Best Video card for $200.00?

[Toro 45]

My son wants to upgrade his video card with something newer, he has a 560ti in it now I believe. The cpu is an i5-4670K non overclocked and 8GB ram. The computer will occasionally blue screen while playing League of Legends but runs stable for hours of music production work (hobby)

He bought the video card used a couple of years ago and we're thinking it may be the issue. Either way he wants to play a new game next year "Blade and Soul" that will need a newer video card.

His budget is about $200.00 I'm seeing the R9 380 might be a good choice but not really up to speed on all the cards.

Also he has a Corsair CX 500 PSU will this be enough to power one of the newer cards? I told him he may need a more powerful psu but if it's not needed?

Running 2x1TB and 1x256GB SSD Drive

 

[PliotronX]

380's a good choice and the CX500 should power it. You might also score a good deal on a 290. I approve

 

[RussianSensation]

Do you have another PC to test the GTX560Ti in? Have you tried running GPU intensive loop programs like Unigine Heaven/Valley to isolate that GPU instability is the problem? Try monitoring the temperatures of the videocards in MSI AfterBurner to make sure it's not overheating. It may just need its dust blown and/or replacing the Thermal Paste Interface that may have dried on the GPU core. Over time many GPUs benefit from a TIM swap.

I also recommend to wait until Blade and Soul actually releases to see how it performs.

In your price range, the best cards for the $ are $180 R9 380 4GB and $170 R9 280X.

Another reason I recommend waiting to see how demanding this game is is because a $90 videocard may be fast enough for it. I guess it just depends on how long you want to keep this new $200 GPU and what games your son intends to play.

If you really want the best value at $200 price range, maybe try looking for an after-market 290. Right now there is a $250 Sapphire R9 290X being sold in the FS section from a user who hardly abused it . If you can try to get the price down a little bit closer to $230 range, this could be an EPIC upgrade to keep for 3 years.

Here you go: Asus DirectCUII R9 290 for $200 shipped on our forum. HANDS down the best value in GPUs at $200 price level.

You are talking the performance of $360 GTX960 SLI in a single card.

 

[Toro 45]

I'm downloading Unigine Heaven/Valley now and will run it tonight. So the R9 380 and the R9 280x are so close in price which is the better buy? I told him to wait and try the game as well but with the blue screening on LL we figured now would be as good a time as any.

I'll show him the links on the R9 290's tonight, thanks for all the links and info!!

Do you agree that the Corsair CX 500 PSU should be capable of running any of the cards you recommended?

 

[Toro 45]

Running Unigine Heaven/Valley right now on Quality/High Settings/1920x1080 looks amazing. About 10 minutes in and the gpu temp has settled at 67C in a 63F degree room.

 

[RussianSensation]

I'm downloading Unigine Heaven/Valley now and will run it tonight. So the R9 380 and the R9 280x are so close in price which is the better buy?

I would pick the 280X since it offers the performance of a 380X but costs $170.

I told him to wait and try the game as well but with the blue screening on LL we figured now would be as good a time as any.

That's what I mean -- it's possible it's a driver issue or some other system issue not a GPU issue. Did you try downloading other Nvidia drivers for the graphics card? Flashing the mobo to the latest BIOS?

I'll show him the links on the R9 290's tonight, thanks for all the links and info!!

Do you agree that the Corsair CX 500 PSU should be capable of running any of the cards you recommended?

290 for $200 is the best value by far. You might need to downclock it a little bit or undervolt it for that PSU but if you are running a stock i5, it should be find since that PSU has 38A on 12V rail.

There are several newer and older versions of the CX500 PSU.

Here is the latest model.

If that's the model you have, it should be find with an i5 + R9 290.

BTW it's possible, the blue screen issues are caused by your PSU. Other than providing sufficient power, the PSU also needs to provide stable current.

When you enable 4 or 8xMSAA in Unigine with everything maxed out, download HWMonitor and then monitor the power supply's +3.3V and +12V rails.

If the 3.3V rail drops below 3.14V and the 12V rail starts going towards 11.30-11.40V range, that's a problem.

Here is the download link for HWMonitor on the left side of the page:
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

 

[xorbe]

Blue screen could be anything from motherboard, ram, cpu mount/temp, psu, hdd/ssd cable, gpu ...

 

[railven]

I was in the blade and soul CBTs and that game is weird in terms of performance. With my rig and hes from my sig we were able to almost max out the game. I wish I took some screen shots of the options but there were some blur options (they are aiming for a martial arts style so lots of blurring) that just crushed my rig. I'd go from 60 fps @ 1440 to 30-35 fps. Disabling that and I pretty much had 60 fps most of the time

I'm pretty sure a 380 should handle this game fine at decent settings. Art style helps too.

Also this game is like the embodiment of T&A ha-ha.

 

[Jerenny]

Seeing that the R9 380 is just a rebranded 280X, I would just go on Ebay and find a used R9 280X, because it offers the exact same speed, while you'd be able to find it much cheaper on ebay. I'm looking at one for only $170 right now.

 

[tweakboy]

760 Ti

 

[iiiankiii]

Seeing that the R9 380 is just a rebranded 280X, I would just go on Ebay and find a used R9 280X, because it offers the exact same speed, while you'd be able to find it much cheaper on ebay. I'm looking at one for only $170 right now.

The R9 380 is NOT a rebrand of a R9 280x. It's a rebrand of the R9 285 (which is Tonga based). The 280x is Tahiti based. The 280x is actually a bit faster than the R9 380 by around ~15%. But, you're right about grabbing a used 280x. It's a pretty good deal for 1080p gaming.

 

[DigDog]

when it crashes, does it do something like this?

BSODs are generally derived from something else.