Advice needed on Graphics Card/Ram

Lily Lawis · 27 Feb 2019 at 01:22

Okay, so I've had this pc for quite a few years, and it's started to get a bit out dated and I want to upgrade it, I'll post some pictures of the contents, I'm not 100% the best but I do know how to work with computers, I'd just like some advice one what are good graphics card options (I'm a amd fan more then anything but I'm open to choice)

My budget for a card is around £300 or so, maybe cheaper, depending.

Also some nice ram suggestions would be nice also! Thanks!

Lily Lawis · 27 Feb 2019 at 02:09

Danny75 said:
Hi and welcome to the forum.

Can still upgrade to Windows 10 for free. That will be useful when you change motherboard/CPU/RAM which is something you'll also need to consider in near future: https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-how-you-can-still-get-a-free-windows-10-upgrade/

But for now, and given the PSU with 408W output on +12v rail, you should probably be looking at a low power consumption card like a GTX 1660Ti rather than a Vega56. Or push budget a bit to get new PSU and Vega56.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Sapphire Radeon RX VEGA 56 Pulse 8GB HBM2 PCI-Express Graphics Card (11276-02-40G)= £278.99

1 x Bitfenix Formula Series 650W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply= £74.99

Total: £364.48 (includes shipping: £10.50)

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660Ti OC 6144MB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £269.99

Total: £279.89 (includes shipping: £9.90)

You also said maybe cheaper, so an RX 580 8GB would fit the bill there. But I would get a new PSU for that as well, a true 550W. The FX8350 can hit around 180W peak load and RX 580 can hit 280W, which is way more than the VS450 (408) can provide. It would work fine until you ever ran into a situation with enough load on both CPU and GPU and then crash.

Actually the picture is a bit old, it's my original picture but I'm already running windows 10, I had to get away from Windows 8 as soon as possible XD

But the VEGA 56 was what I was looking into earlier, I may have to save up for both the VEGA and PSU but it'll be worth it in the end, thanks so much for the suggestions!

Also thanks for the welcome!

Lily Lawis · 27 Feb 2019 at 03:15

Danny75 said:
You're very welcome.

Yeah. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

Random question, would it be better to save up quite a bit more and see if I can get the vega 64? Cause I hear that's pretty good too.
Would it work on the same power supply that you sent though?

Sorry for the many questions XD

Lily Lawis · 27 Feb 2019 at 04:05

Danny75 said:
No worries. It would work on that PSU yes. And you need to use two separate PCIe cables from the PSU (not one cable with two connectors). I'd have a look at website and video reviews comparing 56 and 64 benchmarks and judge if the extra outlay is worth it.

The thing is, with that CPU you'll get exponentially less from a GPU, the higher up you go. i.e. you'll get more frames than with the 56 but you'll get less than you should out of a 64. So you pay more for not as many frames as you might get.

Example (Vega64 isn't far from GTX 1080):

Also consider how much graphics power you really need for your monitor. What resolution and refresh rate is it? If 1080p 60-120Hz I'd say the best thing would be an RX 580 8GB and new PSU, and start saving up for Ryzen 3xxx CPUs (and mobo/DDR4 memory) in summer or thereabouts.

Thanks so much, I'll keep that all in mind