Graphics card finally died

Cadno

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So the old R9 280x has finally kicked the bucket in my old I5 2500k build.
Want to possibly use this as an excuse for a decent upgrade but not sure whether to go pre built because of the price and availability of cards.
Also I'm not sure if I do just go for abuild how much I can salvage from my current build. I know I can take the 120gb ssd and the storage drives but the case is an old coolermasrer 6900 advanced and the psu is a old corsair tx750.

Any help would be great. To note I really can't go over £800 unless it's ridiculous value for money.

thanks in advance
 

Craig_d1

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Well, first stop is the gpu. Best value at the mo is either the 6600xt which you can pick up here for £429, or try and land yourself a 3060tiFe from a drop..(need to be on telegram and look up 'FE PartAlert'. drops happen any time mon-fri. Last 3060ti was 6th Aug @£369, and 13th for 3070tife@£529, so hopefully some more arriving soon). Once you have your card then as bit easier to try and sort build. Would you be happy with 6600xt? Sits between the 3060 and 3060ti in performance
 

Craig_d1

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if you want to do games with ray tracing then the nvidia is the way to go, but really i think for that you need the more powerful cards. dlss is good and will increase framerates, and at the mo supports more than amd FSR, but FSR is a lot newer, easier to implement and seeing as the new consoles are all amd gpu, wouldn't surprise me if it takes off. FSR will work on nvidia card though too. The 3060ti is a more powerful card, but the only way to get anything cheaper than the 6600xt is the fe drops, and when they happen you wont have more than 5-10 mins to nab one before they're gone. All rhe non fe 3060 cards are over £500 that are available, so for me, doesn't make financial sense. Depends how long you want to wait.
 

Cadno

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Thanks. Got the itch now so just wanted to see what I could get. The 6600 seems the way to go atm. What would go with that to reach the budget?
 
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mikedigitales

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I've got a 6600XT Nitro and a 3060ti FE in different machines in the house. The Nitro is great, but obviously not as fast as the 3060 - the FE card is a no brainer if you can get one. I'd have bought another FE if I'd been allowed to.
 

Cadno

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What have you got in there as well as the 6600? I am going to assume The 2500k would be a bit of a bottleneck :cry:
 

Craig_d1

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Just doing sunday roast at mo, so may be a delay by an hour... Grade b 3600 ryzen for £139 would be my shout.
Mobo... Do you need wifi?
 

Craig_d1

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Cadno said:
I can get away without WiFi.
Click to expand...
right, back with you. Is this going to be a stop gap, or then start of a build you want to keep going for awhile. As mikedigitales has got, I'd go with a B550 board. It's the latest board and has pcie4 which your gpu can use and 1 nvme drive. the mortar is a good board at £109 at mo(you can get a motor with ax wifi for £119), or the tomohawk at £119. Best of the bunch is the gaming edge wifi @£139 with wifi 6 so any future upgrade at home should be covered. B550 Gaming plus onle couple degrees warmer and youcan get that for £99.
A good place to look for B550 boards is hardware unboxed. They test 20 odd board in a range of prices, but go to the end of part 3 and shows all the boards and how thier vrm's compare(about 14 mins in)..some of the budget boards get hot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxczZChFaZI&t=834s&ab_channel=HardwareUnboxed

if you want to save some cash, you could drop to a B450 board. You loose pcie4. at the moment not so bad as not really a bottleneck so to speak, but might come in the future. Then you're looking in the £60 to £70 for board. It's up to you if the £40 saving is worth it.

onto Ram. You'll want 2*8gb. 3600 is the sweet spot at the mo, but trying to save a bit 3600C18 or 3200C16 would be a good shout. if you can stretch, 3600C16 is better, but again more expensive)9though a certain site is doing crucial ballistix 3600c16 for £70 which is a great price(generally OCuk has best price for crucial memory I've found), but the lesser memory wont be much cheaper than £60(if you can find it...OCuk seem to be out of stock)

Case is very subjective. Do you just want functional with good airflow, want some rgb fans included?

Think your corsair TX750 psu should be good to carry over
 

Cadno

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I'm out at the moment so will need to get home later and do the maths lol. Really I'm looking for somthing that will last a while at 1080p gaming high quality with maybe some 1440p lower qual later on. re the case I was hoping to get away with reusing but understand that's probably not likely so functional over rgb every time.
 

EsaT

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1080p gaming is easy for modern GPUs.

If that TX is from time of that CPU, would look toward replacing also that.
With Corsair having had more than handfull of different insides under TX-name it's hard to tell precise data, but some of those early models were basically outdated/low end already when new.

That case again is good to go.
Most cases just don't break with time...
 

Cadno

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Thanks, with a new psu is it even possible to do a £800 3600 and 6600xt build? Ill have some time tomorrow to look but from the bits I've liked so far it doesn't look like it
 

XBloodyR

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You could really consider a prebuilt actually, if you don't have a lot of fun at building yourself.
But I wouldn't go lightly with your research on that either, would definitely look around for some reviews.
 

Craig_d1

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If you can use your existing psu and storage then the below just about hits budget. The case is well constructed I think and extra fans can always be added later. If you need a psu then need to another £80 or so. You can save a bit by dropping to a b450 board and get a cheaper case
I think the tomahawk is a better board though for an extra £20
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