• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Best upgrade from GTX 560 Under £150?

Stuarts

Stuarts

Stuarts

Associate
Joined
31 May 2009
Posts
191
Hi Guys,

Long time no see!

Essentially I built a system back in 2011ish (spec in signature).

Which included a GTX 560 graphics card.

It has given good service. But I'm now using the new Photoshop CC 2020, and it seems to crash all the time, and spit up an Nvidia error message.

I have installed the last available Nvidia driver update (from 2016 I think).

But its not helping. Am on Windows 10 now, but otherwise the spec is as below.

I don't really play games at all on this PC, so am reluctant to shell out for a new graphics card, but the crashing is doing my head in.

I'm guessing I need to upgrade the graphics card.

It's only really to drive two 24 inch monitors (normal, not 5k), and to have Photoshop run smoothly and not crash.

So i want to spend the minimum I can to do that.

Am long out of the upgrade game... So thought I'd get you guys advice :-)

What would you recommend?

Thanks guys.

Stuart
 
Can get a decent 1070 second hand for about 150, that would power through anything in Photoshop(I know as i have one and i use PS).

EDIT: But looking at your spec id really want to be upgrading your ram to at least 16gb, PS can be a hog.
 
So...returning to this again.

Am thinking to change graphics card to:

RADEON RX 580 RED DRAGON V2 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-EXPRESS GRAPHICS CARD (£179.99)
And 6 x 4 gb Memory sticks £120 ish on another site to bring the ram up to 24gb)

(The 580 graphics card only seems to be £30 more than the 570. But looks to be considerably better, so thinking about blowing the budget and getting that and the ram)

I just wanted to check with you guys if this RX580:

1/ Will fit ok in my existing EX58-UD5 motherboard?
2/ Is actually the best choice for spending £180 on a graphics card?

(I looked for a secondhand 1070, but couldn't find one for £150)
 
Stuarts said:
1/ Will fit ok in my existing EX58-UD5 motherboard?
2/ Is actually the best choice for spending £180 on a graphics card?
Click to expand...

1. Yes it would fit
2. Personally I wouldn't spend £180 on an RX580 - although a decent card, they were available cheaper than that at peak ~£150 for an 8GB model. They have also been superceded by the RX5500XT series, which offers similar performance, but lower power draw and smaller physical cards.

Personally I'd try and pick up a used RX470/RX480/RX570/RX580 - there isn't a huge performance difference between them, and they are much better value used (I picked up an 4gb RX470 for £50, and an 8gb RX570 for £72 earlier this year).

RAM may or may not benefit you - depends if you are definitely running out according to task manager - either way make sure you don't overpay for old DDR3.

Not sure if you are still using the i7 920 that's in your signature, but if you are another cheap upgrade would likely be to drop in a 6 core Xeon, which can be picked up for £5-£10 these days.
 
I wouldn't spend £180 on an 8GB RX580, one got sold in the MM not too long ago for £85, you'll get more bang for your buck going second hand.

I'd also google if it's compatible with your motherboard, I upgraded my old i7 920 rig and had some issues with my motherboard and GFX card working together. Physically it'll fit no problem.
 
6gb is way too low for Photoshop work. You need 16gb minimum. Image manipulation can use a lot of RAM especially if you are using photos straight off a camera for instance. 16gb min, 32gb recommended.

As above you should be able to pick up a sufficient GPU for under £100. Even a GTX 1060 gb for around £100 would do if you want to stick to Nvidia for CUDA in Photoshop.
 
Armageus said:
1. Yes it would fit
2. Personally I wouldn't spend £180 on an RX580 - although a decent card, they were available cheaper than that at peak ~£150 for an 8GB model. They have also been superceded by the RX5500XT series, which offers similar performance, but lower power draw and smaller physical cards.

Personally I'd try and pick up a used RX470/RX480/RX570/RX580 - there isn't a huge performance difference between them, and they are much better value used (I picked up an 4gb RX470 for £50, and an 8gb RX570 for £72 earlier this year).

RAM may or may not benefit you - depends if you are definitely running out according to task manager - either way make sure you don't overpay for old DDR3.

Not sure if you are still using the i7 920 that's in your signature, but if you are another cheap upgrade would likely be to drop in a 6 core Xeon, which can be picked up for £5-£10 these days.
Click to expand...

Thanks guys.

Will explore further. Looks like the secondhand option may work best.

I am still using the i7 920. What Xeon would you recommend? That sounds like a nice, and cheap upgrade.

Also, I have 3 x 2gb ram in there at the moment. The board has got six slots. Crucial seems to be doing 4GB DDR3L-1600 UDIMM for around £19 each. Was thinking to buy 3 of them to fill up the other slots and take it to 18gb ram. I know these memory upgrades used to be done in pairs. So, am I ok doing that? Or do I need to to buy 4 x 4 gb (and leave just 2 x 2gb in situ?)
 
koooowweeee said:
A x5670 would be a nice little boost for about £10 too.
Click to expand...

This is excellent advice.

As for RAM, going second hand is probably your best bet. I imagine you could source 1x8GB sticks for around a tenner each, so £30 roughly for 3.

GPU wise an RX580 or similar as recommended above is your best bet for £70-100 or so.
 
Gray2233 said:
I'm reading his post as £19 per 4GB, you can get 8GB for that second hand at faster speeds.
Click to expand...

In the MM maybe. On eBay and the like 8gb sticks are rare, and even 4gb sticks are at least £10. (Assuming you can even find them among all the "new" generic memory, or 8gb kits made of 4x2gb for example).

£19 for 4gb is perhaps slightly expensive, but not unreasonable now
 
Armageus said:
In the MM maybe. On eBay and the like 8gb sticks are rare, and even 4gb sticks are at least £10. (Assuming you can even find them among all the "new" generic memory, or 8gb kits made of 4x2gb for example).

£19 for 4gb is perhaps slightly expensive, but not unreasonable now
Click to expand...

Fair enough.

I sold some DDR3 myself a few months back and it was more premium stuff for around £20 for 8GB.

Jut seems a shame to pump £20 per 4GB stick into such an old platform, although given how cheap you can get a Xeon for X58 I suppose it offsets the costs.
 
Awesome. Thanks all.

So, this one has now morphed a little :-)

It looks like I'm going to go for:

1/ Intel® Xeon® Processor X5670 - Looking around these seem to be about £20 - Will this fit in the same slot as as the i7 920? Is it literally just a 'pop the other one out and put this in' type of upgrade? (It has been a long time since I last did a build. Does the cpu need any kind of paste or anything?)

2/ 3 x 4gb sticks ram = £19 x 3 = £57 (The motherboard can only take 4gb sticks, and looking on ebay they don't seem to be that much cheaper secondhand. So I think i'll just get these ones. That will then up the ram to 18gb, which should be fine for now)

3/ RX580 8gb - Will see if I can get one. They seem a bit expensive on ebay. Closer to £120 - 140 from what I've seen (even secondhand)? So may end up choosing something else. Not sure where you guys buy your aftermarket stuff?

Anyway, thanks. For under £200 I think that should be a pretty sweet upgrade to the current setup and should be plenty fast for the next year or two :-)
 
Stuarts said:
1/ Intel® Xeon® Processor X5670 - Looking around these seem to be about £20 - Will this fit in the same slot as as the i7 920? Is it literally just a 'pop the other one out and put this in' type of upgrade? (It has been a long time since I last did a build. Does the cpu need any kind of paste or anything?)
Click to expand...

Quick check of ebay and X5650 can be had for £8, X5660 - £10, X5670 - £16.49. There isn't much difference between them (they are all 6 core chips), only the clock speed varies (2.66Ghz, 2.8Ghz, 2.93Ghz, vs the 2.66Ghz of your 4 core i7 920). All of them will however overclock in excess of 3.6Ghz with relatively little effort, and most will do over 4Ghz (more info can be found in the above thread)

Just need to ensure that your BIOS is up to date, and then remove cooler, swap processor, clean cooler, apply thermal paste and remount cooler.

Stuarts said:
2/ 3 x 4gb sticks ram = £19 x 3 = £57 (The motherboard can only take 4gb sticks, and looking on ebay they don't seem to be that much cheaper secondhand. So I think i'll just get these ones. That will then up the ram to 18gb, which should be fine for now)
Click to expand...
If that's new from a shop then it's a decent price imo - at best on ebay you'd probably get them for £40 or so, but it's a case of trudging through all the listings to actually find them.

Stuarts said:
3/ RX580 8gb - Will see if I can get one. They seem a bit expensive on ebay. Closer to £120 - 140 from what I've seen (even secondhand)? So may end up choosing something else. Not sure where you guys buy your aftermarket stuff?
Click to expand...
Just a case of waiting and jumping on newly listed buy it now, or trying your luck at an auctioned one. Don't discount the RX570, RX480 or RX470 8GB models if you see them - there isn't a huge difference in performance

The Members Market (MM) here is probably the best place, but you'd need quite a few more posts before you get access
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom