The yardstick: 1080p, 60 FPS, latest AAA
Singh's definition of "too old" is narrow. A card is too old if it is incompatible with, or can't consistently deliver, 60+ FPS at 1080p in the latest AAA titles, even with upscaling help. He picks 1080p on purpose. He argues that many gamers see it as a relic, but the Steam Hardware & Software Survey still shows it is where most players are.
He also qualifies the verdict. These cards, and weaker ones, remain more than adequate for esports and lighter games. "Too old" does not mean "upgrade today", particularly in a GPU market he describes as having gone off the rails on pricing.
That is a workload threshold, not an end-of-life notice. Nothing stops these cards from launching games, and Windows driver support is a separate question from this piece.
The five cards and the claims against them
GTX 1660 series (1660, 1660 Super, 1660 Ti). The base card used 6 GB of GDDR5, and the Super and Ti moved to 6 GB of GDDR6. The author says the family was going strong until roughly 2021–2022. He now sees it dipping into the 40s FPS in Alan Wake 2, Silent Hill f and Dying Light: The Beast at 1080p, even on optimized settings with FSR upscaling. He also says newer games increasingly mandate ray tracing and Resizable BAR.
GTX 1070. The piece argues it has aged no better than the 1660 series. It says the card can't hold 60 FPS in Ghost of Tsushima, Alan Wake 2 or even Red Dead Redemption 2. It says Cyberpunk 2077 averages 60+ only at 1080p Medium. It adds that 8 GB of VRAM is not obsolete, but a PCIe 3.0 bus can tank frame rates once VRAM runs out.
GTX 1080 Ti. The article credits it with 11 GB of VRAM and rasterization on par with the RTX 3060 and RTX 2070 Super. It still concludes the card is no longer a consistent 1080p/60 option, citing the lack of mesh shaders and ray tracing.
RX 5700 / 5700 XT. The author says the XT delivered about 90% of a GTX 1080 Ti. He now sees only 50–55 FPS averages at 1080p in The Last of Us Part 2 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
RTX 2060 / 2060 Super. He says even with DLSS on, Doom: The Dark Ages and Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition stay under 50 FPS average at 1080p. He also says Alan Wake 2 is too heavy even at minimum settings with upscaling. Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing off runs fine.
The piece doesn't document its test systems, CPUs, drivers or exact settings. Treat every FPS figure above as the author's reported experience, not a reproducible benchmark.
Where the story needs qualification
Two points complicate the "missing features means dead" narrative.
Mesh shaders are not a hard wall in Alan Wake 2
The article says Alan Wake 2 demands mesh shaders and that Pascal lacks them, so the experience is terrible. Remedy's own update notes tell a different story. PC patch 1.0.16.1 optimized rendering for GPUs without mesh-shader support. As a result, the game's minimum GPU requirement dropped to GeForce GTX 1070 / Radeon RX 5600 XT in Remedy's notes.
That is a compatibility fact, not a performance promise. It does show that a GTX 1070 or RX 5700 is not locked out of the game, and that the real question is frame rate and settings.
Remedy's FAQ adds that full ray tracing/path tracing is supported on DirectX 12 GPUs with hardware-accelerated DXR. It recommends an RTX 40-series card with DLSS 3.5 for that mode. So the game's most punishing mode is a separate matter from basic playability.
The FSR 3 point is overstated
The piece says the RX 5700 series has "disappointing FSR 3 support only". AMD's hardware table is more generous. FSR 3 Frame Generation is listed for Radeon RX 5000 Series graphics and above, with upscaling only on Radeon RX 590 and above.
The newer, ML-based FSR upscaling is a different matter. AMD says it is available on RX 7000 and RX 9000 Series cards, with RX 6000 support planned for 2027, so RDNA 1 is left out of that tier. Remedy's August 2026 patch added FSR 4 and FSR Frame Generation to Alan Wake 2; the October 2026 patch updated that support to FSR 4.1. FSR 4 is enabled automatically only on supported GPUs, which in practice means newer Radeons.
There are caveats for older hardware. A compatible GPU does not automatically enable FSR 3, because every game needs developer integration. AMD's own guidance also warns that on hardware below its recommended tier you may see little to no improvement from frame generation. Its recommended tier is RX 6000 and above, and it says older hardware may see little to no performance improvement. Frame generation also works best when the game already runs near 60 FPS. A card that struggles to hit 40 FPS is the worst candidate for it.
So the accurate claim is narrower. The RX 5700 series can use FSR 3, but the improved image quality and newer frame-generation options skip it. Combined with no hardware ray tracing, that is a fair reason to call it dated.
A published requirement that backs the author's thesis
Silent Hill f's Steam listing, per the research brief, gives a minimum GPU of GTX 1070 Ti or Radeon RX 5700. It describes minimum hardware as delivering 30 FPS at 720p with Performance-quality settings. Recommended hardware is an RTX 2080 or Radeon RX 6800 XT, aimed at 60 FPS at Full HD with Performance settings.
This supports the argument well. Two of the five families sit at or around the publisher's own minimum, and that minimum is a 720p/30 target. Note that the minimum names the GTX 1070 Ti, not the plain GTX 1070. Also, the Steam listing I could access was age-gated, so I'm relying on the research brief for these figures.
What this means for owners
- Check the game, not the calendar. Published requirements and recent independent benchmarks for your exact card, CPU and settings matter more than launch year.
- Expect compromises. For a 60 FPS target in demanding new releases, expect Medium or Low settings, aggressive upscaling and possibly sub-60 dips on these cards, if the author's results hold for your system.
- Know the feature gaps. None of the five has hardware ray tracing that makes sense to use, except Turing's first-generation RT on the RTX 2060 family. Pascal and RDNA 1 lack both hardware RT and mesh shaders, which games increasingly lean on. Games like Alan Wake 2 include fallbacks, but you'll pay in performance.
- Don't confuse upscalers. DLSS requires RTX hardware, so it helps the RTX 2060 but not the GTX cards. FSR 3 runs more broadly, but the newest FSR 4 does not run on the RDNA 1 Radeons.
- Keep your esports library. Competitive and lightweight titles remain well within reach, and the author says so himself.
Analysis
The list is plausible as an opinion about 1080p/60 in the newest AAA releases. It is weaker as a technical verdict, for three reasons:
- The benchmark claims are unsupported by published methodology.
- The "feature mandates" argument overlooks games that ship fallbacks.
- Averages hide the real cost, which is frame-time consistency, VRAM pressure and settings compromises.
The piece also has a mildly self-serving flavor, since the author sold off his own 1660 Ti for an RTX 3080 and runs a PC-building business, though nothing suggests that colored the list. A fair reading is that this is a useful warning about which cards will increasingly force compromises, not a reason to panic-buy during an expensive GPU market.
If your card is on the list and your library is mostly older or lighter games, you can probably wait. If you chase day-one AAA releases at 60 FPS, the list is worth taking seriously.
Correction (October 26, 2026): An earlier version said Remedy's October 2026 patch added FSR 4 and FSR Frame Generation to Alan Wake 2; those features arrived in the August 2026 patch (1.2.10), and the October patch (1.2.11) updated support to FSR 4.1. It also said AMD's ML-based FSR upscaling is available on RX 6000, RX 7000 and RX 9000 cards; AMD lists it for RX 7000 and RX 9000, with RX 6000 support planned for 2027.