Question 2060S or 5700 XT?

[mwforrest7]

Hi all! I've been doing some research for a new gaming build that I plan to put together by mid November and the one component that has me conflicted at this point is the GPU. I've narrowed it down to the $400-ish dollar range which leaves me with two primary choices: 2060 SUPER or 5700 XT.

After reading about half a dozen reviews on either of these options I feel confident saying that the 5700 XT would be the better choice in terms of raw performance. However, I've heard an alarmingly large number of complaints from people in forums and product reviews having all sorts of troubles due to bad 5700 XT drivers. So I am not sure if I should play it safe with the 2060S or take a gamble on the 5700XT and hope that I don't have to deal with a bunch of issues. Can anyone here speak to the current situation with drivers? Which would you pick?

 

[alexruiz]

For the WHQL and HDCP, if your video has any sort of DRM or protection, it REQUIRES HDCP compliant drivers.
While I do not know for sure, I can bet netflix, hulu and several others need HDCP, specially on 4k content.

Adrenalin 19.2.2 recommended (Sep 23, 2019) is WHQL
The last time I checked the 19.10.1 was beta, so non WHQL

Edit: Latest adrenalin 19.10.1 (Oct 17, 2019) also says WHQL

 

[Fanatical Meat]

That's in "Safe Mode"? Or in POST? That looks... really bad. Like, underpowered / bad PSU, or bad card, maybe.

Update:
Appears the card is dead, miscolored spot on the circuit board. All I can think is maybe when I was using canned air to get some dust out some water got on it.
Used to work in phone industry looks a lot like a circuit board of a phone what got wet.
GTX260 worked fine other than having to use some generic windows driver.
Sort of pissed at myself, wanted to wait for a graphics card replacement.
Partial good news is bestbuy near me has a EVGA 1660 ti for $260. Going to try to pick it up tonight.

Weird how the old card worked for 2 days but I know water and circuit boards can be erratic.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Update:
Appears the card is dead, miscolored spot on the circuit board. All I can think is maybe when I was using canned air to get some dust out some water got on it.
Used to work in phone industry looks a lot like a circuit board of a phone what got wet.
GTX260 worked fine other than having to use some generic windows driver.
Sort of pissed at myself, wanted to wait for a graphics card replacement.
Partial good news is bestbuy near me has a EVGA 1660 ti for $260. Going to try to pick it up tonight.

Weird how the old card worked for 2 days but I know water and circuit boards can be erratic.

I'm sorry to hear that your card died? Was that a new RX 5700, or something older? (Maybe I missed if you had upgraded your GPU yet.)

$260 for a GTX 1660 ti, new or even open-box, is a fairly decent deal. Most of them are $280+ starting at the "low end". I thought that I found a deal on one, when I got my first MSI Ventus 1660 ti from walmart.com for $269.99.

They're decent cards, and can still make money mining after electricity costs. (Almost $2.50-3.00 / mo.)

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I'm sorry to hear that your card died? Was that a new RX 5700, or something older? (Maybe I missed if you had upgraded your GPU yet.)

$260 for a GTX 1660 ti, new or even open-box, is a fairly decent deal. Most of them are $280+ starting at the "low end". I thought that I found a deal on one, when I got my first MSI Ventus 1660 ti from walmart.com for $269.99.

They're decent cards, and can still make money mining after electricity costs. (Almost $2.50-3.00 / mo.)

It was my old 280x, I got four or five years out of a Microcenter open box. Never liked the card that much but didn’t hate it either. Sort of loud, sort of hot.

 

[VirtualLarry]

You should really enjoy the GTX 1660 ti.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

You should really enjoy the GTX 1660 ti.

I considered going AMD because the 5700 is a good deal but as I said in the other thread it’s time for something different.
Also I’m still rocking a 1050 monitor. 5700 is likely overkill.

 

[Guru]

I considered going AMD because the 5700 is a good deal but as I said in the other thread it’s time for something different.
Also I’m still rocking a 1050 monitor. 5700 is likely overkill.

1050p is the same as 1080p, in fact if its 1050p you probably have 19:10 ration, which makes it really great for RTS type games.

Anyway even an RX 5700xt is not overkill for 1050/1080p. I mean there are a lot of demanding games that even at 1050p would run at 70-80fps.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Wow, a 1050P monitor? Those like...went out of style in late 2000s, didn't they?

I had some of those too, back in the day, some of my first LCDs, 20" and 22". They were work-horses. Amazing upgrades from CRT to LCD, always so sharp (well, once you switched to DVI-D, the VGA input wasn't always sharp, depended on the card, cable, and monitor's circuits).

I can see why you've held on to yours.

Consider, if you upgrade, getting a 4K60 or a 1440P 144Hz monitor, both starting at around $200-250, up to maybe $1200 for some all-singing, all-dancing, does-your-dishes-for-you Acer Predator series LCD or even OLED monitor (*).

(*) Actually, an LCD monitor that did your dishes for you, would not only be cool, but practical as well, and I might even consider buying one. Sadly, that was all hypothetical hyperbole.

 

[Guru]

Wow, a 1050P monitor? Those like...went out of style in late 2000s, didn't they?

I had some of those too, back in the day, some of my first LCDs, 20" and 22". They were work-horses. Amazing upgrades from CRT to LCD, always so sharp (well, once you switched to DVI-D, the VGA input wasn't always sharp, depended on the card, cable, and monitor's circuits).

I can see why you've held on to yours.

Consider, if you upgrade, getting a 4K60 or a 1440P 144Hz monitor, both starting at around $200-250, up to maybe $1200 for some all-singing, all-dancing, does-your-dishes-for-you Acer Predator series LCD or even OLED monitor (*).

(*) Actually, an LCD monitor that did your dishes for you, would not only be cool, but practical as well, and I might even consider buying one. Sadly, that was all hypothetical hyperbole.

I still have a Samsung SyncMaster T200. Its still alive and well and doing great. I'm amazed at the high quality. 2ms response time, 20000:1 dynamic contrast, 19:10 ratio, its a really cool monitor.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Wow, a 1050P monitor? Those like...went out of style in late 2000s, didn't they?

I had some of those too, back in the day, some of my first LCDs, 20" and 22". They were work-horses. Amazing upgrades from CRT to LCD, always so sharp (well, once you switched to DVI-D, the VGA input wasn't always sharp, depended on the card, cable, and monitor's circuits).

I can see why you've held on to yours.

Consider, if you upgrade, getting a 4K60 or a 1440P 144Hz monitor, both starting at around $200-250, up to maybe $1200 for some all-singing, all-dancing, does-your-dishes-for-you Acer Predator series LCD or even OLED monitor (*).

(*) Actually, an LCD monitor that did your dishes for you, would not only be cool, but practical as well, and I might even consider buying one. Sadly, that was all hypothetical hyperbole.

I’ve said for years I’ll go 4K when I can get a monitor & decent card to power it for $500 total.
Now that is a possibility I’m starting to think 4K monitors are too big, I’ll likely go 144
My 23 inch Acer has been a champ. I bought it with zero knowledge, my mother won a $500 staples gift card in a raffle she gave to me in 2008ish.
Thing has been a champ, one stuck pixel but near the top right bezel but that is all.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I’ve said for years I’ll go 4K when I can get a monitor & decent card to power it for $500 total.

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

And an RX 5700 (XT), or GTX 1660 ti / 2060S.

 

[Shmee]

If you can can a red devil 5700 for a good price, get it, and you can flash it to a 5700XT if you want.

 

[CHADBOGA]

If you can can a red devil 5700 for a good price, get it, and you can flash it to a 5700XT if you want.

Can an attempt to flash it also result in bricking it?

 

[CHADBOGA]

Is there any difference in visual quality between the current Nvidia GPU's and AMD's these days?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Can an attempt to flash it also result in bricking it?

The Red Devil 5700 has dual bios so you can recover it if the flash goes bad.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/czhux1

As far as visual quality goes, RTX ray tracing on nvidia is the only thing that is contrasting enough between the two IHVs to warrant mention imo. And it tanks performance so hard, it is currently irrelevant at the $400 and below price point. Beyond that, both have great eye candy features that can be tweaked.

 

[Shmee]

NIce, good to include the guide there. And as mentioned, a lot of the cards have dual bios, though another thing to consider is to make sure you have a good cooler, as the XT version uses more power.

 

[DeathReborn]

That guide is barely legible on the dark theme, grey on grey doesn't work too well.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Does the reference RX 5700 have a dual-BIOS switch? Might be fun to try the XT flash, if it does. If it doesn't, I'm not going to mess with it.

 

[Kenmitch]

Does the reference RX 5700 have a dual-BIOS switch? Might be fun to try the XT flash, if it does. If it doesn't, I'm not going to mess with it.

No dual bios switch.

MorePowerTool and a custom fan profile on my XFX reference 5700 gets me in the mid 1900's during gaming and benching. I've only played around with it for a couple days so far. I'm still looking for the sweet spot between fps, temps, and power consumption.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Something's been making a rattling noise in my case the last few days. I have yet to pull it out, and track it down, but it could be my new RX 5700. I boosted the fan profiles a bit, and down-clocked it, and overclocked the RAM a little bit.

Edit: Just got back home from the store, and there were graphical "speckles" all over my screen, changing. I had previous overclocked the RAM to 915, which may well have been too much. Temps shouldn't have been the issue, I don't think. Anyways, I clocked the RAM back down to 900Mhz, and rebooted, and so far, no speckles.

 

[DigDog]

Red Devil Vega 56 is i.e. rock solid in every area

this is going to be my next GPU

 

[Guru]

this is going to be my next GPU

Not worth it anymore. At this point they are getting too old to buy them used, so it's a high risk of them failing within a year and most 56's were OC'd you can bet on it. They were really easy overclockers, though at a huge power consumption.

I'd just go for a GTX 1660ti for $280 over a Vega 56 to be honest. There are still retail Vega 56 you can find obviously, but from what I've seen they are priced $300 and up.

For $50 more I'd go for the RX 5700, its 30% faster, more power efficient and is competitive in DX11 games as well, unlike the Vega series.

Or for $280 I'd go for a GTX 1660ti, but its so much better to just save up $70 and go for a $350 RX 5700.

 

[DigDog]

Not worth it anymore. At this point they are getting too old to buy them used, so it's a high risk of them failing within a year and most 56's were OC'd you can bet on it. They were really easy overclockers, though at a huge power consumption.

I'd just go for a GTX 1660ti for $280 over a Vega 56 to be honest. There are still retail Vega 56 you can find obviously, but from what I've seen they are priced $300 and up.

For $50 more I'd go for the RX 5700, its 30% faster, more power efficient and is competitive in DX11 games as well, unlike the Vega series.

Or for $280 I'd go for a GTX 1660ti, but its so much better to just save up $70 and go for a $350 RX 5700.

well, im on a budget.


aaaaand you're doing that things where, "this GPU is great, but this one is just $50 more, and then there's THIS one which is eeeevn better for another $70, but hey, why not pump that up to $100, althought at that point you just drop another $50 and"
and BAM you're spending a grand on a GPU.
Here vega 56s are being sold for 250 GBP, while a 5700 is 320 GBP for a non-blower.

ALL I PLAY IS QUAKE. I have a 1080 monitor.
i reeeally dont need any more than this, i dont do 3D VR stuff, or ray tracing, i turn off all the DX12 visual crapola, i'm really just interested in getting the most improvement on my GTX 770 that i can for the least amount of dosh, and while im sure the 5700 is brilliant, i just dont want to spend that extra money to then not do anything with my card.


Also, i have made i`t my mission to go AMD this time. I haven't had a AMD card in years, and i want to see what's it like on the other side of the pond. Not tryin to say i was unhappy with my 770, but i'm just plain curious.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'd just go for a GTX 1660ti for $280 over a Vega 56 to be honest.

I feel the same way. Power consumption of the GTX 1660ti is way lower. Plus, you can actually turn a profit with it mining.

 

[VirtualLarry]

well, im on a budget.


aaaaand you're doing that things where, "this GPU is great, but this one is just $50 more, and then there's THIS one which is eeeevn better for another $70, but hey, why not pump that up to $100, althought at that point you just drop another $50 and"
and BAM you're spending a grand on a GPU.
Here vega 56s are being sold for 250 GBP, while a 5700 is 320 GBP for a non-blower.

ALL I PLAY IS QUAKE. I have a 1080 monitor.
i reeeally dont need any more than this, i dont do 3D VR stuff, or ray tracing, i turn off all the DX12 visual crapola, i'm really just interested in getting the most improvement on my GTX 770 that i can for the least amount of dosh, and while im sure the 5700 is brilliant, i just dont want to spend that extra money to then not do anything with my card.


Also, i have made i`t my mission to go AMD this time. I haven't had a AMD card in years, and i want to see what's it like on the other side of the pond. Not tryin to say i was unhappy with my 770, but i'm just plain curious.

Honestly, maybe you would want to wait for the RX 5500 / RX 5500 XT (rumored, may only go to laptops/mobile). Supposed to compete with the GTX 1650 / 1650 Super (to be released), and supposed to be a very solid low/mid-range 1080P card (so much as a successor to an RX 570/580, so should be priced in your price range.)