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Best graphics card match for a 4790k?

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OP
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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.
 
Soldato
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The other option would be to go for a pre built as you can get Gpus with those but would have to pay a bit of a premium for build costs and wouldn't have the full choices as you would building yourself.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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?

I recently did a full upgrade of my pc - only in the past 2 months~ never ran a 5700xt on my 3900x - I wish I wrote the scores down but did test my 970gtx/5700xt/6700xt timespy on the 2700k and the 970gtx/6700xt on the 3900xt - dont quote me but 12ktimespy 6700xt/3900xt 7ktimespy 5700xt/2700k (@4.3 or 4.4). I cant remember what the 970gtx and the 3900xt was at ... I did test because I was having some issues and this was a way for me to test the system (was a system memory fault causing a gpu crash in case you are wondering). If I remember correctly the 3900xt allowed me to gain a 2-3k in timespy but to be honest your intel processor will be good enough, I know I felt a significant upgrade last year when I went from the 970gtx to a 5700xt and mechwarrior 5 (again 1440p) using my 2700k @ 4.3. IMO you dont need a new cpu to run games I just wanted to do a new build ie been 10 years. IMO keep your eye out for a 6700xt or if you want nividia 3060ti etc ...
 
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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.
 
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Get a Radeon RX 590, it plays MW5 1080p ultra extremely smoothly and I have an i7-3770k.
It trades blows with the GTX 1660 so it's a pretty decent card for 1080p by any standards.
 
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I find my 1080ti to be a great match for my 4790k(@4.8), I do run predominantly @4k and 1440p for anything that 4K is too much for (Red Dead Redemption for example)

I looked into changing it recently but frankly can’t just the cost of a new board, CPU and RAM for a relatively small performance boost, yes the 4790k probably holds the 1080ti back a bit but not enough to justify £600+ for a decent upgrade to replace it.

I’d highly recommend the 1080ti although you’ll be lucky to find one used for anything resembling a reasonable price I’m afraid.
 
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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.

welcome buddy, good luck finding something not too expensive!
 
Soldato
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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.

it’s all DDR5 but the last .5gb cannot be accessed without hitting memory bandwidth issues.
 
Soldato
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I use a 3070 with my 4790k at 4K. Games that like more than 4 logical cores won’t run as well and I know the IPC and clock speed increases with the latest chips would improve minimums, I’m still holding out for Zen4 or Alder lake
 
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