vayra86]

My take is that for most people, the difference in graphics performance/quality is irrelevant.
That is also what the statistics show pretty strongly.

'Control runs like BALLS on consoles, drops to as low as 10FPS'

Control Reviews

After a secretive agency in New York is invaded by an otherworldly threat, you become the new Director struggling to regain Control in this supernatural 3rd person action-adventure from Remedy Entertainment and 505 Games

www.metacritic.com

Control user reviews on PS4: 7.4
Control user reviews on PC: 7.3
That is a first statistic.

Control was also frequently awarded graphically the most advanced game by many well-known media at the time.
Second stastic: The stats show that twice as many people played the (graphically the most advanced) game on PS4 than on PC.

Why are the games with the best graphics played twice as often on PS than on PC according to your pro analysis?
A fairly obvious explanation would be that most people don't find ‘optimal graphics’ a strong value-add.

I'm not saying you're wrong there am I? Its as with gaming and games themselves. Preferences. There is a console crowd, and certainly its larger. There's also a much larger group in society that's a fan of mainstream music - that's why its mainstream music. I hate that type of music's guts more often than not Just because something is mainstream doesn't mean the other preferences of other groups are somehow 'lesser' or 'less important'. Quite the opposite in fact. If we lost that diversity in preferences, everything would have turned mainstream by now, and yet, it hasn't, rather, you see that the biggest sleeper hits in entertainment are, almost every time, something that emerges from a niche somewhere and becomes or is tailored for mainstream. In gaming, that's the MOBA for example, and the Battle Royale concept, the RPG-progression elements that appear almost everywhere now... I can make a very long list. Heck even gaming itself was once nerd niche territory.

Graphics and performance work in similar ways. The PC has always been at the forefront of developing and experimenting with those aspects. And it enables technologies that we now see in consoles: upscaling, anti aliasing techs, frame smoothing, the list is near endless. I think you're taking that for granted in your 'take' and its a completely misinformed take in that sense.

Also, consider the fact that consoles are now highly performant and have really just moved much closer to what is PC mid range/high end gaming. Another aspect of consoles you've completely missed apparently. If anything, there's a strong demand for higher end experiences, but its simply out of reach for most.

The bottom line here to me is that gaming stays interesting for people because of innovation. And the best/most innovation happens on the PC platform, pushing the envelope, creating new experiences, concepts, etc. Even the modding scene is part of that development - a scene that is completely absent on consoles and using hardware that ranges from bottom end to ultra high end.

The peasants need the snobs to keep everyone in the game, basically

 

[SchumannFrequency]

If anything, there's a strong demand for higher end experiences, but its simply out of reach for most.

Some things you said I agree with, but not this statement.
In my country, the Hyundai i10 is one of the cheapest cars you can buy. Let's say it costs about EUR 15 000 in my country. It can reach the speed limit on all roads.

My guess is that most people in my country buy a car that costs more than EUR 21 000. And often they can go to work without a car, or by bike, or by public transport.
Then there are many additional costs, price of petrol, winter tyres, repairs, annual check-up, etc.

Many of the people in my immediate circles have really expensive cars.
But they don't buy an RX 7900 XTX/RTX 4090 despite being perfectly financially able to do so and despite sometimes playing games.

The most expensive GPU is not out of reach for most people in my country. Completely the opposite.
What this means is that for most people ‘optimal graphics’ in games is something they can very easily afford but don't consider an important thing in life.

 

[Vayra86]

Some things you said I agree with, but not this statement.
In my country, the Hyundai i10 is one of the cheapest cars you can buy. Let's say it costs about EUR 15 000 in my country. It can reach the speed limit on all roads.

My guess is that most people in my country buy a car that costs more than EUR 21 000. And often they can go to work without a car, or by bike, or by public transport.
Then there are many additional costs, price of petrol, winter tyres, repairs, annual check-up, etc.

Many of the people in my immediate circles have really expensive cars.
But they don't buy an RX 7900 XTX/RTX 4090 despite being perfectly financially able to do so and despite sometimes playing games.

The most expensive GPU is not out of reach for most people in my country. Completely the opposite.
What this means is that for most people ‘optimal graphics’ in games is something they can very easily afford but don't consider an important thing in life.

So now you're comparing the demand for graphics quality in a hobby/game to daily commute where the entire family is often involved, and there are various other 'car aspects' that come into play. Such as boot space, to name but a simple one. You can just about put two shopping bags in an i10 - not exactly spacious.

And hey, people aren't buying 'the cheapest GPUs' either. They buy, overwhelmingly, especially including the consoles: mid range hardware. The low end is often deemed too weak and for good reason. RX580 wasn't a low end card either, it was considered upper mid range / start of high end.

'Out of reach' is simply what it is: there is no budget (left) to spend, after all other things have been paid. We're talking about entertainment here, of course its going to be one of the last considerations in anyone's monthly spending, its not just logical, its very healthy that it works that way.

So yes, its simply out of reach for most, but if they HAD the money, and it wasn't spent on more important things (whichever they are, could even be 'games' themselves!), it would certainly be spent on better hardware. There is a demand. You can also see this in the shift towards higher end graphics over time. Consoles now re-release with Pro versions, for example, even though the game library barely changes. Every new console iteration is a new hardware upgrade too. Even just staying on the same tier of graphics cards is a hardware upgrade that directly attributes to better quality.

Conversely, if there was NO demand for better graphics, and for continuously improving those graphics, we'd still be gaming on a NES and Commodore, but what we see instead is that it thrives, people spend more and more money on gaming and all segments of the market have been growth markets for decades now. That includes the high end.

 

[64K]

My take is that for most people, the difference in graphics performance/quality is irrelevant.
That is also what the statistics show pretty strongly.

'Control runs like BALLS on consoles, drops to as low as 10FPS'

Control Reviews

After a secretive agency in New York is invaded by an otherworldly threat, you become the new Director struggling to regain Control in this supernatural 3rd person action-adventure from Remedy Entertainment and 505 Games

www.metacritic.com

Control user reviews on PS4: 7.4
Control user reviews on PC: 7.3
That is a first statistic.

Control was also frequently awarded graphically the most advanced game by many well-known media at the time.
Second stastic: The stats show that twice as many people played the (graphically the most advanced) game on PS4 than on PC.

Why are the games with the best graphics played twice as often on PS than on PC according to your pro analysis?
A fairly obvious explanation would be that most people don't find ‘optimal graphics’ a strong value-add.

I've noticed differently. Visuals are the number one thing that most gamers look for in a game. A game can be riddled with bugs, bad performance, poor gameplay and even boring but if it looks good gamers buy it anyway and hope for patches later on. As far as gaming mainstream media goes I pay little attention to them for a long time now. I go by two simple rules with them:

1) Don't pay much attention to them.
2) When in doubt see rule #1.

I end up not getting hyped for shit games and waste a lot of my money that way.

 

[SchumannFrequency]

You can just about put two shopping bags in an i10 - not exactly spacious.

For most, the small size is an advantage, most people live in cities.

However, it is striking that many people spend very large sums of money on hundreds of other things than high-end gaming GPUs, so as I said before, the highest quality graphics is not a priority for most people.

 

[Vayra86]

For most, the small size is an advantage, most people live in cities.

However, it is striking that many people spend very large sums of money on hundreds of other things than high-end gaming GPUs, so as I said before, the highest quality graphics is not a priority for most people.

Oh sure not a priority but most certainly 'nice to have'. Which means, there is a demand, and people dó care about it, but, its far too easy to just blanket statement such a thing like that, there are many different kinds of customers/people/preferences, many different budgets, local availability... And there is the matter of diminishing returns.

And this kind of puts the finger on the core of our argument: you've defended the idea that 4GB was and still is somehow 'enough' but then you are vastly in the realm of ultra low-end performance, not something the current day consoles are capable of - they can do much more. This underlines that the bar keeps moving up and as a result, even 4GB is obsolete at some point, which is the trajectory 8GB is on as well right now, and 12GB will be in X years time. And I think that's also how most people choose to spend their money on GPUs: they have a bottom line of demand for either performance or image quality and when the experience sinks under that, they will upgrade.

And generally, they're provided an upgrade too, even in the console space, while that upgrade also provides a boost to general game image quality on all platforms, as it has historically.