Question What GPU to get in the $200 range? Should I buy used?

[Gorrillasnot]

The last decent GPU i had was a HD 6870 that I used until it died then I got a cheap GT 545 for low end gaming, then I took a break from gaming and still use the GT 545 just to have video out (cpu has no onboard), now I've got the itch to get back into gaming but I'm on a limited budget of $200 max which brings me to my question.

Buy a used 1070 for $170ish or buy something new? If new what could beat a 1070 in the $200 price range?

thanks

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Looks like this thread was a hit and run. Op has not posted back as of yet. And if he does, and has not bought a card, I will sell him a 1070 that has never been mined on, for $130 shipped. Just because I like to upset the apple cart. As for the rest of you, don't start flooding me with I CAN HAZ?!? PMs just yet. OP has dibs if he wants it. Besides it is the Gigabyte Blower model so not the most desirable of 1070s. Though it has been a peach in my son's rig before upgrading him to a 2060 Super. He games with a headset, so blower noise complaints were non existent. Orange you glad I used the fruit references? I'll show myself out.

 

[lobz]

Looks like this thread was a hit and run. Op has not posted back as of yet. And if he does, and has not bought a card, I will sell him a 1070 that has never been mined on, for $130 shipped. Just because I like to upset the apple cart. As for the rest of you, don't start flooding me with I CAN HAZ?!? PMs just yet. OP has dibs if he wants it. Besides it is the Gigabyte Blower model so not the most desirable of 1070s. Though it has been a peach in my son's rig before upgrading him to a 2060 Super. He games with a headset, so blower noise complaints were non existent. Orange you glad I used the fruit references? I'll show myself out.

I all haz ready

 

[jhansman]

As you can see in my sig, I'm running a Radeon RX 570, and honestly it handles everything I throw at it (Wolfenstein Youngblood, Doom, MW5) without much stress. The 8GB copy ran me about $140, dollars well spent in my view.

 

[Arkaign]

Seems like 1070 and 1660 Super trade blows. Probably due to Nvidia not prioritizing drivers for Pascal any more though, since it seems it's mostly newer games where the 1660 Super outperforms the 1070. For instance, techpowerup has the 1660S ahead of the 1070 by about 6% in AC Odyssey at 1080p and 14% at 1440p. For Control the 1660S is 13% faster at 1080p and 14% at 1440p. Though Metro Exodus the 1070 wins by about 6% at 1080p and 4% at 1440p. On an old game like The Witcher 3 it's a 7% win for 1070 at 1080p and a 6% win at 1440p. In their overall testsuite of 22 games they have the 1660S and 1070 basically equal at 1080p and 1440p.

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 Super AMP Review

ZOTAC brings us a practical GeForce GTX 1660 Super graphics card that comes with a factory overclock and just enough features to get your gaming rig up and going without it breaking the bank - the price increase over MSRP is $20.

www.techpowerup.com

This is good info, but I do have to add an addendum that is a byproduct of what I strongly suspect is influence by AMD and Nvidia both : Pascal 1070/1080 benches compared to future releases of 1080ti and beyond are nearly invariably the slow FE editions complete with 10gbps VRAM.

The initial 1070/1080 AIBs were a fair bit quicker, then the later 11gbps VRAM silent refresh of Pascal moved later 1070 and 1080 AIBs a bit beyond that even. I had a Strix 1080 that was often 15%+ faster than 1080FE.

Therefore a stock 1070 of a decent later gen AIB model will be quite a lot faster than the old FEs. And because the FEs were expensive, and quickly pointless to buy thanks to mediocre blower fans and slow clocks, I almost never actually see them IRL, only in benchmarks, probably 98% or more of 1070/1080s in the wild are AIBs, and maybe a third of them are 11gbps refresh models.

 

[Arkaign]

This is probably kept as review comparison to help make newer cards look better than they actually are. No matter what it is, comparing it to worst case FE benches makes it look better than comparing against competent 11gbps AIBs with considerably better clocks.

From Guru3d review of 1080/11g/Strix for example :

"The new STRIX is impressive. Let's face it, the default tweaked performance is roughly the same on all these cards, the extra memory does kick in. Where the card shines, however, is its amazing cooling performance, this card is running below 60 Degrees C under full load! Once you compare all the way back to a reference (Founders edition) GeForce GTX 1080 and apply a tweak and have this new 11 Gbps memory, you can gain up to 20% in performance. And that certainly is interesting. "

 

[Rustler]

MSI GTX 1660 VENTUS XS 6G OC
I just ordered this from Newegg $209. replacing a Gtx760.

 

[Charlie98]

MSI GTX 1660 VENTUS XS 6G OC
I just ordered this from Newegg $209. replacing a Gtx760.

Actually... I was just looking at that very same swap last night... thinking of retiring my EVGA GTX760 for a GTX1660 or 1060. I'm cheap, so I'll probably go with the 1060...

 

[Rustler]

What is even better y GTX760 has to have both power connectors plugged in the MSI GTX only needs 1 6 pin connector...............much less power use and better performance.....

 

[VirtualLarry]

What's a good GPU for a Haswell G3258 (dual-core) @ 4.2Ghz? Something not too expensive, and doesn't take too many CPU cycles (since there aren't that many with a dual-core)?

Or is this all a pointless exercise, for a dual-core in 2020 for gaming, and I should just stick with something for display-output only (4K UHD capable)?

Right now, I have an MSI 1GB GDDR5 (I think 128-bit) GT 740 (Kepler) in there. There is a PCI-E 6+2 power available, but unused by the current card.

I could drop in an RX 580, RX 470, and I sold someone my RX 570, that has to go out soon. But doesn't the AMD cards have a higher driver overhead than NV?

I'm not necessarily looking at new cards, only if they're a bargain. CPU was used from ebay, mobo was factory refurb from Newegg, PSU is new Corsair CX450, case is used, have a Gammaxx 400 cooler on there (should be good to max out whatever overclock CPU+board card muster. I haven't completely game-stress-tested the 4.2Ghz OC yet.)

Was contemplating a GTX 750 or GTX 750 ti (Chineseum edition) from Newegg 3rd-party sellers, then I saw some under-$100 RX 550 4GB and RX 560 4GB.

Then again, I can even get a brand-new RX 570 4GB from ASRock for $100-110 @ Newegg. For the money, that's probably the best deal, more or less, but then I worry about the CPU overhead on the drivers, and it seemed from what I read that games performed better (less stuttering) with this CPU, in GPU-limited situations, rather than CPU-limited.

I probably should have just gotten a 4670K or something, and maybe I still will, but the G3258 was $13 + tax, it seemed like a no-brainer to get this system up and running. I only have 2x2GB DDR3 in there now, too, which is a bit too little for modern gaming, in fact, even a 4GB card like the RX 550/560/570 probably won't work with only 4GB of system RAM anyways, so probably I'm best off with a 1GB or possible 2GB card like I have in there already, and just accept that this sort of rig with only a dual-core (even overclocked past 4Ghz), and only 4GB of DDR3, won't be playing most "modern" titles. It's barely-capable as a browser-box as it is. I guess that it would play Facebook games for some Grandma somewhere.

Would it be an improvement over an FM1 quad-core APU, that's a quad-core @ 2.1Ghz max? Dual-core Haswell @ 4.2Ghz? It might seem snappier for browsing, with the better ST performance. Also, the FM1 iGPU is pretty limited these days as far as driver support and updates go, in Win7 64-bit and especially Win10 64-bit.

I think that the dual-core Haswell w/GT 740 would be a "win" there. Maybe I'll approach that person and offer it to them.

Edit: Actually, that person's FM1 rig, that I supplied the parts for, but didn't build, has 2x4GB DDR3 in it. If I were to give them this rig, I could swap the RAM, and put 8GB into the Haswell rig, and then, possibly drop in my slightly-used (mining) RX 470 w/DVI-D output (only). That might make it pretty decently-capable, and they would be able to watch advanced YouTube with the VP9 decode (I know, I know, hybrid on Polaris).

Or maybe I should forget about the Haswell rig, and just give them my Ryzen APU 2400G rig, and call it a day.

Or leave this person alone, just because I have spare computers, doesn't mean that they want to upgrade. Although, I should point out that Windows 7 64-bit is no longer supported for updates.

 

[Arkaign]

Used 750ti will make it a super budget Fortnite box, the drivers are incredibly mature and low impact (uncheck GeForce Experience though!).

550 is just a terrible SKU, one of the worst in recent memory. The OG 1650 non super was bad, but mostly mispriced for what it was (and AIBs not making them low profile bus-powered, which is exactly the niche that they fit decently). The older RX460, which while not a barn burner, is wildly faster than the 550 while usually being cheaper.

 

[Arkaign]

Show potential buyers this video, along with the info that down the road they could :

Drop a cheap E3-12xx v3 Xeon 4C/8T in
Upgrade to cheap 2x4GB DDR3
Upgrade GPU

To keep it respectable for a number of years at minimal investment

 

[ZGR]

A 1070 below $200 is an easy recommendation.