Spec me an upgrade

Tazzfalcon

Tazzfalcon

Tazzfalcon

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Joined
8 Mar 2011
Posts
812
Location
London
Hi all,

Back after a bit of a break. I was wondering if someone who is up to date on things can tell me what the best AMD graphics card I could buy for under £250 would be? I want the best card that won't be bottle necked by the rest of my system. I do a bit of gaming, Project CARS and also photo editing in Lightroom on a 2k monitor.

Much appreciated!

N.B. My signature spec is up to date apart from the fact I'm on windows 10 now and have added some additional storage!
 
The Gigabyte Aorus RX 580 XTR can be had for approx £250 if you shop around.

Edit: Having said that I can't see them now at that price - now £260
 
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Tazzfalcon said:
OK cool, and the RX 580 that was suggested, is that really worth £30 more than one of the stock speed or mild overclocked cards under £240?
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It's relative - you asked for the best card for £250 and at the time the card i mentioned was possible to get for £250 - but has since gone up.

There are other things you may want to consider - mainly cooling/noise - the above card has good reviews with this regard so you would need to look at reviews of others as noise can be a real bug bear for some users.

So, speed not so much - i doubt you would notice difference - plus you could overclock whichever stock card you get to match/closely match the XTR. But you may find that the fan noise is annoying depending on the card you get. The XTR has a fan system design for extreme cooling so runs relatively quiet for it's clock (but stress this is subjective - and from reviews).

Multiple reviews and user forum banter is key for getting the card you want if noise is a factor...
 
You will probably need to update your motherboards bios to make the new card compatible. Motherboards from that generation and in particular Gigabyte Z77 boards don't play nicely with new cards without a bios update. The typical scenario is a black screen on boot.
 
No not at all - windows will be unaffected. You may need input some of your original BIOS settings however...
 
Just write your existing settings down on a bit of paper and re-enter them after the flash. When flashing use the tool in the bios, Q-Flash I beleive on Gigabyte boards. Download the latest bios and put it on a usb stick, reboot, enter the bios, select Q-Flash in the tools tab and follow the instructions. Do not use any windows flashing tool. Windows will not be affected.
 
As above - with nobs on - you can go the extra mile and format the stick using fat 32 and then install just the BIOS file which makes the process very simple and helps ensure the USB drive isn't corrupt (belt and braces). But as stated already, do not be tempted by the windows update tool.

Pastymuncher makes a good point - if you're unfamiliar with your BIOS- make notes before you flash (cycle through the pages. Remembering to scroll down and enter sub menus) - your phone camera can come in very handy for this.
 
Plec said:
As above - with nobs on - you can go the extra mile and format the stick using fat 32 and then install just the BIOS file which makes the process very simple and helps ensure the USB drive isn't corrupt (belt and braces). But as stated already, do not be tempted by the windows update tool.

Pastymuncher makes a good point - if you're unfamiliar with your BIOS- make notes before you flash (cycle through the pages. Remembering to scroll down and enter sub menus) - your phone camera can come in very handy for this.
Click to expand...

Great advice! Thank you!

I've gone ahead and ordered the cheaper of the two Aorus RX 580 cards. Fingers crossed it all goes OK. Haven't done much tinkering other than storage drive installs for a couple of years! Will take as an opportunity to dust bust as well and try to push the CPU clock up another few hundred mhz.
 
Well, this is a new one. I'm trying to get into the MB bios to reflash it but I can't access it because, seemingly, my Microsoft Sidewinder X4 gaming keyboard doesn't get any power until past the bios entry popup! Very odd indeed!
 
Weirdly CPU-Z says I'm on bios version F17f 11/21/2012. That's actually not available for DL on the Gigabyte website :-\

But the only ones that are available with higher version numbers are 'beta' which scares me, so maybe fine? Latest beta appears to be from 01/2014
 
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