Starfield Upgrade Advice

Silenced

Silenced

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Pre-empting that Starfield indeed does achieve everything it sets out to, I need a rig upgrade in order to play it!

* AMD R5 5600X
* 16GB (2x8GB) 3600MHz DDR4
* MSI - TOMAHAWK MAX II B450 AM4
* GTX 980Ti + Waterblock

I run a 1440p 144Hz monitor.

As I've got a large watercooling loop I'd like to watercool my CPU as currently it's using the stock air cooler so likely could eek some more boost out of it.

Budget wise I'd say a maximum of £500 for the upgrade, with the assumption that I will get many years more gaming out of it - I purchased my 980Ti in 2018 so it's had a good run. I'm very much out of the loop when it comes to CPU & GPU bottlenecking, or what GPU is good bang for the buck right now.

Currently just playing Apex Legends but likely to play Payday 3, Starfield & the new Cities Skylines in future.
 
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Your CPU is fine, I'd double that RAM though, at least, or buy a 16gb kit on top of what you have.

Your GPU needs replacing, welcome to 2021+ and GPU prices being HOLY ****.

I'd dump almost all of that on a GPU, AMD have the 7700xt and 7800xt coming out imminently, so worth waiting to see what the deal is.
 
Basically just the ram and GPU need upgrading for Starfield. At a minimum add another 8gb stick and might be tempted to go to 32gb - however the GPU is the priority.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/sapp...gddr6-pci-express-graphics-car-gx-39k-sp.html or if you want to stay nvidia…

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/zota...gddr6-pci-express-graphics-car-gx-12f-zt.html

Both would give you plenty left over for the ram.

You could look at a 4060 but, honestly, i would probably go with the AMD (plus you get the game free).
 
Agree with the above on the CPU/RAM.

980 Ti isn't that far away from the minimum, but a 4070/6800 kind of card would be a big upgrade and more suited to the 1440p resolution. Hopefully AMD will release something competitive in a week or so (with the free starfield bundle a bonus).
 
Apologies all, I managed to typo my RAM, it's actually 16GB (My brain jumped to typing 2x8GB and just skipped part of it).

BUDFORCE said:
Your GPU needs replacing, welcome to 2021+ and GPU prices being HOLY ****.

I'd dump almost all of that on a GPU, AMD have the 7700xt and 7800xt coming out imminently, so worth waiting to see what the deal is.
Click to expand...

I had heard GPU prices were high, but then again, every time I've looked in the past they just climb higher and higher - First crypto craze, then covid, then whatever hellscape we're in now.

Thanks for the heads up on the new AMD cards, I'll take a look into them and hit on my hands for a little bit to see how AMD do, as it may shuffle other GPU prices around too - Getting Starfield too is pretty compelling!

Is there any real difference I'm likely to be affected by with AMD vs nvidia? Way back when AMD cards used to be slower than their price equivalent nvidia cards but over time they caught up a bit via driver updates, is that still how the state of play is?
 
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I agree with Tetras re the new AMD cards. I didn’t mention them as I suspected you want the card for release day. If you can hold off for them i would, if you’re lucky (and that’s a big if) there may be deals on the older GPUs… don’t count on that though.
 
Imo AMD are offering much better value for money and are performing really well.

Admittedly I'm an AMD fanboy at heart, but I just came off about a 7 year Nvidia spell and I am not regretting it.
 
Silenced said:
Is there any real difference I'm likely to be affected by with AMD vs nvidia? Way back when AMD cards used to be slower than their price equivalent nvidia cards but over time they caught up a bit via driver updates, is that still how the state of play is?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't buy an AMD card with that assumption, no. The thing that's proving a good move for AMD is having more VRAM than the competing cards did. Intel is the one pumping out big gains with drivers.
 
Silenced said:
Apologies all, I managed to typo my RAM, it's actually 16GB (My brain jumped to typing 2x8GB and just skipped part of it).



I had heard GPU prices were high, but then again, every time I've looked in the past they just climb higher and higher - First crypto craze, then covid, then whatever hellscape we're in now.

Thanks for the heads up on the new AMD cards, I'll take a look into them and hit on my hands for a little bit to see how AMD do, as it may shuffle other GPU prices around too - Getting Starfield too is pretty compelling!

Is there any real difference I'm likely to be affected by with AMD vs nvidia? Way back when AMD cards used to be slower than their price equivalent nvidia cards but over time they caught up a bit via driver updates, is that still how the state of play is?
Click to expand...

Ah well you just need to get the best GPU you can manage for your £500. You shouldn’t need to worry about drivers, both NV and AMD have had driver issues AFAIK - you already have an AMD CPU so can benefit from the resizable BAR thingy (yes I’m an expert on this, i just hide it well :cry: )
 
In fairness, unless OP can push his budget, i would stick with 16Gb ram for now and sink all of the budget into a new GPU. Easy enough to upgrade the RAM later.
 
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Chaos666 said:
wait for the game to be available and watch some reviews. At this moment its impossible to say
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I will be waiting to see what people say about the game prior to any GPU purchase, however Cities Skylines 2 has a recommended spec of a 2080Ti so I'd likely be upgrading to enjoy the game to its fullest.

Something I hadn't thought about is PSU - I've a Corsair Vengeance 750M, would I be likely in need of an upgrade if I max my budget on a new GPU, considering I've a watercooling loop too?
 
Silenced said:
I will be waiting to see what people say about the game prior to any GPU purchase, however Cities Skylines 2 has a recommended spec of a 2080Ti so I'd likely be upgrading to enjoy the game to its fullest.

Something I hadn't thought about is PSU - I've a Corsair Vengeance 750M, would I be likely in need of an upgrade if I max my budget on a new GPU, considering I've a watercooling loop too?
Click to expand...

I think your PSU will probably be fine as your CPU is frugal and your new GPU is very unlikely to draw enough to cause problems.

Try this to calculate your power requirements:

https://outervision.com/
 
Wait for the reviews for 7800xt/7700xt and see how it compares to the 6800/6800xt/3070/3070ti/4060ti in the games you play. Your system is fine but 2x16gb of ram will help and once you have that use all your budget on the most cost effective gpu you can get. If you can get a 7800xt with a free copy of Starfield that will most likely be the best option.

Do not rule out an AMD gpu, the drivers are perfectly ok. Use DDU to clean up the Nv mess before installation and it should not be a problem.
 
Chaos666 said:
wait for the game to be available and watch some reviews. At this moment its impossible to say
Click to expand...
I second this.

OP shouldn’t buy anything until a hardware roundup is done.

What if it needs 12gigs of VRAM and OP gets a used 3080 and has to sell it to then buy something else?

Agreed tho that 32gigs of RAM is going to be a good idea though as a lot of newer games use a lot of RAM and RAM is really cheap now.
 
Well, performance numbers are rolling in & it seems pretty brutal overall. Recommended specs even seem like low FPS as far as PC games go - So my 980 Ti being not far off minimum I likely am going to have a really bad time without an upgrade.

7800xt/7700xt seems to be leaking out with the 7800xt basically being almost the same as a 6800xt in TimeSpy - Right now I can pick up a RX 6800 XT Red Dragon 16GB for £441, including a Starfield code which seems like quite a good deal? I could always sit on the card until the 7800xt/7700xt launch and return the card if I don't want it with a small amount of outlay in return postage. Historically I've bought a lot of second hand stuff on the MM so perhaps I could pick up a deal on there instead.

Does anyone know how futureproof a RX 6800XT is likely to be for 1440p gaming? These generations of cards seem to be very minor improvements compared to the last so in theory could last a while, although if Starfield is anything to go by, it won't last long (But this may be exceptional circumstances and improve over time)
 
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