"Future proofing" and the RX 480

[ahar]

Here's a question: if you had to buy a card right now, that would be best value for money both with cost and longevity, which would you pick?

I'd say that question can't be answered without a consideration of the rest of the system and what your future upgrade plans are. Monitor, CPU, motherboard etc all play into the right decision.

If you're playing at 1080p now, will you be in 2 years? When are you thinking of upgrading the rest of your system? What bottlenecks do you have at the moment that will stick around?

Remember money has a time value as well - £100 now is worth more than £100 in three years. Spending less now for a stopgap card doesn't have to be a waste, depending what your plans are.

I've just bought an RX480 4GB as it was £199 and matches my upgrade plans and games I'm playing perfectly. It may be a terrible waste of money for others, for me it works great.

 

[This never ends well]

480 all the way, will last you longer than a nvidia card, card will improve with new driver updates.

 

[Kaapstad]

480 all the way, will last you longer than a nvidia card, card will improve with new driver updates.

The Pascal Titan is doomed, is total garbage and can not compete.

Having said that the 480 is a nice card.

 

[SiDeards73]

The Pascal Titan is doomed, is total garbage and can not compete.

Having said that the 480 is a nice card.

Yeah cos OP was going to waste over 1K on a GPU Kaap....

I know your kidding but it was a kinda pointless comment.

 

[BluD]

The Pascal Titan is doomed, is total garbage and can not compete.

I wouldnt say its total garbage, its probably ok for HTPC or something. Ya cant expect performance without shelling out, ya get what ya pay for.

 

[LMT50]

I'd say that question can't be answered without a consideration of the rest of the system and what your future upgrade plans are. Monitor, CPU, motherboard etc all play into the right decision.

If you're playing at 1080p now, will you be in 2 years? When are you thinking of upgrading the rest of your system? What bottlenecks do you have at the moment that will stick around?

Remember money has a time value as well - £100 now is worth more than £100 in three years. Spending less now for a stopgap card doesn't have to be a waste, depending what your plans are.

I've just bought an RX480 4GB as it was £199 and matches my upgrade plans and games I'm playing perfectly. It may be a terrible waste of money for others, for me it works great.

Well that's the issue.

It's a difficult decision for someone who's experienced in PC gaming, but even more difficult for someone like me just coming into it, reason being, the answer to all of those questions is "I don't know".

And I probably won't know until I've bought a card, experienced some different settings, deferent resolutions etc, and decided what I actually care about in a game, which makes buying one concerning because I don't want to have wasted my money.
As said, 2004 was the last time I built a gaming PC, and for the last 10 years I've been gaming on the Xbox 360, playing at 720p.
I'm not actually familiar with what the newer resolutions look like for games.

That's why I was considering the stop gap card option like the 960 - asses how things end up in a couple of years, play some games and get used to 1080p, but then something like the 480 might be perfect and a better bet, I just don't know.

Cheers

 

[SiDeards73]

One thing I will say, many recent games have a lot of misleading settings, Ultra settings on some games look absolutely no different than high settings but impose big performance hits.

I was playing The Division on my 290 Tri-x I whacked it on ultra and couldn't maintain 60fps at all, I done some googling and found settings that had minimal to zero visual impact but increased my fps by huge amounts, shortly later I upgraded to a 1440p 144hz Freesync screen, checked my settings and I was still hitting an average 90fps ingame. I also learnt you can reduce AA I think it is on a higher Res screen as the jaggies aren't as bad? Anyhow my point is sometimes Ultra settings aren't all they are cracked up to be.

Another example is world of Warcraft, since the legion pre patch I tried to whack everything on max settings, the card ramped up to about 85% fans, which is audible but not deafening, I dropped some settings, retained visual quality and now I don't even hear the card ramp up, one of tbe things I did reduce was the draw distance as honestly the old one was fine, the new higher ranges look abnormal to me personally.

I think with anything, a bit of researching and you will find optimal quality to performance settings for most games if you are willing to look. Also many games have Nvidia based effects that cripple AMD cards in them, avoid those and your good, unless of course you have an Nvidia card.

 

[LMT50]

One thing I will say, many recent games have a lot of misleading settings, Ultra settings on some games look absolutely no different than high settings but impose big performance hits.

I was playing The Division on my 290 Tri-x I whacked it on ultra and couldn't maintain 60fps at all, I done some googling and found settings that had minimal to zero visual impact but increased my fps by huge amounts, shortly later I upgraded to a 1440p 144hz Freesync screen, checked my settings and I was still hitting an average 90fps ingame. I also learnt you can reduce AA I think it is on a higher Res screen as the jaggies aren't as bad? Anyhow my point is sometimes Ultra settings aren't all they are cracked up to be.

Another example is world of Warcraft, since the legion pre patch I tried to whack everything on max settings, the card ramped up to about 85% fans, which is audible but not deafening, I dropped some settings, retained visual quality and now I don't even hear the card ramp up, one of tbe things I did reduce was the draw distance as honestly the old one was fine, the new higher ranges look abnormal to me personally.

I think with anything, a bit of researching and you will find optimal quality to performance settings for most games if you are willing to look. Also many games have Nvidia based effects that cripple AMD cards in them, avoid those and your good, unless of course you have an Nvidia card.

That's interesting, didn't really know that.
What I have heard, though, is that ultra isn't always a great bet in general.
Allot of people prefer high, and say that the performance hit isn't worth the extra eye candy.
Each to their own, I suppose, but that's a good point. If there's one thing I've learned about PC gaming, it's to do your research!

Thanks

 

[ahar]

Well that's the issue.

It's a difficult decision for someone who's experienced in PC gaming, but even more difficult for someone like me just coming into it, reason being, the answer to all of those questions is "I don't know".

And I probably won't know until I've bought a card, experienced some different settings, deferent resolutions etc, and decided what I actually care about in a game, which makes buying one concerning because I don't want to have wasted my money.
As said, 2004 was the last time I built a gaming PC, and for the last 10 years I've been gaming on the Xbox 360, playing at 720p.
I'm not actually familiar with what the newer resolutions look like for games.

That's why I was considering the stop gap card option like the 960 - asses how things end up in a couple of years, play some games and get used to 1080p, but then something like the 480 might be perfect and a better bet, I just don't know.

Cheers

If that's the case, I'd definitely recommend going for a mid range card now rather than a top end one. The worst that can happen is that in 2 years you want to move on and have to ebay it and get say 1/3 price back. That loss is much more palatable on a £200 card than a £450 one!

It will allow you to get a feel for what you want at a sensible price point (including what games you want on the PC vs console) and then you can decide on what you want in the longer term.

 

[SiDeards73]

That's interesting, didn't really know that.
What I have heard, though, is that ultra isn't always a great bet in general.
Allot of people prefer high, and say that the performance hit isn't worth the extra eye candy.
Each to their own, I suppose, but that's a good point. If there's one thing I've learned about PC gaming, it's to do your research!

Thanks

Some games have what they call "Screenshot" settings, where everything is dialled to the absolute maximum, you wouldnt really play the game on those settings, not unless you got some absolute monster gpu performance, ive seen a few MMO's with these, and MMOs are notoriously CPU bound too.

In theory a lot of games Ultra settings are just exactly the above, brilliant for taking screenshots but basically not fit to play the game under, especially if they have been poorly implemented, regardless of card your going to struggle.

 

[Kaapstad]

Yeah cos OP was going to waste over 1K on a GPU Kaap....

I know your kidding but it was a kinda pointless comment.

The whole thread is pointless !!!

You can not futureproof end of.

The nearest you can get is to buy a Pascal Titan or 2 and get 4 years of gaming out of them. Even then it is going to cost a lot of money.

It is a bit like trying to futureproof buying a bag of crisps !!!

 

[Darujhistan]

Some games have what they call "Screenshot" settings, where everything is dialled to the absolute maximum, you wouldnt really play the game on those settings, not unless you got some absolute monster gpu performance, ive seen a few MMO's with these, and MMOs are notoriously CPU bound too.

In theory a lot of games Ultra settings are just exactly the above, brilliant for taking screenshots but basically not fit to play the game under, especially if they have been poorly implemented, regardless of card your going to struggle.

Yeah, some mods etc for SKYRIM even have 'download this file' for screen archery.

 

[Kaapstad]

Yeah, some mods etc for SKYRIM even have 'download this file' for screen archery.

I like to play a game for the gameplay, the graphics are secondary and even then it is not a close second.

 

[Klo]

Personally I'd go 470/480 depending on prices. You will need 4gb at least.

Some of us use midrange cards for 4/5 years (7870 here) and are just willing to turn down settings or have a reduced fps, others have to hit >60fps at max settings for every game they play. It will depend on which type of person you are.

Obviously more expensive cards will last longer just due to the higher fps, but if you can cope with lower settings and/or plan on upgrading within 4 years, then you perhaps settle for a midrange card. We don't actually know what DX12 will do to the PC gaming ecosystem down the line either, or if a new technology appears from nowhere.

 

[LMT50]

Some games have what they call "Screenshot" settings, where everything is dialled to the absolute maximum, you wouldnt really play the game on those settings, not unless you got some absolute monster gpu performance, ive seen a few MMO's with these, and MMOs are notoriously CPU bound too.

In theory a lot of games Ultra settings are just exactly the above, brilliant for taking screenshots but basically not fit to play the game under, especially if they have been poorly implemented, regardless of card your going to struggle.

I see.
Thanks for the info.

 

[LMT50]

Personally I'd go 470/480 depending on prices. You will need 4gb at least.

Some of us use midrange cards for 4/5 years (7870 here) and are just willing to turn down settings or have a reduced fps, others have to hit >60fps at max settings for every game they play. It will depend on which type of person you are.

Obviously more expensive cards will last longer just due to the higher fps, but if you can cope with lower settings and/or plan on upgrading within 4 years, then you perhaps settle for a midrange card. We don't actually know what DX12 will do to the PC gaming ecosystem down the line either, or if a new technology appears from nowhere.

yeah, that makes sense.
And that second point is a good one; while the new API's have promise, who knows how they'll actually effect things?

By the way, how is the 7870 treating you for current games? I believe that card is inline with what the current consoles are running, isn't it?
I was actually thinking of getting one of those to tide me over until a bit later on because they're really cheap.

 

[LMT50]

The whole thread is pointless !!!

You can not futureproof end of.

The nearest you can get is to buy a Pascal Titan or 2 and get 4 years of gaming out of them. Even then it is going to cost a lot of money.

It is a bit like trying to futureproof buying a bag of crisps !!!

I like to play a game for the gameplay, the graphics are secondary and even then it is not a close second.

Isn't that a bit contradictory?

If you don't care about graphics, a couple of Pascal Titans is surely going to last you longer than five years.

 

[akarypid]

Because it's not an NVIDIA card. If the 1060 only had a 8GB version, then all those complaining about the AMD card would suddenly change their tune and would be happy with the 8GB.

Why such malevolence when you know very well that NVidia would never ever make an 8GB 1060... it'd be more like 7.5GB!

 

[tommybhoy]

The whole thread is pointless !!!

You can not futureproof end of.

The nearest you can get is to buy a Pascal Titan or 2 and get 4 years of gaming out of them. Even then it is going to cost a lot of money.

It is a bit like trying to futureproof buying a bag of crisps !!!

You put futureproof in with Nvidia?

Guessing your talking about throwing as much as it takes@>1080p then yes, then you are probably about right pushing for the very max settings money can buy, but this threads not about max high res settings.




290X is a way stronger card now than the original Titan to the point it's not even funny anymore, almost 3 years old and still a highly capable card@1080p.

Going off these figures as a rough estimate-I'll repeat rough estimate-as you can bet your ass some nutters will disect and argue over those scores which is going to differentiate over some other places results...

http://gamegpu.com/action-/-fps-/-tps/deus-ex-mankind-divided-test-gpu

290X is pulling 43 fps average with +30 fps min on DX MD on very high settings, drop the AA and it'll fly, the 7970 coming on 5 years old and it'll play on med settings np on the latest AAA title available=you pick the right one, it'll last providing the reducing of settings as time goes on for playable framerate, cough aw ****-that rules Nv out.

 

[Kaapstad]

You put futureproof in with Nvidia?

Guessing your talking about throwing as much as it takes@>1080p then yes, then you are probably about right pushing for the very max settings money can buy, but this threads not about max high res settings.




290X is a way stronger card now than the original Titan to the point it's not even funny anymore, almost 3 years old and still a highly capable card@1080p.

Going off these figures as a rough estimate-I'll repeat rough estimate-as you can bet your ass some nutters will disect and argue over those scores which is going to differentiate over some other places results...

http://gamegpu.com/action-/-fps-/-tps/deus-ex-mankind-divided-test-gpu

290X is pulling 43 fps average with +30 fps min on DX MD on very high settings, drop the AA and it'll fly, the 7970 coming on 5 years old and it'll play on med settings np on the latest AAA title available=you pick the right one, it'll last providing the reducing of settings as time goes on for playable framerate, cough aw ****-that rules Nv out.

The thread is about futureproofing, something that you just can not do however much money you spend.

All you can do is set a budget for your card upgrade and get the best available one for the money.

Oh and the original Titans are better than the 290Xs as far as future proofing is concerned for 2 reasons,

1. They are 6gb cards and still work well @2160p in mGPU SLI

2. They are compute cards which has maintained their value.

Having said that I still have 4 290Xs and 4 original Titans.