Best graphics card match for a 4790k?

[man_from_uncle]

Hello any and all,

I'm looking to do an upgrade from a 970gtx for gaming at 1080p. I know my CPU will bottleneck anything too powerful, but ideally i'd like to get another year or so out of the platform before doing a full rebuild. I've been exceptionally pleased with the 4790k over the years, but the 970gtx is starting to flag a bit and is certainly the weak link in the pairing.

I know prices are bonkers right now, and availability scarce, but were they not, what card would you guys recommend? It wouldn't necessarily have to be a current gen card, but in an ideal world it would be something with enough overhead that when I do build a new system i could potentially keep the same card for a bit. I have a mid range Corsair 750w PSU, so power shouldn't be an issue.

The specific game I want to max out is Mechwarriors 5

Your help is much appreciated.

Man from Uncle

 

[man_from_uncle]

What about a 980Ti? I have seen a few in the low £200s in the bay.

there are better options but the prices are crazy!

PS: I have also an opteron 170 (or maybe 165, have to check) and Asus A8n- deLuxe both in boxes

Ah yes. Haven't updated the signature in......well over 10 years. I do remember the deLuxe. I think i actually went from the deLuxe to the Premium when i upgraded from the opteron 147, because I think it was slightly more stable with the bigger volts. But I could be wrong.

The 980ti might be an option (it was the ideal partner of the 4790k when they were both in their prime), but I think the CPU can handle more before becoming the problem.

 

[man_from_uncle]

Given the currently GPU climate.... Id say get whatever you can at a reasonable price. Its not a buyers market right now. If you can hold out, and play the games you want to on the 970 then do that as long as you can.

That's what I've been doing, but specifically Mechwarrriors 5 can't quite run as well as I'd like at 1080p. The higher graphical options are too nice and the performance hit too heavy if I turn them on. There's an expansion coming out in a few weeks and I want to play again with the best experience my current platform can offer.

 

[man_from_uncle]

Today? I'd recommend a 1050ti. Poor ETH performance - so you can actually buy them at a relatively normal price.

Unfortunately, if I am not mistaken, they also perform worse than my current gtx970.

 

[man_from_uncle]

Any good card will run things well ... as far as mechwarrior 5 goes ... last year when it was released I played it via a 970gtx ran ... ok then upgraded to a 5700xt ran much better (1440p) (all on my 2700k intel) this is my go to resolution when playing. Now I have a 6700xt and will be playing again once the dlc is released; hadnt played in over a year.
I tested my 6700xt on my older 2700k intel (which yours is a better processor) - and the 6700xt was better I cant remember the timespy scores but the 6700xt over the 970gtx was significant and Im sure it would run your mechwarrior 5 at 1440p nicely.

I'm envious. The gtx 970 plays the game ok at high-ish settings 1080p, but I could even see the difference in quality and frame rate on the same monitor when watching a stream of someone playing it with everything set to the absolute max. Man, I love a stompy robot.

Back on point though, did you see a major improvement with the 5700xt/6700xt when you went from the 2700k to the 3900x?

 

[man_from_uncle]

https://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/mechwarrior_5_performance/

This was an excellent link. Thank you.

 

[man_from_uncle]

OP would still get better performance with the current system and a new GPU vs the 970 with a new CPU although with the money 4790k's still fetch I'd still be tempted selling the MB/CPU/ram and replacing with a B560/11400F/ram which should give a nice boost while also costing very little in terms of net spend and sitting on that for a year or two till the DDR5 platforms mature.

No doubt. But have you not noticed that GPUs are pretty ridiculously priced at the moment. Instead of spending £1000 on a 2080ti now, spend £600 on the rest of the system and wait for £400 to buy a decent 2nd had graphics card later once the mining bubble bursts.

I agree with you both to a certain extent. I'm in the very unfortunate spot of wanting/needing (yearning) to upgrade, but whereas a GPU upgrade under normal circumstances would be the obvious move, under these very particular circumstances, it sort of does make sense to do everything else now, then the GPU when prices hopefully normalise to something more reasonable. With that said, the 4790k isn't struggling with anything and it really is only the GPU that's holding me back. So doing a platform change now doesn't really get me anything tangible. And that's the reason I realised, a much as it sucks, if I want an upgrade to my current experience, buying a GPU has to be part of it.

 

[man_from_uncle]

That's really useful. So a GTX 980 was capable of getting 60fps with all settings maxed.

Barring the new effects, it apparently does. Though it isn't a rock solid 60fps and I do wonder what the stutter level is like when things get messy on screen. The 970 though feels well undergunned when I put it on those settings. Perhaps the vram is the issue as i've screwed the clocks out of my 970 to get it within a gnat's whisker of a stock gtx980 and it certainly is not up to the task.

 

[man_from_uncle]

I believe the 970 has only 3.5gb of main memory instead of the 4gb advertised? so the 6 GB of the 980Ti should help to achieve a more stable FPS.

Main reason I am suggesting the 980Ti is because the price is a bit high but not crazy like other graphics cards and I have one in a second system and seems pretty solid even a 2k.

If i recall correctly it's 3.5gb of DDR5 and 0.5gb of a slower ram, DDR3 I think. Why they made it that way, I don't know.

In regards the 980ti though, you're right. The price isn't too awful, at least compared to the similarly performing 1070/2060. I'm just not sure that I want to go with such a relatively marginal gain. I will be looking at it though. Thank you.

 

[man_from_uncle]

Correct. These new cards can bring even known good quality power supplies to their knees.

Well I've got a Corsair CX750, which I think should be good for anything excepting the very top end (6900xt/rtx3090). But please do correct me if I am wrong.

 

[man_from_uncle]

It's borderline, while it isn't going to burn your house down, I'd personally want a tier up such as an RM model to power a 3070 or 3080.

You think so? I got that PSU 10+ years ago, but I suppose nothing 'future proof' is ever altogether future proof. I'll keep that in mind and probably go for something a little less juicy then. I reckon this old power supply has one more build left in it, as long as I'm sensible.

EDIT: Sorry, I just checked the old doll and it's a TX750w. No idea where that sits in the pecking order, but it was at least upper mid range when it was new.

 

[man_from_uncle]

I finally (had to) take the plunge. My brother bought me a 4k monitor, not knowing that I really didn't have the funds for the horsepower to power it. I ended up spending £700 on a 6700xt. Well, let's hope it can play MechWarrior 5 and Pathfinder at that res.

 

[man_from_uncle]

Ah, 6700xt is not bad at all. Did you look at the 6800XT

I didn't. I really wasn't planning at all to spend that sort of money and anything more would have broken my heart. With that said, the 6700xt really is doing the job. Overclocked the core to 2650mhz without touching cooling or voltage and it eats it up at 4k for what i'm playing. Really quite satisfied.

 

[man_from_uncle]

I used a RTX2080Ti with a 4790K for a while and it was fine, no major overclock on the CPU, just 4.6GHz.

So RTX3060Ti/RTX3070 or similar ? A good quad core CPU can still game quite well.

Should be ok for when I upgrade the platform as well. Not sure i've ever migrated the GPU from one system to the next, but for £700, i'm darn well planning to get a least a few years out of it. And to be fair, it may well last a while as it is more or less what the consoles use.