Advice on new card, more i read the more i get confused

[borderdeal]

I recently upgrade to a 49" 4k Monitor and a 290 cannot handle 4k at all. Even if I lower the settings. 4k is just too much. I used the dying light demo and at 4k I could not get acceptable frame rate . I lowered the resolution to 1440p and I can run it at the highest with good frame rate to have FreeSync working. The thing is that it looks better with high settings at 1440p than 4k with medium settings and it is really smooth where 4k thanks pretty bad.

I will be setting a second 290 card that I got and I am currently testing (got it from ebay for only $102 shipped because it was overheating) So I will have a crossfire setup for about $300 once u count the AIO cooling and the adapter for the card. Will see how it runs. But man 4k is brutal on the 290. I have also tested Farcry 3 and again at 4k it thanks pretty bard even if I go to medium settings. It can run fine at 1440p at ultra settings though. I lowered it to very high though because in some parts it would get less than 42 FPS and that would feel really weird when it is not in FreeSync range. It stutters for a few seconds (2-3) so I decided to lower the resolution one notch and that solved the problem. I doubt u will make a 970 work at 4k even if you lower the settings. So get a used 290 or 290x or at least a 980 and OC the pants out of it and see if that can run it (but I doubt it).

I went from a 7870 GHz edition ( I tried it and it failed hard even at 1440p) bit it ran pretty much anything at 1080p. FarCry 3 I ran at very high and it was fine. My card was factory OC to 1.1 GHz and I believe 1200 MHz on the memory. It might be another option to hold you over until next gen cards hit. A Used 7870 or 270x should be ok for 1080p

 

[chris285]

When I said star citizen probably full detail is pushing it too much, right now I get 20fps in the hanger on default settings so something smoother would be nice but I haven't touched it in a while so it may have been optimised better

For a single car I shouldn't have power issues, I currently have a 800w cooler master gold series psu so hopefully should cope with most cards

I wouldn't buy a card for a specific game that I play, project cars is my latest purchase but not my sole game so I try to look at things as a whole. Like mentioned id be tempted by the 390 for the reasons mentioned so will look at pricing on that too

 

[tential]

Even the unloved 960 (find a 4gb for $199) will be a big step forward from that 650 Ti, but a 970 will give you a lot more bang and longevity. I don't think you're going to find a card today that's going to push a 4K game 2-3 years from now. Save your bucks, and buy a new $350 card 2 years from now, instead of $650 now.

Why do you guys keep recommending the 960? This is the same as the gtx 770 2gb. A horrendous choice moving forward.

 

[tential]

Also a 980ti on a 1080p screen is fine multiple members are doing it. With dsr it's definitely worth it. I would get a 980ti for dsr at 1080p but I'm getting a 4k screen and freesync instead

 

[tential]

I recently upgrade to a 49" 4k Monitor and a 290 cannot handle 4k at all. Even if I lower the settings. 4k is just too much. I used the dying light demo and at 4k I could not get acceptable frame rate . I lowered the resolution to 1440p and I can run it at the highest with good frame rate to have FreeSync working. The thing is that it looks better with high settings at 1440p than 4k with medium settings and it is really smooth where 4k thanks pretty bad.

I will be setting a second 290 card that I got and I am currently testing (got it from ebay for only $102 shipped because it was overheating) So I will have a crossfire setup for about $300 once u count the AIO cooling and the adapter for the card. Will see how it runs. But man 4k is brutal on the 290. I have also tested Farcry 3 and again at 4k it thanks pretty bard even if I go to medium settings. It can run fine at 1440p at ultra settings though. I lowered it to very high though because in some parts it would get less than 42 FPS and that would feel really weird when it is not in FreeSync range. It stutters for a few seconds (2-3) so I decided to lower the resolution one notch and that solved the problem. I doubt u will make a 970 work at 4k even if you lower the settings. So get a used 290 or 290x or at least a 980 and OC the pants out of it and see if that can run it (but I doubt it).

I went from a 7870 GHz edition ( I tried it and it failed hard even at 1440p) bit it ran pretty much anything at 1080p. FarCry 3 I ran at very high and it was fine. My card was factory OC to 1.1 GHz and I believe 1200 MHz on the memory. It might be another option to hold you over until next gen cards hit. A Used 7870 or 270x should be ok for 1080p

Please make a post describing your setup later once it's setup. It's the exact setup I'm getting except I'm getting a 65 inch freesync model. Otherwise 2 r9 290s in cf +4k freesync.

 

[borderdeal]

Will do. I am upgrading the PS to a 1k one (currently have a 750 watt one but I want to make sure I am safe) and installing the AIO on the card hopefully tonight. Second card will be an air cooled Sapphire Tri-x. Will make a post under display units. I do not have many installed games besides the Dying light demo, FarCry 3 and Hitman absolution. Will see if I can install Crysis 3 and test it but I know it will destroy even the CF

 

[RussianSensation]

When I said star citizen probably full detail is pushing it too much, right now I get 20fps in the hanger on default settings so something smoother would be nice but I haven't touched it in a while so it may have been optimised better

When is the retail release of that title, 2017? Since Star Citizen is a moving target as far as release date goes, I bet neither NV nor AMD have optimized their drivers for the game yet. Also, I would think right now NV's cards would have a huge advantage in Star Citizen in DX11 because AMD seems to be going with Mantle for this title. But since neither Mantle support, nor AMD's drivers have optimized for Star Citizen, it's impossible to say where the performance will end up in the final game.

I think if I wanted to play Star Citizen now and until the release of the game I would buy an NV card because I just don't see AMD optimizing SC for DX11 if the game will support Mantle instead. But maybe you need to research forums online to find out what the current performance is.

Last time I checked, the performance in SC was all over the place, with 780Ti beating Titan X/980, while AMD cards were simply bombing.

If you are playing GTA V, Project CARS and SC, for your use case, I'd go GTX970 over 390 and 980 over 390X. Personally, I'd go 970 because it's a great stop-gap card until 16nm 8GB+ HBM2 GPUs. If you need more performance for the final SC release, just upgrade in 2017-2018. 980 has an unjustifiable premium over the 970 that you are better off using towards a 16nm GPU upgrade imho.

 

[Sabrewings]

Also, I would think right now NV's cards would have a huge advantage in Star Citizen in DX11 because AMD seems to be going with Mantle for this title. But since neither Mantle support, nor AMD's drivers have optimized for Star Citizen, it's impossible to say where the performance will end up in the final game.

Quite dated info there, seeing how Mantle has practically been killed in the two years since that article.

See below for current info, but the general idea is DX12/Vulkan:

www.gamersnexus.net/gg/2114-chris-roberts-star-citizen-on-dx12-vulkan-and-tech

 

[xorbe]

Why do you guys keep recommending the 960? This is the same as the gtx 770 2gb. A horrendous choice moving forward.

That's why I called it unloved, and recommended the 970 as having more bang and longevity ... not sure how much clearly I could have stated it. Was just calling out how slow the 650 Ti is, even compared to the 960.

 

[tential]

Quite dated info there, seeing how Mantle has practically been killed in the two years since that article.

See below for current info, but the general idea is DX12/Vulkan:

www.gamersnexus.net/gg/2114-chris-roberts-star-citizen-on-dx12-vulkan-and-tech

Interesting read was published today too!

 

[MongGrel]

Even the unloved 960 (find a 4gb for $199) will be a big step forward from that 650 Ti, but a 970 will give you a lot more bang and longevity. I don't think you're going to find a card today that's going to push a 4K game 2-3 years from now. Save your bucks, and buy a new $350 card 2 years from now, instead of $650 now.

I'm voting this one.

Personally, I'd go 970 because it's a great stop-gap card until 16nm 8GB+ HBM2 GPUs.

 

[Azix]

Any decent card is a great stop-gap. I think we should be shooting for 2017 to upgrade rather than next year. Most will be happy with the performance boost from dx12 in 2016 not to need to upgrade during a potentially shaky transition to smaller processes.

 

[chris285]

Well in the end I decided to go for a 970 card, right now a lot of the games I play are nvidia favorite games and it's less hassle to switch over and I can't me finding in 2 years suddenly I am unable to play the games. I ended up ordering the following:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-006-GX&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1010

 

[tg2708]

Yea getting my xfx 290 for $195 was a really deal. While I cant max every game at 1440p the extra vram coming from a 770 allowed me to turn up the settings I could actually see that made a difference to visual IQ.

 

[slag]

Whatever you do, dont waste money on 8GB of RAM. You will not use that much RAM if you stay at 1080p. Dont try gaming beyond 1080p unless you are ready to drop $1000 (between the display and the card, this is a minimum unavoidable price floor). By next summer the floor might be $750. By spring of 2017 the floor will hopefully be $500.

I game beyond 1080p and didn't spend that much, even years ago including the monitor.

my monitor does 1920x1200 and its a 3-4 year old 28 inch lcd that microcenter had for $300.00. The video card is a newer r9 390.. but nowhere near 1k for what I paid for both items.

Granted, its barely more than 1080p, but it is a higher resolution.

 

[Azix]

Probably should have read that other thread about GPU advice. Going forward you do not want a 970. Though you will be happy with i (actual differences aren't easy to spot) but you'd get better performance from a 290x/390 generally.

On older games,even if they favor nvidia, perf is good on AMD.

On many upcoming games the price competitors of the 970 will be better. Except Ark.

 

[Sabrewings]

Granted, its barely more than 1080p, but it is a higher resolution.

Lol. That's only an 11% increase in pixels. Hardly noticeable in the grand scheme for graphics cards. Usually 1080p and 1920x1200 are considered the same resolution for benching purposes.