Time for a GPU upgrade. Any advice...

[gazrawly]

Hi chaps. I'm looking to upgrade my graphics card as even at medium graphical settings at 1080p I am seeing some low fps in some of the most gfx intensive games (Crysis 3!).

The system specs; i5 2500K @ 4.5ghz, 4Gig Kingston blu 1600mhz DDR3, 530W be quiet! PSU, Gigabyte Z68AP-D3. Current GPU = MSI HD 6870 OC 1GB.

It seems as though 2GB graphics cards are the sweet spot currently, although would it be of any advantage to be looking at cards with more than 2GB? Would the current age of cards take advantage of additional ram in the future or would it be a case of time to upgrade again before this point?

I think it's wise to upgrade the ram to 8Gig at this point as again this seems the sweet spot.

I'm looking at pounds per frames really, ideally I don't want to be paying £100 for say an extra 3fps but I do want to enjoy gaming on a decent card again (god bless the 6870, you've been a champ!).

I could run my current 6870 in crossfire but I assume the benefits would be smaller than running one single high end card and I seem to remember reading that crossfire carries over usable ram from one card, not both card memory combined. I think I'd also have to change out the PSU as it only has the wiring to run one GPU from memory...

Which GPU would you/did you choose to run and why? Nvidia or AMD?

Current cards that I am looking at;
VTX3D Radeon R9 290 X-Edition 4096MB (it's on offer currently?)
Asus Radeon R9 290 "Voltage Unlocked" 4096MB

OcUK Geforce GTX 780 3072MB GDDR5
Inno3D GeForce GTX 770 iChill HerculeZ X3 Ultra 4096MB

Even after seeing some benchmarking and reading around, it's still all about of a minefield, with different card suppliers, memory (2GB/3GB/4GB?), clock speeds etc. Am I just wasting cash?

 

[LtMatt]

Hi chaps. I'm looking to upgrade my graphics card as even at medium graphical settings at 1080p I am seeing some low fps in some of the most gfx intensive games (Crysis 3!).

The system specs; i5 2500K @ 4.5ghz, 4Gig Kingston blu 1600mhz DDR3, 530W be quiet! PSU, Gigabyte Z68AP-D3. Current GPU = MSI HD 6870 OC 1GB.

It seems as though 2GB graphics cards are the sweet spot currently, although would it be of any advantage to be looking at cards with more than 2GB? Would the current age of cards take advantage of additional ram in the future or would it be a case of time to upgrade again before this point?

I think it's wise to upgrade the ram to 8Gig at this point as again this seems the sweet spot.

I'm looking at pounds per frames really, ideally I don't want to be paying £100 for say an extra 3fps but I do want to enjoy gaming on a decent card again (god bless the 6870, you've been a champ!).

I could run my current 6870 in crossfire but I assume the benefits would be smaller than running one single high end card and I seem to remember reading that crossfire carries over usable ram from one card, not both card memory combined. I think I'd also have to change out the PSU as it only has the wiring to run one GPU from memory...

Which GPU would you/did you choose to run and why? Nvidia or AMD?

Current cards that I am looking at;
VTX3D Radeon R9 290 X-Edition 4096MB (it's on offer currently?)
Asus Radeon R9 290 "Voltage Unlocked" 4096MB

OcUK Geforce GTX 780 3072MB GDDR5
Inno3D GeForce GTX 770 iChill HerculeZ X3 Ultra 4096MB

Even after seeing some benchmarking and reading around, it's still all about of a minefield, with different card suppliers, memory (2GB/3GB/4GB?), clock speeds etc. Am I just wasting cash?

£309 for a AIB cooled 290? I'd go with the VTX 290 card you were looking at. I have two of the reference VTX 290 cards and i got them for £300 each so for an extra £9 you're getting a better and quieter cooler solution. Makes perfect sense to me. Excellent value for money.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-017-VX&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1068?vs=1036

Anand figures will have the 290 reference card throttling as well so you can expect better performance than that once you actually get one.

 

[TAZOO7]

I had a great experience with the 780
not so great with the R290 which i sent back yesterday

Im no fan of either team, but cant help feeling that AMD should have waited longer and got mantle right first time, i could not play bf4 at all with 14.1 beta driver but that will not put me of in the future as Nvidia are not perfect tho i do find them more consistent

Both card when working as intended are great cards for the money with AMD R290 starting from £309 for one with a decent cooler to is a great buy, seems like these are falling in price whilst the 280X is in some case cost more than the cheapest R290

 

[Marine-RX179]

I had a great experience with the 780
not so great with the R290 which i sent back yesterday

Im no fan of either team, but cant help feeling that AMD should have waited longer and got mantle right first time, i could not play bf4 at all with 14.1 beta driver but that will not put me of in the future as Nvidia are not perfect tho i do find them more consistent

Both card when working as intended are great cards for the money with AMD R290 starting from £309 for one with a decent cooler to is a great buy, seems like these are falling in price whilst the 280X is in some case cost more than the cheapest R290

I think the problem is far too many people using beta driver and expecting too much from it. If someone was using WHQL driver and have issues, then yea.

Even without Mantle, the 290 would still be generally quicker than the GTX780 (in BF4), and the card is at a lower price as well.

I'm not gonna argue that the GTX780 is not more reliable...in fact I agree with that, however it is in the £400 price range, that's nearly 290x price we are talking about here.

 

[gazrawly]

Thanks guys.

I'm still reading a little on some of the reviews of various cards.

That 290 VTX card certainly seems ideal. It is looking like a good balance really!

I guess mantle will improve over time as with many things. It's exciting though, isn't it? It's always bugged me at how well consoles play on such poverty spec hardware compared to PC's.... I've heard a lot of people are having issues with BF4 with choppy performance even though FPS is holding up well. I guess they have some work to do on patching up BF4 and on mantle.

When I went for AMD a few years back, it was more a case of giving AMD a go as I'd had Nvidia cards in the past. I don't think there's really any difference to either, besides pro's and con's to both which effectively cancel each other out?

It's nice to get views on this as it's a fair amount of cash to me, so I like to get thoughts and opinions before parting with my cash

 

[Marine-RX179]

Just another reminder is if you are buying VTX make sure it is from OcUK, as they deals provide rma support for you directly if anything goes wrong, rather than you have to approach VTX yourself (which could be complicated, as I'm not certain what are their level/quality of support for customers).

 

[Slam]

If you have a back log off games that will run well on your existing rig (Steam sales I'm looking at you) then I'd wait. I know there's always something better coming out, but at the moment I think it's unclear whether 2GB will be enough for PS4/Xbox One ports and whether AMD gpu prices will settle back down, also mantle will have a chance to bed in and Nvidia's new range of mid and high end cards will be released.

 

[gazrawly]

Interesting.... Do we have any idea when Nvidia's new range are due for release? Could you give me a point in the right direction?

 

[Slam]

I'm not sure but they have just released their first cards based on the new 2014 architecture Maxwell

 

[gazrawly]

Ah, I did see the entry cards....

I have just noticed that the 290 PSU requirement is 750watt... I guess I need to look into a new PSU too, especially as I have a tendency to fiddle with frequencies.. Any recommendations? I guess I should think about future proofing it and getting a PSU capable of running 2 of these cards?

 

[ArchAndroid]

Ah, I did see the entry cards....

I have just noticed that the 290 PSU requirement is 750watt... I guess I need to look into a new PSU too, especially as I have a tendency to fiddle with frequencies.. Any recommendations? I guess I should think about future proofing it and getting a PSU capable of running 2 of these cards?

530W would be right on the edge for running one of these with a heavy OC. I think you would need to upgrade to a quality 850W PSU to run them in CrossFire with an overclock.

 

[gazrawly]

Yeah, I think I will replace the PSU to be on the safe side. Currently looking at; EVGA SuperNova G2 1000W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply.

I guess I will crossfire at some point. If not, at least I should have a decent PSU to carry over to another build in the future I guess