I'm not a gamer

[robb1e]

Hi folks,

As the title states, I am NOT a gamer.

I am looking for a graphics card that will be the best for using Photoshop, lightroom and general image/photo work.

I have approximately £350-£400 to spend on a new card. I would also like one that is capable of showing 4k videos.

I have no knowledge of all the numbers, letters and buzz words that are used in the titles on *** no competitors *** , etc so just a link or two to cards that you think will suit my needs would be great.

I thank you all in advance for all suggestions you may be able to give.

Regards

Robbie

 

[McGraw]

Hi folks,

As the title states, I am NOT a gamer.

I am looking for a graphics card that will be the best for using Photoshop, lightroom and general image/photo work.

I have approximately £350-£400 to spend on a new card. I would also like one that is capable of showing 4k videos.

I have no knowledge of all the numbers, letters and buzz words that are used in the titles on *** no competitors ***, etc so just a link or two to cards that you think will suit my needs would be great.

I thank you all in advance for all suggestions you may be able to give.

Regards

Robbie

Merry Xmas. You can spend most if not all of your budget on something else depending on what (if any) on board graphics your cpu has.

Unless of course you have specific gpu accelerated feature requirements.

what’s wrong with your existing gpu?

 

[robb1e]

Pretty much this is it and I think it is on its way to being a paperweight.

Sapphire R9 270X 2GB Toxic 1100MHz GDDR 5 PCI Express Graphics Card

** No competitors **

 

[MissChief]

Pretty much this is it and I think it is on its way to being a paperweight.

Sapphire R9 270X 2GB Toxic 1100MHz GDDR 5 PCI Express Graphics Card

So that will absolutely allow you to output at 4K assuming you use DisplayPort. See the spec sheet here even though it's a Sapphire, not an MSI. The cards are the same.

Now, the difference is your use of Lightroom, Photoshop and other image work. If anything a faster CPU setup would help more than a faster GPU. What is the rest of the setup? RAM speed, Storage etc? For example setting up a SSD as a Scratch disk for your work could be beneficial and a faster CPU would really help. Lightroom supports hardware acceleration on R9 GPU's as well. see here.

It may be that you can gain better performance elsewhere.

 

[robb1e]

Specs I can give currently are:

Operating System
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
CPU
AMD FX-9370 24 °C
Vishera 32nm Technology
RAM
16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 803MHz (11-11-11-28)
Motherboard
Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. 990FXA-UD3 (CPU 1) 21 °C
Graphics
55UHD_LCD_TV (1920x1080@59Hz)
2048MB ATI AMD Radeon R9 200 Series (Sapphire/PCPartner) 20 °C
Storage
465GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB (SATA (SSD)) 23 °C
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD20EARS-00S8B1 (SATA ) 18 °C
14GB Generic STORAGE DEVICE USB Device (USB )
Optical Drives
PIONEER BD-RW BDR-209D
Audio
AMD High Definition Audio Device


Hope this helps.

Thanks for this.

 

[tamzzy]

Adobe is mostly CPU bound. Hence upgrading your ageing FX 9370 is probably going to net you more performance than upgrading your 270x. Though that being said, if you use any plugins that rely on the GPU, then that balance may change somewhat

 

[robb1e]

got ya. perhaps my pc needs a more expansive upgrade than first thought.
i can get ryzen 7 cpu, AM4 mobo, and 16gb ddr4 for £450. could then try existing gpu in that.
If I did that, what would be a decent upgrade gpu if the current one was still not up to scratch? clearly now it would need to be a cheaper than £400 but still a marked improvement over my 270x

 

[tamzzy]

The rx590 for £150 would be the best bang/buck upgrade
It's over double the performance of the 270x

 

[robb1e]

great. I'll look into that.

Thank you very much to everyone who chipped in. All advice taken on board.