Cheap and cheerful card.

[DampDog]

I'm currently running an early Radeon HD6850 which has served me well enough for my needs. I recently picked up X-Com2 in the Steam sale and the card is struggling a little.

So without me having to spend days reading reviews what would be a reasonable upgrade on a tight budget (£120max) or at that money would I simply not get any real improvement??

Cheers.

 

[RanxZy]

Loads of 280X cards on the bay around or less than £120. Would prefer to buy from the MM here though. 280X will be well over 100% faster than the 6850, so a very noticeable upgrade.

 

[NexusK]

Second hand 970 can probably be had for around that seeing as they are only £183 new now.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The RX460 will be released tomorrow,so see how that performs.

Buying new,now the best card for that price would be a GTX950 2GB.

If you want a faster card - you will either need to look at a B Grade card from a retailer with some warranty or a secondhand card.

 

[DampDog]

Cheers peeps.

Though I usually stick to new kit, my rig is getting a little long in the tooth and I can't see the point in spending a lot of money it. Thanks for the pointers, it's saved me having to trawl through reviews trying to catch up on what's out there. I tend to only read-up when it's upgrade time. I'll certainly have a look at the RX460 if it comes in at that money and gives a decent step-up in performance. Likewise I will keep my eye's peeled on MM just in case anything pops up.

Thanks again, much appreciated..

 

[ExoMale]

just noticed you can get a 470 for under £170, i havent caught up with reviews, but should be worth aiming for.

 

[humax]

Just hang on till tomorrow and see what the RX460 is like.



.

 

[Lokken86]

Il be putting up a 270 on mm soon

If your going to send the full £120 second hand is the way to go. Even a 460 will be over this and it won't be that good.

 

[queamin]

The 470 at £165 is a quite a good price if you can stretch to that, I am waiting to the 23 to see what Deus Ex is like with a 470.

 

[RanxZy]

Unfortunately I'm afraid the 460 has a severe deficit in stream processors against the 470 and 480. You will get lots more performance going used. The difference between the 480 and 470 stream processors is 2304 vs 2048, while the 460 has 896, huge gap. The leaked performance is not surprising and a 280x/380 level card is much faster.

http://videocardz.com/63033/gigabyte-radeon-rx-460-windforce-2x-performance-leaked

 

[DampDog]

I guess pretty much anything will be a step up over my aging HD6850. It's just a case of trying to eek out a little more life out of my current setup, I'm simply not in a position to dive in and re-new the whole ring as much as I'd like to. I'm not a big gamer anyway so it's up to the job for most things but it is starting to feel is age, as newer games push-on as they do.

I guess I'm a fish out of water in this forum as I tend to only start reading up and looking at specs when I do a new build, in-between I forget all about it and become woefully out of date on what the current sweet spots are.

In no rush, I'll keep my eye on MM and if something pops up I may well snuffle it up. As I've mentioned it's only down to me picking up X-Com2 in the recent sale that made me realise my build is now "lacking" First time I've heard my card spool it's fan up to "warp speed" since I've had it.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I looked at the cached version of the review appeared to be 20% faster in XCOM II but was the same speed as a R9 270X at high settings at 1080p. An RX470 gets around 45FPS.

The R9 380 also thrashes the GTX960 in the review.

However,we will get a better overall look at the RX460 performance tomorrow.

 

[danewesley]

You have access to the MM, grab a 970 for £120/£130, you cant do better than that.

 

[Amatsubu]

What about a used 390? May be worth grabbing if you find one cheap enough, massive upgrade and a bit of future-proofing due to nice DX12 performance boost.

Second choice would be a used 970.

 

[triggerthat]

2nd hand 7950? About £70.

 

[Lokken86]

7970 on mm for £80. Runs the game really well.

This is before the patch too.

2nd hand 7950? About £70.

Would also perform well. Think the 7970 is perhaps worth the extra tenner though. Maybe the seller can be knocked down in price

edit: Just noticed the 7970 has a water block and no stock cooler on it. Pity.

 

[Panos]

I'm currently running an early Radeon HD6850 which has served me well enough for my needs. I recently picked up X-Com2 in the Steam sale and the card is struggling a little.

So without me having to spend days reading reviews what would be a reasonable upgrade on a tight budget (£120max) or at that money would I simply not get any real improvement??

Cheers.

For the budget :
New card : RX460 if you cannot stretch to buy the cheapest RX470 which imho is the best option.

Used : 290/290X/390/390X are what you should be looking for at that money. Superb cards, but avoid reference ones with the blower cooler.

If you are desperate buy a GTX970 but is slower than the above used cards, doesn't fully support DX12 and acync compute, and is slower on Vulcan API also. While it only has 3.5GB Vram at full speed, and XCOM is VRAM hungry game. But it will serve you well.

 

[Tommy_Here]

if your power supply can take it a 7970 is still a good card today it'll do the job, though if you could up you're budget another £30 or so you can look for a r9 290 which is still a fantastic card that can do todays games at very high

 

[sothur]

Cheapest RX 470 might be a long-term good deal in a few weeks, when price presumably drops a bit. Based on some leaked benchmarks the RX 460 does not seem to be a winner card, of course those numbers can be completely BS.

 

[DampDog]

Thanks again for all the pointers.

I had a very brief scan of the interweb this morning for the 460, as yet I've not really seen any supply, though I expect that will change over the coming days. I spotted our friends here at OCUK have RX470 at £165, on a Sapphire card which looks a good deal. Hopefull that price may shift a little more on the arrival of the 460. Depending on what price the 460 pops up at it may be a good enough card for my needs, even though it may not be a "cracker" for the money, it should be good-enough.

I'm in no rush, I will try and keep an eye on MM for a 7970. I have a Corsair CX850 PSU so it should be man enough for the card change.