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Where to start with choosing a modern GPU?

ik9000

ik9000

ik9000

Soldato
Joined
23 Nov 2019
Posts
3,340
I'm years out of touch with graphics cards. Prices went through the roof and I gave up keeping tabs. It's like emerging from a semi-coma and wondering what has become of the world. What is a good quiet all-rounder GPU these days?

Is there a minimum speed and memory buffer I should look for? Budget limited Ideally £200 max, but could do £300 or so if it's really worth it (and the extra wait) - but it will limit future funds for other things. Case will handle most full size cards so no worries on that front.

Uses: Photoshop, sound editing (cubase is generally not GPU intensive SFAIK), 3D CAD including rendering, FEM, gaming (not modern titles although the new half-life does sound tempting), some light video editing (basic stuff for youtube, nothing overly professional)

The one immovable line-in-the-sand is that it needs to be whisper quiet like my Gigabyte GTX-460SO, no screaming moaning fans, bleeting, chirping coil-whine, or any such like etc.

Do point me to any good online articles that go into detail on this. I tried googling it but I just get swamped with BS lists of "10 best graphics cards" that just seem to me to be whatever their preferred online merchant happened to be promoting at the time they were written, and no proper comparitive testing or any such like.
 
What are the specficiations of the rest of your system?? Is it running under Windows or Linux. AMD Linux drivers seem to be in a better state than Nvidia,but sadly Navi support in non-gaming applications might be a bit more patchy than Vega for instance,which is a shame as the RX5700 8GB can be had for as low as £250 and the best bang for buck GPU IMHO in that range.

I would probably also look at the RTX2060 KO TBH - its actually based on the TU104 die from the RTX2080 so it appears to have extra compute performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUFRBnJdx3Y

It can be as much as 47% extra application performance over a TU106 based RTX2060.

However,it is not quiet as other cards and like other RTX2060 cards has only 6GB of VRAM. OcUK did have the RTX2060 Super for £300 recently which uses the TU106 die and has 8GB of VRAM.

But as you probably realise by now these cards are all between £250 to £300.

At £200ish I would be inclined to look at perhaps a GTX1660 Super 6GB or perhaps an RX580/RX590 but I am uncertain if the AMD cards will be as quiet as they draw more power. But I have seen Sapphire refurb stock RX580 Nitro 8GB cards for only £110 recently.
 
ik9000 said:
Do point me to any good online articles that go into detail on this. I tried googling it but I just get swamped with BS lists of "10 best graphics cards" that just seem to me to be whatever their preferred online merchant happened to be promoting at the time they were written, and no proper comparitive testing or any such like.
Click to expand...
Toms have a GPU hierarchy with a % score, it isn't so easy to read as the old chart, but can give you an idea. If you google a card on TPU, e.g. RX 5500, in their specs database, there's a little chart with a relative %.

https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-rx-5500-xt.c3468
 
I'd try to hit 8gb memory
The 2060ko is great value if your compute workload can use it, if not its a cheap bleh 2060

Realistically it'll be
5700/xt or 2060/2060 super

Avoid blower coolers
 
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
What are the specficiations of the rest of your system?? Is it running under Windows or Linux. AMD Linux drivers seem to be in a better state than Nvidia,but sadly Navi support in non-gaming applications might be a bit more patchy than Vega for instance,which is a shame as the RX5700 8GB can be had for as low as £250 and the best bang for buck GPU IMHO in that range.
Click to expand...

CatV!!!! Salutations! OS is win10 and win7 (both). Forced into having one drive for win10 for work remote working purposes - that and photoshop I suppose. I will, at some point, be trying linux, but not currently got time to learn a new ecosystem.

HW is ryzen 3900x and msi x570 ACE, 250GB nvme 970-evo plus, 32GB 4x8GB 16-16-16-36 DDR4 and.... a 1GB GTX460-SO. Whisper quiet GPU, but I'm worried win10 might have an issue with it, and it's not really going to run modern titles
 
Photoshop and most video editing software won't be particularly fussy about GPUs, but CAD software might. I'd check whether there's a list of recommended/supported cards for whatever software it is you're using.

Rendering's a bit of a minefield. They can either be CPU or GPU based, and some of the latter require CUDA and will therefore only run on Nvida hardware. No idea about FEM, but wouldn't be surprised if the same applies.
 
my work machine is i7-6700 with 32GB RAM and a lowly Radeon R5-430 Intel HD-530 graphics combo. It just about handles things but I'm not impressed with either GPU tbh given the regular freezes, stutters and lag I seem to suffer from. I'm convinced productivity would increase with better graphics tech but it's not my budget decision!

Edit it doesn't do the rendering. That is sent elsewhere
 
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ik9000 said:
CatV!!!! Salutations! OS is win10 and win7 (both). Forced into having one drive for win10 for work remote working purposes - that and photoshop I suppose. I will, at some point, be trying linux, but not currently got time to learn a new ecosystem.

HW is ryzen 3900x and msi x570 ACE, 250GB nvme 970-evo plus, 32GB 4x8GB 16-16-16-36 DDR4 and.... a 1GB GTX460-SO. Whisper quiet GPU, but I'm worried win10 might have an issue with it, and it's not really going to run modern titles
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Hi!

The AMD cards have better open source drivers than Nvidia,but Nvidia is probably a better fit for your non-gaming applications.OTH,AMD also has more VRAM which might be useful for some of the rendering tasks.

If you don't want to spend more than £200ish,I would probably look at the GTX1660 Super.
This one is around £200 and UK based RMA IIRC:
https://www.eteknix.com/zotac-gtx-1660-super-twinfan-review/14/

Noise seems fine on it. Some non-gaming benchmarks:
https://www.servethehome.com/evga-geforce-gtx-1660-super-sc-ultra-review/3/

Edit!!

I just saw this deal:

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...e-rx590-at-109-99-from-9am-tomorrow.18879803/
 
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ik9000 said:
Thanks cat, tempting but I need more time to figure out what to do and I got stuck on a train anyway so couldn't take advantage of that.
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I think if you don't want to spend more than £200ish that GTX1660 Super would do the trick,and if you don't mind a bit more noise,the RTX2060KO or a RTX2060 Super if you can get one for around £300. If any of the programmes you use,have CUDA integrated into them,an Nvidia card would be the best choice.

If it is for gaming and Linux usage,a sub £300 RX5700 would be my choice.
 
Would pre-owned be out of the question ?
I snagged a last-gen Nvidia GTX 1080 8Gb for £260 on ebay, just before xmas. It's still a beast, not quite up there with the Ti model, but for £260 it never misses a beat, even at 1440p, and in VR with a Rift S.
 
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