Seeking a GPU Suggestions

[GamerMAD]

I am going to doing a new PC build with the Skylake launch. My Phenom II x4 955BE and 2GB MSI HD6950 simply are not cutting it anymore. I will probably be making a thread in the coming weeks in the General Hardware section regarding suggestions for some other parts, but I would like some detailed input on the GPU.

I do not know the specifics of the build yet, but it will include:

• I7 6700K
• 8-16GB RAM

I have been looking at monitors for awhile now, and while 4K seems nice, the fact that it requires multi-card setups is a turn-off. I also like to run at max settings. It seems that getting a 1440p monitor at this point would be a bit counter productive, as 4K seems to be the next mainstream resolution. I paid about $700-$800 for my current monitor, a Dell 2001 FP, back in 2005. It has served me well all these years and still works (though the backlight might be getting dimmer). In order to justify spending a similar amount of money, I would need to get something that would last a comparable amount of time. Given the single GPU requirement, I think it best if I hold onto my current monitor until we jump to 16nm and hopefully have single cards that can drive 4K. Worse case my monitor dies, and I pickup a cheap 1080p monitor to tide me over.

Originally, I was leaning toward the 970 until the 3.5GB +.5GB thing came to light. I then decided I would see what AMD was coming out with due to the rumors, maybe it would have convinced me to spend more on the GPU than I had planned. In waiting I of course missed all the good 290/290X deals. I cannot say that the 300 series appeals to me given that I could have had something similar for $100 cheaper had I not waited. Fiji XT was a bit of a disappointment, and I do not see Fiji Pro being worthwhile to justify the price of $550. Likewise my monitor is DVI-D so, Fiji cards would require an upgrade which I would rather not do right now given the state of the technology.

So I here I am seeking advice for make and model.

The following are my needs.

• Drive games with at or near max settings at 1600 x 1200/ 1920 x 1080 (worst case).
• Fit my budget of $300-$400 US.
• DVI output. Monitor supports DVI-D.
• Preferably sold by Newegg or Amazon.

I am willing to be a bit flexible with the first two items, within reason. I cannot say I have any great preference for brand, though I find myself looking at the 970s again.

 

[cen1]

Fiji Pro models seems to come with DVI, I'd wait for reviews to see the actual performance though. If you are planning to go 4K in near future I don't think 970 is a good investment.

 

[railven]

I too would look at Fury Pro, but the price puts it a tad out of your price range.

It might help drive down 970/980 prices though.

Then in August Nano might be the perfect fit for 1080/1440p users?

 

[happy medium]

Drive games with at or near max settings at 1600 x 1200/ 1920 x 1080 (worst case).
Fit my budget of $300-$400 US.
DVI output. Monitor supports DVI-D.
Preferably sold by Newegg or Amazon.

gtx970 for about 280$ AR last I checked.
By the time you use settings that use more than 3.5gb of memory, your fps will be to low to make games playable anyway.

edit:
prices went up! thanks AMD
EVGA super super clocked for 309.00 AR and Free Backplate + Batman: Arkham Knight Game.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487088&cm_re=gtx970-_-14-487-088-_-Product

welcome to the forums gamermad

 

[happy medium]

If you are planning to go 4K in near future I don't think 970 is a good investment.

but a 4gb Fury is ? really?
It uses the same type of driver memory compression as a 970.

 

[cen1]

but a 4gb Fury is ? really?
It uses the same type of driver memory compression as a 970.

It's not problem in memory, 970 is simply too weak to drive 4K.

 

[Elixer]

Originally, I was leaning toward the 970 until the 3.5GB +.5GB thing came to light.

Don't know why people keep trying to push you to that gimped card, makes no sense.

If you want to stay @1080, then a 285(CF)/290/380/390 are just fine for that on AMD's side, you can also double up (crossfire) on those cards for more performance.
Actually, you might be able to score a cheap HD6950 as well, and have a crossfire system to hold you over until the end of the year.

On nvidia's side, 780, 960, (maybe even 980) but, I am thinking those might get a haircut when Fury comes out, as was mentioned, and do SLI for a bump in performance as well, as needed.

Guess it just boils down to, what games do you play the most, and, are you willing to do crossfire or SLI to get performance increases or not, but have more driver issues with some games.

If you can wait longer, and are not in a rush, I am sure that each camp is going to bring back their bundle of games for their cards, so you can then get some extra bonuses.

Heck, might even be better to wait for the holiday sales to get the best bang for the buck then, and then, you will have the full picture of everything that is going on, and can make a much more informed decision.

 

[happy medium]

Don't know why people keep trying to push you to that gimped card, makes no sense.

I ask this question to you.
Why would he not buy a gtx970?
I will remind you that all the cards you have mentioned are not powerfull enough to utilize 4gb of vram. 290x,390,gtx970, none of them . You can throw the gtx980 in there as well.

If he waits for the holidays, he's better off waiting 6 more months for the new cards to come out next year.

Oh yea and crossfire 2 6950's with 2gb of gimped ram? That's slower than 1 gtx970! why?

 

[xthetenth]

Unless going to 4K is soon which doesn't seem to be the case (he wants a single card), a 970 now and keeping the difference for a next generation card when 4K from one card likely makes more sense financially, although a Fury may be useful for a year or a bit more of gaming at higher settings and allow a bit more flexibility in when to buy a 4K monitor. The question is whether that'll be a difference worth eating the greater depreciation on a $550 card vs. a $330 card.

 

[Elixer]

I ask this question to you.
Why would he not buy a gtx970?
I will remind you that all the cards you have mentioned are not powerfull enough to utilize 4gb of vram. 290x,390,gtx970, none of them . You can throw the gtx980 in there as well.

Rather not rehash how the 970 is gimped, and the back story involved with that.

If he waits for the holidays, he's better off waiting 6 more months for the new cards to come out next year.

That is by no means assured on when the next card will come out.

Oh yea and crossfire 2 6950's with 2gb of gimped ram? That's slower than 1 gtx970! why?

Right, the 6950 has gimped RAM? Go troll someplace else.

You can find these cards very cheap these days, and it is just another option.

 

[GamerMAD]

Just to reiterate, I am not even considering going to 4K until a single GPU is capable of running games at High/Max settings. Hopefully, the price on 4K panels will have come down, and the technology improved, by that point. The target resolution is 1600 x 1200. If the monitor dies before then, I would probably get a cheap 1920 x 1080 one as an interim solution (which would still be a bit of an upgrade), rather then spend the $500+ to get a decent 1440p one.

I payed ~$550 for the 6950 when I purchased it and have had it for 4 years. My strategy for components has traditionally been to buy high end (not the the highest though), and then hold onto the components for at least 4 years. The GPU arena seems to be shaken up more often than the CPU side of things, hence I am going to try a different approach. The plan is to purchase a cheaper GPU (hence the price range), but instead upgrade every couple of years.

 

[raghu78]

OP the R9 390 offers the best price/perf . That combined with the 8 GB makes it a safer bet as far as games for today and the future are concerned. R9 390(1010 Mhz) is 7-8% slower than R9 390X (1050 mhz). At the same clocks that perf gap is 5% and its 100 bucks less. Its a no-brainer.

http://www.computerbase.de/2015-06/amd-radeon-r9-390x-390-380-r7-370-test/3/

 

[IEC]

Another vote for 390. Just like the 290 before it, it looks like the perf/$ leader.

 

[DapDingo]

I would get the 290, or the 970 if you want a little more. The whole 3.5gb thing will definitely not affect you at 1080. At 1440p, very few situations in very few games will bottleneck the VRAM before the 970's horsepower. Even 2gb can hard to fill at 1080. The 290 for $270 on newegg is an amazing deal. The only reason to get the 300 series from AMD is if you want to do multi gpu setup for 4k, which even then wouldn't reasonable play well.

If you can find a 6950 for less than $50 and already have the PSU and MOBO, it might be an OK upgrade. Considering your system is kind of old, you might need a new PSU if you go this route, so I wouldn't recommend getting another 6950.

 

[Mondozei]

I am going to doing a new PC build with the Skylake launch. My Phenom II x4 955BE and 2GB MSI HD6950 simply are not cutting it anymore. I will probably be making a thread in the coming weeks in the General Hardware section regarding suggestions for some other parts, but I would like some detailed input on the GPU.

I do not know the specifics of the build yet, but it will include:

• I7 6700K
• 8-16GB RAM

I have been looking at monitors for awhile now, and while 4K seems nice, the fact that it requires multi-card setups is a turn-off. I also like to run at max settings. It seems that getting a 1440p monitor at this point would be a bit counter productive, as 4K seems to be the next mainstream resolution. I paid about $700-$800 for my current monitor, a Dell 2001 FP, back in 2005. It has served me well all these years and still works (though the backlight might be getting dimmer). In order to justify spending a similar amount of money, I would need to get something that would last a comparable amount of time. Given the single GPU requirement, I think it best if I hold onto my current monitor until we jump to 16nm and hopefully have single cards that can drive 4K. Worse case my monitor dies, and I pickup a cheap 1080p monitor to tide me over.

Originally, I was leaning toward the 970 until the 3.5GB +.5GB thing came to light. I then decided I would see what AMD was coming out with due to the rumors, maybe it would have convinced me to spend more on the GPU than I had planned. In waiting I of course missed all the good 290/290X deals. I cannot say that the 300 series appeals to me given that I could have had something similar for $100 cheaper had I not waited. Fiji XT was a bit of a disappointment, and I do not see Fiji Pro being worthwhile to justify the price of $550. Likewise my monitor is DVI-D so, Fiji cards would require an upgrade which I would rather not do right now given the state of the technology.

So I here I am seeking advice for make and model.

The following are my needs.

• Drive games with at or near max settings at 1600 x 1200/ 1920 x 1080 (worst case).
• Fit my budget of $300-$400 US.
• DVI output. Monitor supports DVI-D.
• Preferably sold by Newegg or Amazon.

I am willing to be a bit flexible with the first two items, within reason. I cannot say I have any great preference for brand, though I find myself looking at the 970s again.

At 1080p, NV has a clear edge over AMD. Look into buying a used GTX 980 on ebay/craigslist. EVGA's ACX 2.0 is the best card(least amount of noise and least amount of coil whine).

If you must have a new card, your options are more limited. A decent 970 would be good, again EVGA's would be a decent choice. I'd still say take the used 980 if you can. But any way you cut it, at 1080p NV has a clear edge over AMD plus your time horizon is not several years so very long driver support(which AMD is better at than NV) is less of an issue.

 

[GamerMAD]

I am definitely leaning towards the 390 after looking into it a bit more. Are there any brand suggestions? I am having a hard time finding non-video reviews specifically for the 390, but most seem to be for the MSI R9 390 Gaming.

 

[moonbogg]

I am definitely leaning towards the 390 after looking into it a bit more. Are there any brand suggestions? I am having a hard time finding non-video reviews specifically for the 390, but most seem to be for the MSI R9 390 Gaming.

Just read the reviews for the 290/290x and look at the overclocked performance. That's what you are getting with more Vram.