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I'm a bit lost on an upgrade path

hozzdutch

hozzdutch

hozzdutch

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Joined
18 Feb 2010
Posts
46
Hi all,

I currently running a Sapphire R9 295x2 in my system and it's still a very capable card that can chew up most of what I throw at it.
I am however looking at upgrading for something newer and (hopefully) better.
My questions is though, what actually is better than this?
Would a newer (RX 580 for instance) type card be an improvement over the 2 GPU beasty the 295x2 is? Would I see any noticeable difference in the running of games?
Is the difference in performance worth the upgrade?
 
Given that your likely playing the majority of newer titles with only 1 of the GPUs enabled a Vega 56 or 64 will be a significant upgrade. The 64 will be almost double the performance of a single 290X in most games so you'll likely be getting similar or better performance in games that allowed for Crossfire only you'll have the guarantee and hassle free gaming that comes with a single card. The RX580 will be close to what you're already getting when not using your card in crossfire.
 
It really depends on how much you wanted to spend on it and how bothered you are. There are better cards out there, but if your getting all that you need out of what you have do you really want to spend £700 on a 1080Ti?
 
heartburnron said:
you'll have the guarantee and hassle free gaming that comes with a single card.
Click to expand...

In all honesty, I've never had any hassle from this card apart from this last week when trying to get an Oculus Rift working on it. It seems that those cheap mini-dp to HDMI adaptors just don't want to do the job, though this isn't the fault of the card per se.

subbytna said:
Vega 64 but it'll be a reference blower card. Should see a bit better performance over the 295x2
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'a bit better performance' is not, in my books, a good upgrade. Considering the 295x2 has passed its 3rd birthday, I'd want an upgrade to completely blow me away. Surely the Vega should blow me away? maybe give it another 6 months or so for the drivers to mature?

rtho782 said:
If you go green there are better options. 1080ti?
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alex crossland said:
It really depends on how much you wanted to spend on it and how bothered you are. There are better cards out there, but if your getting all that you need out of what you have do you really want to spend £700 on a 1080Ti?
Click to expand...

I'll admit to being bit of an AMD fanboy, but I don't mind switching to where the power is. But I was really hoping to avoid having to drop 3 quarters of a K on another card. I was hoping (perhaps wildly) that newer tech will give me some great extra performance in card that perhaps doesn't cost the world (and hopefully doesn't need a small external generator to power! :D )
 
Vega64 will stomp on your 295x2 where the game doesn't support crossfire, but not really give you much in other scenarios.

1080 will do similar for £100 less and far less power use.

1080ti will do a decent chunk more for £100 more and less power use.
 
hozzdutch said:
'a bit better performance' is not, in my books, a good upgrade. Considering the 295x2 has passed its 3rd birthday, I'd want an upgrade to completely blow me away. Surely the Vega should blow me away? maybe give it another 6 months or so for the drivers to mature?


I'll admit to being bit of an AMD fanboy, but I don't mind switching to where the power is. But I was really hoping to avoid having to drop 3 quarters of a K on another card. I was hoping (perhaps wildly) that newer tech will give me some great extra performance in card that perhaps doesn't cost the world (and hopefully doesn't need a small external generator to power! :D )
Click to expand...

Out of interest what games are you playing and is crossfirie working in all of them? Most of what comes out of this forum when it comes to this sort of thing is tghat SLI/Xfire is almost redundant these days unless the developer enables MGPU in the game itself. If could most of the games you play aren't using both chips in which case a Vega 56 or 64 would be an ideal upgrade.
 
I prefer AMD due to open standards but my 980Ti is on the shelf, replaced by a 1080Ti FTW3. I went for a 1080Ti for 60FPS minimum on ultra at 1440p while remaining cool. I did fancy Vega right upto the point the power requirements leaked which meant higher heat output, I just can't stand heat.

What resolution are you using?
 
Freddie1980 said:
Out of interest what games are you playing and is crossfirie working in all of them?
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I jump back and forth between quite a few at the moment..Elite Dangerous, Project Zomboid, DayZ (mod and standalone) Battlefield 1, Minecraft, Dirt 3, Skyrim...depends on my mood at the time :) Once I get an adaptor that works for the Rift, I'll most likely be blowing the dust of a lot of other games as well.
I can't imagine the smaller games like MC and PZ would be using crossfire, but the bigger ones, I'd be surprised if they weren't.

Wrinkly said:
What resolution are you using?
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Depends on the game and what I'm doing. I currently have 3 monitors hooked up each using 1980x1024.
If doing battles in Elite Dangerous then I'll enable eyefinity and use all 3 monitors in 5760x1024. I also use the same resolution when in DayZ mod and Skyrim.
Anything else then I'm in standard 1920x1080.
Again, once the rift is up and running I'll be doing everything I can to try and get stuff running on that instead.
 
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AMD aren't worth buying, as they are priced too high, a reference 56 is now £470, which is only £30 less than the faster custom 1080 (thats in stock), and £90 more than a custom overclocked 1070, thats around the same performance, the reference 64, air cooled, is about £60 more than the faster custom 1080, while the reference 64 liquid cooled, which will give you similar performance to a custom 1080, is around £190 more expensive, and, thats even around £10 more expensive, than a custom 1080 Ti, which is around 30%+ faster, and even has more memory, they also suck way more power than the Nvidia cards, and are much, much hotter, id avoid.

Theres also supposed to be a 1070 Ti coming from Nvidia in a couple of weeks, which will no doubt give ref air cooled 64 performance too, and also be cheaper.
 
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hozzdutch said:
I jump back and forth between quite a few at the moment..Elite Dangerous, Project Zomboid, DayZ (mod and standalone) Battlefield 1, Minecraft, Dirt 3, Skyrim...depends on my mood at the time :) Once I get an adaptor that works for the Rift, I'll most likely be blowing the dust of a lot of other games as well.
I can't imagine the smaller games like MC and PZ would be using crossfire, but the bigger ones, I'd be surprised if they weren't.


Depends on the game and what I'm doing. I currently have 3 monitors hooked up each using 1980x1024.
If doing battles in Elite Dangerous then I'll enable eyefinity and use all 3 monitors in 5760x1024. I also use the same resolution when in DayZ mod and Skyrim.
Anything else then I'm in standard 1920x1080.
Again, once the rift is up and running I'll be doing everything I can to try and get stuff running on that instead.
Click to expand...

At the moment Vega is priced too high. It would have been a decent upgrade for you if the prices were close to launch prices.

But, if the sole reason for upgrading is for the Rift and VR, then you would be best served by buying either a 1070 or 1080. If you look around you should be able to get a decent 1070 for around £370 or a decent 1080 for £500.
 
hozzdutch said:
I can't imagine the smaller games like MC and PZ would be using crossfire, but the bigger ones, I'd be surprised if they weren't.
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I'd have thought you would absolutely be aware of what games use crossfire and which games don't. Usually you get an on screen display in the top right hand corner that says AMD Crossfire Technology when the game is running in crossfire. You also usually need to manually enable crossfire in your driver settings for it to work. If you haven't had to mess around with driver settings or seen the AMD Crossfire in the top corner of your screen when playing games, then the chances are you haven't had it enabled, possibly ever?!
 
A bit better performance is all we are going to get from now on.

Long gone are the days of 60% to 100% performance improvements from one generation to the next.

It's 30% tops now, get used to it. If you have a flagship card from 2 or 3 years ago it is still likely to be comparable to an upper mid range card today.
 
TallPaul1878 said:
A bit better performance is all we are going to get from now on.

Long gone are the days of 60% to 100% performance improvements from one generation to the next.

It's 30% tops now, get used to it. If you have a flagship card from 2 or 3 years ago it is still likely to be comparable to an upper mid range card today.
Click to expand...

Indeed, the law of diminishing returns is well and truly upon us.
 
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