What's the best upgrade GPU card for my build with an i7 4790K without bottleneck problems?

[nwgilbert]

I used to have an AMD R9 390 Graphics Card and it broke on me a couple of months ago. After thorough testing I have found it is definitely the graphics card so I am looking for a replacement.

I understand that my build is quite dated now but I would prefer to keep it for a good couple of years (if I can) considering I do not play any high-end games. I only play games such as CSGO, Rocket league, Valorant. I would like to be able to play Escape From Tarkov smoothly as well.

So far I've done quite a bit of research of which would be the best graphics card to go for based on my build but I'm still stuck for what to go for – please see my options and where I am below:


- 1080ti ? Costs around £450 second hand – cannot buy brand new any more.
i7-4790K with 1080ti comparison link - https://www.cpuagent.com/cpu/intel-...vidia-geforce-gtx-1080-ti?res=1&quality=ultra


- 1660ti ? - Costs around £380 brand new
i7-4790K with 1660ti comparison link - https://www.cpuagent.com/cpu/intel-core-i7-4790k/bottleneck/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1660-ti


- 3060ti ? – Costs around £550 brand new
i7-4790K with 3060ti comparison link - https://www.cpuagent.com/cpu/intel-...vidia-geforce-rtx-3060-ti?res=1&quality=ultra


Or should I look at AMD based on the build I currently have?

My old card costs around £160 second hand, and that's for the slight upgrade from R9 390 to R9 390X. Worried this will struggle with running Escape from tarkov on high frames though and I want the pc to last me a good couple of years at least.


This is the current build and I run on 1440p :

[CARD DIED – LOOKING FOR REPLACEMENT] - MSI Radeon R9 390 GAMING AMD Graphics Card 8GB
Intel Quad-Core i7-4790K
EVGA Super NOVA 850W PC Power Supply – Gold
Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 Intel LGA1150 Z97 ATX Motherboard (4x DDR3, 6x USB3.0, 6x USB2.0, HDMI, DVI-I, DSUB)
Crucial BX100 250 GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal Solid State Drive
WD 1TB 3.5 inch Internal Hard Drive - Caviar Blue
Alpenfhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler 120 mm
NZXT H440 Mid Tower Case with Side Window and 4 Quiet Fans for PC - White/Black
Team Group TLRED316G2400HC11CDC01 - TeamGroup Vulcan RED 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual
ASUS MG278Q Gaming Monitor - 27" 2K WQHD (2560 x 1440), 1ms, G-SYNC Compatible, up to 144Hz, FreeSync


From my research (partially based on those comparison links above with an i7 4790K) it seems that the 3060ti would give me best performance and the price difference is not huge compared to the other options out there which are available today.

However, I am wondering if those comparisons are based on running at 1080p (I will be running 1440p) which I have gathered means more load on GPU, but no more load on CPU for 1440p compared to 1080p - would this mean the bottleneck won't be that bad with 3060ti + i7-4790K?

I am also open to exploring upgrading the CPU as well but I think I am limited with this due to my old motherboard. It also gets to the point where if I am upgrading multiple parts, I may as well start looking at a new build but that’s not really what I can do at the moment.

Anyways I'm just exploring all options so I'd appreciate if any of you have a suggestion based on the above. Many thanks,

 

[nwgilbert]

Alder Lake means I have to upgrade motherboard too right? Then I start questioning whether it should be an entire new build

 

[nwgilbert]

Thanks for all the replies.

True, but your 4790K is 7 years old now and 4 core so bound to have an impact at 1440, not so much at 4K. Even so a 3060ti will be a MASSIVE boost over your old R9 390, but give cpu a max overclock 4.6ghz+?

Is it simple to OC my cpu? I've never done it before and wonder if it's save to do so with the basic cooler I have in my build?

Gibbo had a 3060ti on at £420 a couple of day ago.

Best price I've found searching over the last week was £550.00 - is this expensive for 3060ti?
What is gibbo?
I've been using PartAlert notifications to find releases but there's been nothing going less than 550 and I'm not sure there will be any time soon either...

I've looked at the specs for EoT, and really you don't need an RTX card to run it well. While the 3060Ti is a massive upgrade (and is the card I have ordered) if you only want to run those games, you shouldn't really need more than a 1660 or a 1080 or equivalent. The AMD Radeon RX 590 is also a good shout, and I've seen them go for quite cheap. One thing to not is that as your PC has previously used an AMD GPU, switching to NVIDIA can lead to some driver conflicts. These aren't too difficult to deal with, but if you want to save yourself the hassle, I'd recommend an AMD card. Mainly though for Escape from Tarkov, you need to make sure you have plenty of fast ram to allocate. Maybe would be better to buy a cheaper card such as a 1660 or an RX 590, and use the rest of your budget to buy an M.2 SSD and some 3200mhz ram. Your motherboard can support any DDR3 sticks and an M.2 drive up to 10gb/s, so you could definitely upgrade your storage speeds, though ddr3 ram is quite hard to come by these days. Alternatively you could look into getting a liquid cooler for your CPU so you can more comfortably overclock and get past that CPU bottleneck. Plenty of great options for you from what I can tell. Another reason to go for an older GPU at the moment is because new cards are rare and very expensive, so you might be waiting for a long time for a new card. I've been waiting almost 3 months to upgrade my GTX 750Ti, so be warned. Good luck.

This is why I was questioning the 1660ti in comparison but performance is whack compared to 3060ti, but we are talking almost double the price from 1660ti to 3060ti.

Thanks for all the comments feel like I'm moving somewhere in the right direction but the ideal scenario would be to pick up a bargain on a 3060ti and run with that until I get a new build.

 

[nwgilbert]

I wouldn't bother with overclocking the CPU with a high end cooler, you are unlikely to get much more than a 10% performance boost, if it's already running at 4.4ghz.

There's no harm in doing this with the cooler you have, if the temps and voltages can be kept at reasonable levels. Going over 1.3v Vcore is probably a bad idea with a Haswell chip.

The main thing that will hold it back is core count. There's also other factors like CPU cache amount, that can also have a large impact in games.

The RTX 3060 TI is an excellent graphics card, especially if you can buy one at RRP. It handles even the most challenging games at 60 FPS (like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Watch Dogs: Legion at 1080p Ultra settings.

I'd make do with something on par or slightly better than the R9 390 if you can't get a 3060 TI for a good price.

Thanks for this. I'm really out of sync of market prices with graphics cards - what would you say is a "good price" for a 3060ti? Is £550 too much to the point where if I want to use it in this build (obviously losing a lot of its full potential) and sell in 2-3 years when I get a new top of the range build, it's maybe not worth it? I don't know.

How does a 3060 compare to 3060ti? May this likely be no different in performance to each other in my build? At the moment i can pickup 3060 for £436, that's why I ask!


And onto your second point, what would be a slightly better option than the R9 390, ideally something that works with the rest of the build to full potential? It would be good to do a price comparison on a couple of options.

Please note, if the item is purchased brand new from an online company I can get the vat back as I can put through my own company. Whereas buying second hand card, the price is the price.

Thanks again for all the replies, feel free to add your input if anyone has further thoughts.

 

[nwgilbert]

Thanks for all your replies. It's really helpful.

So after further thought I am considering getting an older card second hand that is going to better match my current build as I don't think I need any more than that with the games I play.

If I'm not buying a new card now such as 3060ti then it means in 2-3 years (when I have the money) I'll buy the latest card at the time such as a 3080ti (or equivalent in 2-3 years time) when maybe the market for graphics cards is in a better place!?

Realistically this current build will still be used once I get my new build in 2-3 years as I'll pass it on to my partner and she'll use it for general office and design work(Adobe etc.). Possibly the occasional game such as The Sims or rocket league haha.

So based on that I'm looking at my options for second hand graphics card upgrades. The cards that have been mentioned across the posts above are -

GTX 970 4gb
RX 590 - maybe cost bit more
RX 480
R9 390X

What do you think I would get the best performance out of with my current build?
Based on little research you can pickup any of these cards for around £150-£200

Will they run in my build okay in 1440p? Bearing in mind I used to run 1440p on the games mentioned with my R9 390 (before it broke) and the games I play run just fine. However I would like to future proof for the next 2-3 years until I do a new build, so that I can play any similar new forthcoming games on this current build(not bothered about graphics intensive games such as cod) but would like to play Escape From Tarkov on good consistent FPS, and I think my old R9 390 would have struggled with that anyway, which makes me think a fair upgrade from the R9 390 would be necessary.

As suggested by one poster, I also looked into selling i7 4790k and replacing with a Ryzen 3600 but based on benchmark reports it doesn't seem worth it - not much difference in performance. Plus the i7 4790k does me so well for general office work and design work (Adobe) right now. Worried the Ryzen 3600 may be worse performance for general pc use with many apps in use at any given time. Noting that the pc is used more for work than gaming.

 

[nwgilbert]

Second hand prices are inflated right now and realistically you're not going to get anything much better than your old 390 without spending atleast £200+ So your best off picking up one of the new cards OCUK has on offer as not only you'll get a decent and lasting upgrade but you will also have the warranty cover which you won't have with an old second hand card.

What card would you suggest in my build from OCUK?

Looks like those pre-order linked above from Gibbo's post have already sold out.

 

[nwgilbert]

Thanks for the further comments. Looks like GTX 980 would be the best option if I can pick one up for around £200 second hand 24 month warranty. Does everyone agree or is there another card I should consider in this dated build?