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Best bang for my £'s from a R290?

WiZZyWiGG

WiZZyWiGG

WiZZyWiGG

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Joined
16 Mar 2010
Posts
1,173
Location
UK
Hey people of infinite wisdom, I could do with a hand!

I am currently looking at doing a core parts upgrade of my PC as the MB and CPU are about 6 years old and I suspect an upgrade is overdue on that front, in addition I figured it would probably be a good time to upgrade the GPU to get it all over with at once :)

I was probably looking at something like this MB/CPU wise: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/defc...ghz-overclocked-skylake-bundle-bu-068-og.html

So I currently have (as per my sig) a R290 and was thinking that maybe a 1070 would be a nice upgrade for the 1440p resolution I play at?

Would this be a waste of cash, is there a better option for that money? Thoughts very much welcome :)

Cheers!
 
For the cpu I'd delay it until Zen releases or at least for a month or two until Kaby lake releases as Skylake is just about at the end of it's front line life, Whatever you go with make sure it's a DDR4 platform as there's no point wasting money on a dead ram.
 
WiZZyWiGG said:
Hey people of infinite wisdom, I could do with a hand!

I am currently looking at doing a core parts upgrade of my PC as the MB and CPU are about 6 years old and I suspect an upgrade is overdue on that front, in addition I figured it would probably be a good time to upgrade the GPU to get it all over with at once :)

I was probably looking at something like this MB/CPU wise: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/defc...ghz-overclocked-skylake-bundle-bu-068-og.html

So I currently have (as per my sig) a R290 and was thinking that maybe a 1070 would be a nice upgrade for the 1440p resolution I play at?

Would this be a waste of cash, is there a better option for that money? Thoughts very much welcome :)

Cheers!
Click to expand...

For 1440p I would say the 1070 is probably the best option for you at the moment or maybe a second hand 980Ti if you don't mind going down that route.

The AMD 480 is also pretty good but at 1440p you may find you'll have to turn down a few too many sliders in games to get that framerate up.
 
I am hoping that a new CPU + GPU will give a nice boost to 1440p performance over my current system that feels like it is starting to struggle.
 
I'm wondering about a new GPU myself. My 780 does a decent job at 1440p but it's not 100% ideal.

I'm waiting for prices to drop a little on the 1070's as I do still think they are overpriced.

In the meantime, I'm also watching the members market for a sub £250 980ti which could tempt me.

My 780 is ok for now though as I don't really get that much time to game these days.
 
Definitely wait for concrete news on Zen before going for that Mobo / CPU deal, they are good but i would kick myself if Zen come along and was comparable but cheaper etc.

As for GPU, 1070 if you absolutely must have a new GPU now...

However if you are going to wait and do the whole lot at once, stick with the 290 for now, wait for Zen, if its good then slap in Zen, then check out the GPU landscape.

Personally if it was me (im running a 290 @ 1440p) i'd wait it out for Zen and Vega to atleast see what's what before spending any money right this minute.

If your current rig is 6 years old, you are probably not going to want to upgrade anything again for atleast 3-4 years, i do not believe Nvidia give good value for money spent in the long term, they are absolutely the top dog for the here and now, but they do not age well. AMD on the other hand age extremely well, and with that said i would want to see what Vega is like before a total rebuild.

Thats just my 2cp, if your happy to spend the money right now, do it, as that PC will also last you a good few years, atleast the cpu and mobo etc will last you for a good 4+ years, the GPU is the bit that worries me the most.
 
I had completely missed what was going on in CPU land so have just been trying to catch up, it would seem like waiting a bit longer is probably a good option.

Ideally I would want this (fairly pricey) upgrade to last me a good few years.
 
Also worth noting after looking at the cpu bundle you linked, you want 16 gb's of ram not 8. I'm currently on 8 but the only reason I have not got 16 yet is because I do not want to waste money on more DDR3. As soon as I upgrade to my next cpu it will be a DDR4 platform with a minimum of 16 gb's.
 
Waiting for Zen when you want an i5 is probably one of the dumber things you could do, and that's because Zen will offer good multi-threading performance (>4 cores) but won't reach Skylake IPC performance, so for gaming it means that Zen has a big fat 0 advantage over Skylake. Lastly, Zen will 100% NOT be cheap if it's at all competitive.

Waiting for Kaby Lake might be okay, but the problems are: It will not be significantly faster than Skylake (~5%), it will be more expensive for a while, there's a wait time.

What I would say though is don't go for that bundle, shop around for individual pieces in order to get the best performance out of it.
I would say look at i5 6600k + MSI Z170-A PRO + Corsari Vengeance LPX 2x8 gb DDR4-3000 + Arctic Freezer i32; you can get all those for just under £400.

As for GPU, a 1070 would be your best bet with your budget. Brand-wise, doesn't matter so much but if you plan to keep it for longer/care about re-sell value, I'd go for EVGA + buy 2 years warranty extra or Zotac.
 
Poneros said:
Waiting for Zen when you want an i5 is probably one of the dumber things you could do, and that's because Zen will offer good multi-threading performance (>4 cores) but won't reach Skylake IPC performance, so for gaming it means that Zen has a big fat 0 advantage over Skylake. Lastly, Zen will 100% NOT be cheap if it's at all competitive.

Waiting for Kaby Lake might be okay, but the problems are: It will not be significantly faster than Skylake (~5%), it will be more expensive for a while, there's a wait time.

What I would say though is don't go for that bundle, shop around for individual pieces in order to get the best performance out of it.
I would say look at i5 6600k + MSI Z170-A PRO + Corsari Vengeance LPX 2x8 gb DDR4-3000 + Arctic Freezer i32; you can get all those for just under £400.

As for GPU, a 1070 would be your best bet with your budget. Brand-wise, doesn't matter so much but if you plan to keep it for longer/care about re-sell value, I'd go for EVGA + buy 2 years warranty extra or Zotac.
Click to expand...

Can you please provide links for these facts your are stating? i am interested in reading more of these facts, thanks.
 
WiZZyWiGG said:
Hey people of infinite wisdom, I could do with a hand!

I am currently looking at doing a core parts upgrade of my PC as the MB and CPU are about 6 years old and I suspect an upgrade is overdue on that front, in addition I figured it would probably be a good time to upgrade the GPU to get it all over with at once :)

I was probably looking at something like this MB/CPU wise: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/defc...ghz-overclocked-skylake-bundle-bu-068-og.html

So I currently have (as per my sig) a R290 and was thinking that maybe a 1070 would be a nice upgrade for the 1440p resolution I play at?

Would this be a waste of cash, is there a better option for that money? Thoughts very much welcome :)

Cheers!
Click to expand...

I had an R9 290 and upgraded last month to the 1070. Good upgrade. But, I know this is what people are always saying, I would wait, unless you are really unhappy with the performance in games etc.

The reason for waiting, is that Volta is coming out next year as well as brand new CPU's from AMD and Intel. Since you are the kind of person that only upgrades every few years, I think waiting another few months to see what might happen is a good idea.
 
Poneros said:
I don't provide anything for people who want to engage in self-delusion.
Click to expand...

Sorry but I thought you was citing hard facts from somewhere rather than spouting your own opinions as truths?

Which is it? If it's something you read I would also like to read it, if it's purely your speculation and guess work then that's fine but atleast state as much.

Fact is we know little of Zens real performance, so stating it's IPC is worse than Skylake and therefore worthless in place of an I5 is guesswork at best.

Also how do you know the cost of the Zen CPUs? Again speculation and guess work I assume ? For all we know the 4/8 Zen might perform on par with a Skylake and be cheaper? The fact is we don't know.

Hence why I said it's best to wait to get facts and numbers before making a decision.

I'd feel bad if I told someone to buy something I knew had to last them 4+ years right now when knowing alternative products that could potentially be as good if not better are due in a matter of months, at a minimum I would advise to wait rather than just flat out spout nonsense about products nobody knows anything about.

So I must be delusional I guess
 
On the GPU front I'd personally be cautious about swapping to Nvidia if longevity matters to you.

The 290 and 780 originally traded blows, but the Hawaii architecture seems to have matured really well to the point that a 290x (which was originally 'beaten' by the 970) now beats a 980 at 4k (in the form of the 390x). As higher resolutions become more common, AMD's offering seems to hold up better as well.

With that said, the 1070 is clearly a very fast card, and I must say that I do prefer the more polished overall feel of Nvidia's software/support package.

I run a pair of 290xs myself (4k), and if reduced to 1 card and 1440p I'd probably wait and see what AMD's next move is, especially since it will probably force down Nvidia's pricing and the 290 is still a capable card.

Your other option is to get a second 290 if your PSU can hack it.

TL;DR - 290 crossfire = raw power; 1070 = straightforward good experience; wait for new AMD cards = wise.
 
Thanks all, very helpful so far.

I am presuming (maybe wrongly?) that a CPU upgrade would be a decent idea anyway, this chipset seems pretty old now? However it seems wise to see what the new AMD and Intel offerings are like once they come out as they don't seem far away.

The less than 60fps gameplay on decent settings at 1440p is starting to get frustrating but it would seem holding out a few more months is probably the smart move.
 
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