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Upgrade for a R9 290x

bigjimmyauk

bigjimmyauk

bigjimmyauk

Soldato
Joined
23 Nov 2009
Posts
6,019
Location
North Leicestershire
So a little bit of context i picked up some used parts from the MM and locally to build my kids a pc a couple/few years ago, this was great while they were still very young and new to playing on and using pc's, now they are both coming on for 10 and 11 they could really do with a gpu with a bit more grunt, the limiting factor of the r9 290x is definitely the 2gb vram. They only play at 1080p on a 60hz monitor (full pc specs at bottom of post.) I tried playing ghostwire tokyo on it last night on low settings and still hit a hard locked out of vram error. Budget really would only be around £250 but it definitely needs to tick the 1080p 60FPS box. I've tried looking at reviews but i just can't come to a solid conclusion so would like some input from some people who have experience with that res etc. Ideally i would like to buy something new as it would go as a main Christmas present. Any help would be massively appreciated.

current build specs
6700 non k (nhD-14 cooler)
32gb ram
r9 290x
500Gb m.2
500Gb SSD
750w superflower psu
Phanteks P400A Case
 
According to TPU's GPU database the RX 6600 is roughly twice as fast and hopefully there will be some nice deals coming up.

For £250, you could also get a RX 7600, RTX 3060 or RTX 4060. The RX 7600 does have a newer feature set versus the 6600 (including AI cores, which might be using in future versions of FSR), but only the RTX 4060 has similarly low power consumption to the RX 6600.

For the latter two cards, you may find this video interesting:

With 6000 versus 3000 cards, the 6000 cards performed better with slower CPUs and I suspect that is still true, so my money would be on a 6600, with fingers crossed for deals around £150.

If you were willing to stretch your budget, or get lucky with a deal, a 6750 XT would be very nice.
 
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You can currently pick up a 6600 for just over £130. Or as mentioned a 6750XT for a touch over £300 would also be a nice upgrade. OR B-Grade GPU from OCUK and make an offer, you'd get something nice for £300 they have some 7700XTs for £399 so chance your luck?

Going with a cheaper 6600 you could potentially upgrade some other components too though?
 
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Rob_B said:
You can currently pick up a 6600 for just over £130. Or as mentioned a 6750XT for a touch over £300 would also be a nice upgrade. OR B-Grade GPU from OCUK and make an offer, you'd get something nice for £300 they have some 7700XTs for £399 so chance your luck?

Going with a cheaper 6600 you could potentially upgrade some other components too though?
Click to expand...
is this second hand because i've not seen a new one for less than £180?
 
Tetras said:
According to TPU's GPU database the RX 6600 is roughly twice as fast and hopefully there will be some nice deals coming up.

For £250, you could also get a RX 7600, RTX 3060 or RTX 4060. The RX 7600 does have a newer feature set versus the 6600 (including AI cores, which might be using in future versions of FSR), but only the RTX 4060 has similarly low power consumption to the RX 6600.

For the latter two cards, you may find this video interesting:

With 6000 versus 3000 cards, the 6000 cards performed better with slower CPUs and I suspect that is still true, so my money would be on a 6600, with fingers crossed for deals around £150.

If you were willing to stretch your budget, or get lucky with a deal, a 6750 XT would be very nice.
Click to expand...
possibly worth holding out till the end of the month for the black friday deals? i did initially look at a 7600xt but was put off by the price but it seemed like it ticked all the right boxes.
Thank you for the detailed reply, it is appreciated!
 
bigjimmyauk said:
possibly worth holding out till the end of the month for the black friday deals?
Click to expand...
I think so, yeah, especially if you want to buy new.

bigjimmyauk said:
i did initially look at a 7600xt but was put off by the price
Click to expand...
I'm not a great fan of these cards. The memory is nice, but AMD didn't increase the bus width with the memory capacity, so they're less effective at higher resolutions than you'd think, have relatively high power consumption for their performance and the 6750 XT is still a better/more powerful card (despite having 4GB less VRAM).
 
I ordered a new RX 6600 for £130, it could be had for £100 if you took out a new credit account with the retailer and use the introductory offer of 20% off your first order. It's currently OOS but keep your eyes peeled as new stock may become available again.

With the R5 5600 currently available for £50 from China you could feasibly update most of your rig for about £250.
 
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