recommend me an AMD card pls?

[tommo123]

have an old 6950 sat somewhere (2nd bios flashed to a 6970s) and it's been there for 2 years. ran IGP only (something i never thought i'd say) but now want to play those games on steam that i still bought (stupid sales) and a weird urge to go back and replay HL2 yet again

using a TV (1080p, not 4k) as pri output but a dell 3007fpw monitor as 2nd so needs dual link dvi as well as a hdmi. thinking about adding a 4k monitor at some point in the future (display port i imagine?) but can cards output 4k @ 60hz? i read some max at 30hz. cpu, i5 3570k.

don't plan on gaming on 4k, just 1080p for games like assassins creed 3 and above, crysis 3, gta 5, tomb raider, COD 9million etc. can cards handle HEVC playback now? using just the cpu is fine for 1080p but 4k ones are trickier. hoping the gpu can handle that burden.

a few months back i was pondering just building a 2nd PC just for gaming (might still do) and thought about a R9 380 or a 390 then. is there a better option atm? looking at keeping for 3 years or so (dropping to 720p is fine as long as frame rates clock at 60)

in UK if it matters but shouldnt matter.

 

[Tidekilla115]

All they new cards are coming out which will give you new options to choose from and lower the prices of the older cards so I would wait a month or two and see what's happening then.

 

[tommo123]

makes sense. not sure i can if i decide on a 2nd PC though. if i go that route it would be within 2 weeks or so and i'd have to buy something then and there.

new cards meant to be significant? or just rehashes?

 

[DooKey]

If you are building in the next 2 weeks then a 390 is the way to go.

 

[tommo123]

thanks. i really should just get the card but i like the idea of having a dedicated gaming machine. that and the occasional HEVC encode.

 

[Sonikku13]

Basically, the best AMD card today, and best card for 4K, for 1080p futureproofing is the Fury X. However, that's only until NVIDIA releases the 1080, which will blow past the Fury X, I assume.

However, assuming you don't have the money for a Fury X, the 390 becomes your best value bet. It performs better than a 970, you can coax playable frame rates at 1440p with some settings dropped. For sure, it'll max out 1080p.

My honest opinion is to wait for Pascal and Polaris to launch and see what we've got. It's rumored that Polaris could bring 980 Ti performance levels to the $300 price point, but I doubt it... Meanwhile, the 1070 should do just that, but if you want an AMD card, might as well wait.

 

[RussianSensation]

a few months back i was pondering just building a 2nd PC just for gaming (might still do) and thought about a R9 380 or a 390 then. is there a better option atm? looking at keeping for 3 years or so (dropping to 720p is fine as long as frame rates clock at 60)

in UK if it matters but shouldnt matter.

I would wait until AMD's Polaris 10 announcement at the end of May and go from there. You will have a choice between discounted R9 390/390X/Fury cards and/or cheaper/or faster and more power efficient Polaris 10. Since you waited this long and intend to keep that card for 3 years or so, I'd strongly consider waiting just to see what's what regarding Polaris 10's launch date, pricing and performance.

The current prices of R9 390 cards in the UK are way too high. I mean you will have a choice of card that costs the same and offers 40-60% more performance on June 10th, regardless of what Polaris 10 is. You should not ignore the competitor's offerings when the price/performance delta and perf/watt and features are so much in favour of it against outdated Hawaii chips.

 

[tommo123]

thanks guys, it's hard not pulling the trigger but i'll hang fire for a while and see what happens. probably won't get the new gen though, i assume they'll be pre-ordered by a few and will be sold out for a few weeks. a decent price cut might mean a fury coming my way though

 

[tulx]

the 390 becomes your best value bet. It performs better than a 970, you can coax playable frame rates at 1440p with some settings dropped.

I might be having low FPS expectations, but I haven't encountered a game which my 290x wouldn't run "perfectly" at max settings on a resolution of 1440p, including Star Wars: Battlefront, Battlefield 4, The Witcher 3 etc. I assume a 390(x?) would fair even better.
But anyway, if I were looking for a new graphics card at the moment, I would indeed wait for the next series of 4XX cards to be announced, if at all possible. If they turn out to be good value - great; if not, inevitable price drops on the 3XX generation will benefit you regardless.

 

[oussama-tn]

If you do not want to wait for polaris release then the r9 390 is your best choice, it beats the gtx 970 in all more recent games ( probably will age better too ) you can even play @1440 with a decent fps ( in witcher 3 maxed out with nvidia setups disabled i get 45 average and 37 minimum) in case you decide to buy the r9 390, the best one is the nitro version from sapphire.

 

[prtskg]

new cards meant to be significant? or just rehashes?

This new generation is very important for both AMD and Nvidia. It's a straight drop from 28nm planar to 14/16nm finfet. This added with architecture improvements will bring a lot of goodies for us. Nvidia has fine tuned Maxwell with Pascal and AMD seems to have made their largest improvement in GCN till date. So if you can wait, it'd be easier to get cheaper and better products even if you don't go for newest generation.

 

[SelenaGomez]

Defintely wait for the Polaris 10. They will be $200-230 USD and give you the performance of a gtx 980.

 

[mohit9206]

Defintely wait for the Polaris 10. They will be $200-230 USD and give you the performance of a gtx 980.

More like $300-350 in countries outside US.

 

[R0H1T]

More like $300-350 in countries outside US.

Make that 400$ or above, excluding rebates D:

 

[Headfoot]

Wait for Polaris. It's less than a month from launch, buying now is an extremely poor idea.

 

[Coalscraper]

More like $300-350 in countries outside US.

I'd rather expect them to be sold within 200 and 250€ and I wouldn't be surprised if we'd see more rx 480s in stores than 1070s and 1080s although they have been (paper) launched some weeks early. In other words I expect full stocks so that cards can really be bought.

 

[Sheep221]

Until you wait for new cards to be released you can reinsert your old one and have a round of HL2 or two, that card should work with HL2 maxed out.