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Finally upgrading GPU from GTX580 black Friday help

Juggy1985

Juggy1985

Juggy1985

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Joined
5 Nov 2010
Posts
1,192
Hey all,

I want to upgrade my graphics card (GTX580) as its showing its age :(. Its served me well but struggling a bit now.

I was 100% set on a 970 but unsure whether to go to a 390 as it has more than double the vram. Googling just makes things more complicated as it seems to be 50/50. People slate the 390 as its hot and power hungry and people slate the 970 as its only 3.5gig apparently with 500mb being slower vram (I don't even understand).

I don't really want to spend more than £250, which will get either at the moment so black Friday will be easy to find one no doubt.

My rig is older than the GTX580, but should suit a 970 or 390 hopefully. Is a 970 or 390 longer than a GTX580? My 580 is snug at the moment.

I don't want to buy second hand as I want piece of mind with fully warranty and 1st ownership.

I will more than likely only be gaming in 1080 as a monitor upgrade isnt on my list.

My spec is i7 950@4Ghz, 6gb ram, Asus P6X58D board, 850w Corsair PSU

So really 390 or 970?
 
I've just had a measure in my case as its not a full tower. My current GTX580 is 27cm/10.5inch long, I only have a further 1inch/2 1/2 cm left before it hits the hdd rack.

Will this be a problem? Different cards different lengths?
 
I think I'll go for an r9 390 then as I dont want to be buying a new card within the next 2 years!

Length might be an issue but I can always hack away some HDD rack out the case.
 
installed without any major problems really.

Once the card was installed I turned on my computer and it just froze on the windows logo, so I thought ahh great! Restarted and its been fine ever since. I played fallout 4 maxed out for around an hour and the card was around 70c and virtually silent! For some reason the AMD software recorded my entire gameplay, I've turned that crud off now.
 
Heres some pictures!

When I opened the outer box I was a little bit pee'd off that it looks like the actually graphics card box had been dropped so I took pictures before I opened it just incase:

2015-11-27%2016.51.53_zps6misgbhc.jpg


2015-11-27%2016.52.06_zps0ngvt3b5.jpg


But luckily theres loads of foam inside so the card has been undamaged I think.

My poor little case was too small to fit the big beast in so I had to remove the HDD cage!

Before:
2015-11-26%2019.05.05_zpstbgatnqi.jpg


After:
2015-11-26%2019.23.54_zpsrpdgy5sd.jpg

It wasnt too bad, just drilled out the aluminium rivets.

Heres the new R9 390 next to my trusty GTX580 (purchased in Feb 2011)

2015-11-27%2018.00.02_zpsj8xw0ij1.jpg
 
I am very suprised how quiet it is compared to my gtx580. Even after an hour of gaming i cant hear the fans and its at least 10c cooler than my 580.

I was worried because every review out there says the 390 is hot and power hungry, so assumed it would be mega loud to try and cool it.
 
Even when my card reaches 70c it only used 40% fan speed, you thought it would use more but even in my case of poor air flow due to it being too small the card hasnt seen over 73c!
 
Its all you read on review sites and its all people say when recomending it!

Played fallout 4 maxed out on everything at 1080p and it does make an uglyish grey game look nice. 2 1/2 hours and stayed at arond 70c. Though it played perfectly smooth the gpu usage reading in msi afterburner was up and down non-stop on the graph.

Bought shadow of mordor last night, £6 for game of year edition with like 20 add ons!
 
I've got my i7 950 at 4ghz on very low volts its extremely stable, during gaming the processor sometimes gets to about 67c which is more than acceptable but on prime its like 85+

I doubt i'll bother oc'ing the card as the gains are marginal
 
Its weird as its maxed out all settings except distance shadows and plays extremely smooth, by the afterburner graph it should be unplayable :-/

Whats driver cleaning?
 
Well I've found out the erratic GPU usage on MSI afterburner is due to v sync on fallout 4. Its easy to turn v sync off on an Nvidia gpu but not on an AMD apparently. You have to edit a .ini file to force v sync off.

I found this out by playing bioshock infinite for a while with v sync on and it was the same thing on after burner with the gpu usuage up and down constant, but with v sync off the GPU usage was stable.

I'll give it a go when I get a chance.
 
The drivers havent been great for me on Fallout 4 (the only PC game im playing at the moment). Its only a radar glitch but annoying none the less. Also The odd texture detail delay where you can look at someone and it takes a few seconds for them to be textured better, they look odd at the start then all of a sudden they look better with more detail.

Managed to overclock it a little bit.

Stock core : 1040
Stock Mem: 1500
Power limit: 0%

OC Core: 1100
OC Mem: 1700
Power limit: 50% (max on afterburner)

On a benchmark 3D Mark demo my score went from 10213 to 10696 so a slight increase . Temprature only went up around 6-8 degrees.
 
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