Bah, I can't decide what graphics card to buy. If any.

[sideways14a]

I still think the 56 is the card to get in the 1070 to 1080 bracket, assuming you dont need the nvidia features.
It is cheaper (well it should be), it can be overclocked well, it can be undervolted and is likely going to be far more future proof than the 1070 and 1080 as vega seems to be doing really well in dx12 and vulcan.

The lack of aib models is a problem though.

 

[Angilion]

I still think the 56 is the card to get in the 1070 to 1080 bracket, assuming you dont need the nvidia features.
It is cheaper (well it should be), it can be overclocked well, it can be undervolted [..]

It's between a 1070 and a 1070 Ti in both cost and performance. It can't be overclocked as well as either even if you set the fan speed on the Vega 56 to 100%, which is unusably loud. Even if you combine undervolting and overclocking and take the already very high power draw well over spec in order to optimise performance as far as possible, the performance increase is lower than that which you can get from overclocking even a 1070 with a reference cooler and with far less noise and a far lower power draw.

So it's not cheaper, it can't be overclocked as well and the undervolting you state as a feature is more of a requirement to prevent it throttling than a feature.

Here's a comparison review of Vega 56 and 1070, both with reference blowers, both with maximum overclocking and with the Vega 56 undervolted as much as possible since that's also required because it's far less efficient than a 1070. It's worth noting that the Vega 56 card failed to complete the full test suite because it couldn't sustain the overclocking and became unstable, but they used the results anyway despite it not being a comparable overclocking situation. So this review is biased in favour of Vega.

https://babeltechreviews.com/rx-vega-56-vs-gtx-1070-fe-overclocking-showdown/3/
Here's a more detailed look at scaling of performance and power consumption with both underclocking and overclocking, which shows Vega 56 scaling very badly indeed with clock speeds:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-rx-vega-56,5202-22.html

The enormous increase in power consumption is definitely not an indication of "it can be overclocked well". Quite the opposite.

and is likely going to be far more future proof than the 1070 and 1080 as vega seems to be doing really well in dx12 and vulcan.

That's true, though.

The lack of aib models is a problem though.

You can pre-order an AIB Vega 56 model now. For £130 more than the same card with the reference blower. Which is useless - a watercooled Vega 64 would be a better Vega purchase for that sort of price.

I think that 1070, 1070 Ti and Vega 56 are all viable choices at quite similar prices.

 

[subbytna]

AMD's 580 card would be a good buy for you. Will handle 1080p no problems Looking around 80%-100% performance over your card OP

 

[Angilion]

AMD's 580 card would be a good buy for you. Will handle 1080p no problems Looking around 80%-100% performance over your card OP

It would have been a good buy at the current discounts, but a 1070 has a better price/performance ratio and will generally handle modded games better since they often require more GPU power and more VRAM. I bought a 1070 Ti because I decided it was the best performance I could get at a price I was willing to pay.

 

[subbytna]

It would have been a good buy at the current discounts, but a 1070 has a better price/performance ratio and will generally handle modded games better since they often require more GPU power and more VRAM. I bought a 1070 Ti because I decided it was the best performance I could get at a price I was willing to pay.

Both cards have 8gig of vram

 

[nfsdanz]

I found a second hand GTX 1080 (MSI Gaming) for £400 which I thought was a good deal. Still not cheap though

GTX 1080's have gone back up in value on the used market since the introduction of the GTX 1070 Ti.

 

[Angilion]

Both cards have 8gig of vram

Not always - there are 4GB and 8GB 580s. The cards certainly don't have the same processing power.

A 580 (or 1060) would have done me well enough, but I decided to get the best performance I could get at a price I was willing to pay.

 

[subbytna]

Not always - there are 4GB and 8GB 580s. The cards certainly don't have the same processing power.

A 580 (or 1060) would have done me well enough, but I decided to get the best performance I could get at a price I was willing to pay.

Sorry fella I jumped ahead and didn't read all 3 pages. 1070 was it you went for?

 

[Angilion]

Sorry fella I jumped ahead and didn't read all 3 pages. 1070 was it you went for?

1070 Ti. 3 times actually, since my bank's fraud prevention routines flagged it as a potential fraud (a reasonable false positive because a £420 online purchase is way out of my usual spending pattern) and did so again after the person at the bank cleared it. Something to do with international trade, since the 2nd time the error message was in German. From Caseking, presumably.

Hopefully I won't be charged 3 times and/or have 3 cards delivered

 

[arby1]

1070 Ti. 3 times actually, since my bank's fraud prevention routines flagged it as a potential fraud (a reasonable false positive because a £420 online purchase is way out of my usual spending pattern) and did so again after the person at the bank cleared it. Something to do with international trade, since the 2nd time the error message was in German. From Caseking, presumably.

Hopefully I won't be charged 3 times and/or have 3 cards delivered

"I didn't order 3 cards and only one turned up, honest "
I just had the exact same situation this week too....

 

[Tacitus]

Much as I would like a 1070ti the price is just too much to swallow for me, particularly if a new generation of cards are not far off.

 

[Angilion]

Well, that (7950 Boost to 1070 Ti) is the biggest improvement in graphics performance I've seen since I moved from software rendering on the CPU (with a 486) to hardware rendering on a graphics card (Orchid Righteous 3D card, 3dfx Voodoo chipset).

It's not just the roughly tripled performance. The image quality is higher too. Stuff looks better, even though I've kept the same settings to make a like for like comparison. Or maybe that's some form of placebo effect as my mind convinces itself that the £420 was money well spent

 

[Sasahara]

Well, that (7950 Boost to 1070 Ti) is the biggest improvement in graphics performance I've seen since I moved from software rendering on the CPU (with a 486) to hardware rendering on a graphics card (Orchid Righteous 3D card, 3dfx Voodoo chipset).

It's not just the roughly tripled performance. The image quality is higher too. Stuff looks better, even though I've kept the same settings to make a like for like comparison. Or maybe that's some form of placebo effect as my mind convinces itself that the £420 was money well spent

There are likely some features that are supported by the 1070ti that aren't on the 7950, given the age difference in the cards. So you probably not imaging things.

 

[Thekwango]

So you probably not imaging things.

Yup, it'll be the card and monitor imaging things

 

[3t3P]

I once saw what you describe upgrading a GPU in fallout 3 the game definitely looked better despite settings being the same. I've not really seen that since.

 

[Sasahara]

Yup, it'll be the card and monitor imaging things

;_;

In my defence, it was a good typo/spell check error!