if i was to upgrade my GPU, what would you do ?

[ShiWarrior]

I know my system is bottle necked, so tinkering with the idea of upgrading, but im happy to wait a few months if need be


current specs -

Skylake i5-6600K
MSI Gaming Pro motherboard
8 Gb RAM (dual channel)
AMD Radeon 7850 HD


I suppose a direct X 12 graphics card is best bet, , and I guess going 2nd hand would be my best option, best bang for buck..

lets say £100 budget, stretch to £150 if needed no more!

what would you do/get ?

thanks

 

[ShiWarrior]

Thanks for the help

I don't play many different games at the moment, mainly quale live, team fortress 2, Deus Ex series, oblivion (and I will get the other ones of the Elder scrolls series), X series of games, I also want to get back into fallout 3 , stalker, crisis etc etc

 

[ShiWarrior]

R9 290 does seem like a very fast card, it should blow my 7850 out of the water, its even quicker than the 380 isn't it ?

 

[ShiWarrior]

Yes. The 380 is not a modern card it is just a rebrand of the 7970.

oh right, wont bother getting the 380 then, thanks for that

R9 290s are absolute beasts and faster than 380.
But be very careful about which model you get.

Under no circumstance get a reference cooler, they are insanely hot and loud.
The Asus DCII cooler is also terrible, as is the MSI twin frozer.

The Sapphire, Gigabyte, Powercolor, HIS and XFX custom coolers are good ones to go for.
Sapphire Tri-X and Vapour X are supposed to be the best of all.

But get a good one and they are great cards.

wow, thanks for the information about which cards to not go for

Second hand 290x with a custom cooler would be great bang for the buck

290x ? what prices do they go for?

 

[ShiWarrior]

something like this ? (are links allowed to auctions?)

Sapphire AMD Radeon R9 290X (4096 MB) (11226-00-40G) Graphics Card


Used Sapphire AMD R9 290X TRI-X OC Graphics Card (4GB, DDR5, 512 Bit, PCI-E) graphics card:

SAPPHIRE R9 290X Tri-X features the latest GCN (graphics core next) architecture from AMD with 2816 stream processing units and an enhanced engine clock of up to 1040Mhz. It is equipped with 4GB of the latest high performance GDDR5 memory on a 512-bit interface and now clocked at 1300 MHz (5.2GHz effective) delivering higher bandwidth than the reference design.







Brand Sapphire
Item Weight 998 g
Product Dimensions 40 x 25 x 6 cm
Item model number 11226-00-40G
Series Radeon R9 290
RAM Size 4096 MB
Computer Memory Type GDDR5
Hard Drive Size 4096 MB
Graphics Chipset Brand AMD
Graphics Card Description SAPPHIRE AMD R9 290X TRI-X OC 4GB Graphics Card
Graphics Card Interface PCI-E
Wattage 750 watts

 

[ShiWarrior]

Just make sure it hasn't been used for Bitcoin mining or something in the past if possible. If you can get a working demo that would be your best bet or failing that try and do the transaction through Paypal to protect yourself somewhat.

If it's £150 or less for a 290x i would be slightly cautious.

You have over 1000 posts so maybe try the members market on this forum.

sent of an email to him and he says gaming mostly, and some overclocking

 

[ShiWarrior]

Will he let you pay with Paypal? You only need his email address to do so and it will be for your protection if you are not able to go and see it working ok.

If the card is fine he should have no problem with Paypal.

When i sold mine the guy collected so i could let him see it working fine before he took it. It's up to you but i wouldn't want to see someone ripped off.

I was going to pay buy paypal as it was the famous auction site..

the GPU went for around £190 + postage in the end !!!

seem them on here for £150, so I will try and get one for that


so the sapphire R9 290x is the card to go for ?

 

[ShiWarrior]

I have a Sapphire R9 290 4GB Tri-X OC and a Sapphire R9 290X 8GB Vapor-X OC and they are great cards.

any difference in performance ?

im assuming the tri-x is not the 290x version..

 

[ShiWarrior]

not 1080p no, just using a 22" native res (not on that computer so im not sure what it is off the top of my head)

 

[ShiWarrior]

interesting point about mining / full load etc.
I've bought second hand cards in the past and haven't had any problems, except 1 that I bought, paid £300 I think and it was showing artefacts, so I sent it back and he never refund me, I managed to get half of it back through paypal claims, but I couldn't get the rest as there were no funds to get !!

my current card I bought through the members market on here, and it runs perfectly