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Long term gfx upgrade advice

Dribbles

Dribbles

Dribbles

Associate
Joined
1 Jul 2009
Posts
207
Location
Edinburgh
Hi, you guys are always great for advice when it comes to upgrading. I don't upgrade very often, so when I do I like to make it count. I've still got a 460gtx which remains impressive. I've been playing Project Cars and BF4 Med/High 1080p with playable rates, but feel an upgrade is needed. I also need to upgrade my cpu soon. I have a Phenom II X4 955, but a motherboard compatible for a newer AM3+, which is the plan.

The problem is that I can only justify £150 for gfx card at the moment and the best bet is a amd r9 280 for that money. There is much enthusiasm over the 970 gtx and I was wondering if it is worth waiting a few months for it to drop sub £200?

And how much of a bottleneck would the phenom be with a gfx upgrade?

  • CoolerMaster Hyper TX3 Cooler LGA775/1156/AM2/AM3
  • Gigabyte GTX 460 OC 1GB GDDR5 OC Edition Dual DVI HDMI PCI-E
  • Samsung 840 EVO 120GB SSD
  • Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATAII 7200RPM 16MB Cache
  • G-Skill 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz RipjawsX
  • Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P ATX Motherboard
  • OCZ Stealth Xstream II 600W PSU - 3x SATA 2x PCI-E
  • AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Socket AM3 3.2 GHz 8MB L3 Cache

Thanks for your help
 
It may be a bottleneck in some games with a phenom x4 but I would look at a 2nd hand 290 as you might get one for around 150 pounds.

Unfortunately you don't have access to the members market in here as you would have probably got one from there.

If you want a new card then the 280x is probably the best bet but I would really try to stretch your budget a little to £199 and get a 290, or keep an eye out in the clearance section as some may pop up there.
 
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As above, but if you can afford the initial outlay you can sell the 4 games(individually) for about £40, that would sit the PCS+ 290@£160, never been able to get that sort of performance at that price.

Or, as your 460 is still doing well, wait a wee bit longer for the 960, 2015 isn't far off now, the 960's ready, Nvidia just haven't bothered as 9 series are flying off the shelf.
 
I'm abit concerned about that PSU though? Don't AMD CPUs consume slightly more power than intel?
a 290 is cutting it close with 600 watt PSU I mean you could get away with it but your hitting the wall when it comes to maximum amount your PSU can handle!
 
I have a GTX570 and after almost buying the 970 in the sale decided to stay put and spend some money on a holiday. Still have at least 5-10 slightly older games to complete that my rig can run just fine, so what's the point.
 
Yeah, sometimes you can get carried away with the "£30 more and I can get the next card up from this one" mentality

I think I'll wait until January and get a R9 280 and save up for the cpu
 
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