C2Q GFX update making sense for the next half year?

[Icaros]

Hi all,

I have a C2Q Q9400 with 6 gb memory and a Geforce 8800 GT. (Motherboard is an Asus P5W DH deluxe).

I plan to build a new rig around Christmas (I'm waiting for Skylake). I generally like to upgrade and build things when a new technology comes out and hold on to it for a long time (I build my rig with a C2D in 2006 and have upgraded everything but the motherboard since).

Now I am looking a little at graphics for the coming rig and as far as I can see no major new architectures will be launching prior to 2016.

Therefore I am wondering if I'm as well off buying a graphics card now as an upgrade and carrying it on to the new platform. I know anything I buy now (that should also drive a 4k setup on my next platform) will be bottlenecked by the rest of the system, but if I don't get much more for my money in half a year I might as well upgrade now.

So: Will an upgrade now make sense, or will it be too serverely bottlenecked (or alternatively too severely bottleneck my next rig)?

Will I gain a lot from waiting and building a full system?

I am thinking a Geforce 960 would be the sort of card I'd be aiming for in my next rig. It also has a TDP close to the 8800GT I have now (120 w vs. 105), so I'm thinking my 430 watt PSU will be able to handle it.

Thanks in advance.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Upgrade to a GTX960 would be fine. You get much more than the 8800GT today. And when you move to Skylake you can unlock whatever left of performance there is.

 

[NTMBK]

Sounds like a good plan. You'll get a nice boost in GPU limited games (or be able to crank up the eye candy in CPU limited games).

 

[MeldarthX]

11 days until we know about 300 series from AMD; might as well as wait to see what happens with prices - as those new releases could be better than the 960....if not; you at least most likely could get the 960 cheaper....either way worth the wait to see

Also GCN is evolving; even Arctic Islands will be next step in GCN; its a very forward thinking arc

 

[Icaros]

11 days until we know about 300 series from AMD; might as well as wait to see what happens with prices - as those new releases could be better than the 960....if not; you at least most likely could get the 960 cheaper....either way worth the wait to see

Also GCN is evolving; even Arctic Islands will be next step in GCN; its a very forward thinking arc

I was planning to wait for the 300 series launch. But that's the only major launch in the coming year, right? - and it's only the top model that's real news, as far as I've read.

Would a 970 be overkill? - I'm worrying a little about the 960 driving a 4k display in the winter.

 

[NTMBK]

I was planning to wait for the 300 series launch. But that's the only major launch in the coming year, right? - and it's only the top model that's real news, as far as I've read.

Would a 970 be overkill? - I'm worrying a little about the 960 driving a 4k display in the winter.

Frankly, any current graphics card is going to struggle with 4K resolutions.

 

[MeldarthX]

I was planning to wait for the 300 series launch. But that's the only major launch in the coming year, right? - and it's only the top model that's real news, as far as I've read.

Would a 970 be overkill? - I'm worrying a little about the 960 driving a 4k display in the winter.

Depends honestly what you want to do on 4k display; 290X is better actually at 4k than 970.....300 series we honestly don't know what's coming everything is rumors

we'll know in week and half; after that we'll be in a better position to answer that question.

For just normal 4k; 960/280x/290 is fine to drive; gaming; not even TitanX by its self can drive everything on 4k - where you need sli or crossfire.

 

[psolord]

I had posted a comparison between overclocked Q9550,i7 860 and core i5 2500k paired with my GTX 970 a while back.

The Q9550 performed quite well, but not stellar, which was to be expected.

In these benchmarks, where you see that the Q9550 is the clear limit, your stock Q9400 would give around 2/3 of the performance.

Still, if you are planning to go 4K, you need the best card(s) money can buy. Even your Q9400 will do fine for 4K, because everything will run at 30-40fps anyway.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Would a 970 be overkill? - I'm worrying a little about the 960 driving a 4k display in the winter.

I personally wouldn't go with less than a 970 in a new build if gaming is involved, but as NTMBK pointed out, most current cards will struggle with 4K at this stage.

My brother is itching for an upgrade from his 560 Ti and wants to pull the trigger on a 960 and I am begging and pleading with him to save a little more and go with a 970 instead and he doesn't even have a 4K monitor.

 

[ShintaiDK]

For the long run the 970 is absolutely better. 4GB and much faster. But it also cost 120$ more. But still something you could get away with without a PSU upgrade. Assuming its not a complete rubbish PSU.

 

[crisium]

What PSU do you have, OP?

A 290 is barely more expensive than a 960 and is actually faster than a 970 at 2160, so if your PSU can handle it that's a better choice. Of course, I'd wait for the new AMD cards to see if anything changes in that price range.

 

[iiiankiii]

Hi all,

I have a C2Q Q9400 with 6 gb memory and a Geforce 8800 GT. (Motherboard is an Asus P5W DH deluxe).

I plan to build a new rig around Christmas (I'm waiting for Skylake). I generally like to upgrade and build things when a new technology comes out and hold on to it for a long time (I build my rig with a C2D in 2006 and have upgraded everything but the motherboard since).

Now I am looking a little at graphics for the coming rig and as far as I can see no major new architectures will be launching prior to 2016.

Therefore I am wondering if I'm as well off buying a graphics card now as an upgrade and carrying it on to the new platform. I know anything I buy now (that should also drive a 4k setup on my next platform) will be bottlenecked by the rest of the system, but if I don't get much more for my money in half a year I might as well upgrade now.

So: Will an upgrade now make sense, or will it be too serverely bottlenecked (or alternatively too severely bottleneck my next rig)?

Will I gain a lot from waiting and building a full system?

I am thinking a Geforce 960 would be the sort of card I'd be aiming for in my next rig. It also has a TDP close to the 8800GT I have now (120 w vs. 105), so I'm thinking my 430 watt PSU will be able to handle it.

Thanks in advance.

Do you play games? If you do, don't expect a gtx 960 to run well at 4k resolution. No freaking way. You're going to need the top of the line GPU to drive 4k gaming. I'm talking about Titan X, GTX 980TI & FIJI level GPUs.

If that's the Corsair CX 430watt, you drive a 290x with it. I've done it for over 6 months. It works fine. No shut down or crashes. I don't know about other PSU. I can't vouche for that.

If you want bang for the buck, grab an AIB R9 290. You can get those for around $250 and it would offer nearly 50 PERCENT more performance.

Or, you can wait for the lower stacks from AMD that will be coming soon. I am confident the R9 380 4GB will slaughter GTX 960 2GB.

 

[ShintaiDK]

A 290/290X means new PSU for the OP.

Or, you can wait for the lower stacks from AMD that will be coming soon. I am confident the R9 380 4GB will slaughter GTX 960 2GB.

Thats incredible optimistic to put it mildly.

 

[TemjinGold]

Why are you posting a 1080p chart when the OP is doing 4k?

 

[Icaros]

I have a Seasonic 430 w PSU. It was a quality unit back when bought in 2006, with emphasis aI have a Seasonic 430 w PSU. It was a quality unit back when bought in 2006, with emphasis on quiet operation.

I’m wary of going to the AMD offerings as they seem much higher power and I generally value quiet operation and low power. This not as important when gaming however. I also plan to make my next build a small form factor, so I generally want to keep the thermal budget down.

I play world of tanks and plan to play some similar games. Plus Europa Universalis IV and some RPGs.

I won’t switch to 4k before I build a new rig, and I am not sure if I will want to game on full 4k; I often play games windowed 1600x900 on my 1200p monitor, so I might often want 3200x1800 or similar for multitasking.

The GTX 960 has fixed function HEVC hardware decode, is that a big plus for playback of 4k content (and power consumption/noise during playback)?

I will be waiting for the coming launch, but right now I am weighing a shorter term investment in 960 vs. a longer term 970. Does 4GB make sense on the 960 although it gets it halway to the 970 pricewise?

 

[ShintaiDK]

For 4K playback you want GCN 1.2(Currently only R9 285), nVidia or using the IGP with Skylake.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8460/amd-radeon-r9-285-review/4

 

[nvgpu]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=37323490#post37323490

I downloaded the 720p and 4K versions of "Tears of Steel" from here : http://www.libde265.org/downloads-videos/

The 4K video had my i7-4790 running 35-45% total CPU usage across 8 cores (4 physical / 4 HT), and I could barely watch it. In VLC it was even worse -
it was a slideshow with massive artifacting and whatnot.

Only those with GTX 960s can play these back with hardware decode support right now. With 4-16x the processing needs for decode vs h.264, using just the CPU is pretty much not an option unless you're at 720p. I suspect a lot of lower-end CPUs would struggle with 1080p h.265.

4K HEVC video absolutely murders CPU software decoders, you don't want to be without a HEVC hardware decoder in your GPU.

GTX 960(GM206) is the only discrete GPU with it currently, Pascal would most likely have it throughout the entire family because it's a much wanted feature.

 

[Icaros]

For 4K playback you want GCN 1.2(Currently only R9 285), nVidia or using the IGP with Skylake.

So you're saying that both GTX 960 and 970 will be good for this? - I assume that there's no workaround for using functions like this from the IGP while having a discreet video card yet, right?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=37323490#post37323490

4K HEVC video absolutely murders CPU software decoders, you don't want to be without a HEVC hardware decoder in your GPU.

So this points to the 960? Will I actually see H. 265 stuff around in the coming years though, or is this something that is, say, a 2017 thing so I am likely to want a new video card anyway?

 

[ShintaiDK]

960 and 970 is perfectly fine. Both also got HDMI 2.0 if you one day want 4K60Hz on a 4K TV.

Well you can use the IGP, but that requires lucid support. And it depends on motherboard.

 

[nvgpu]

GTX970/980(GM204) doesn't have the HEVC hardware decoder like GTX 960(GM206) does though.

 

[Kenmitch]

I have a Seasonic 430 w PSU. It was a quality unit back when bought in 2006, with emphasis aI have a Seasonic 430 w PSU. It was a quality unit back when bought in 2006, with emphasis on quiet operation.

I’m wary of going to the AMD offerings as they seem much higher power and I generally value quiet operation and low power. This not as important when gaming however. I also plan to make my next build a small form factor, so I generally want to keep the thermal budget down.

I play world of tanks and plan to play some similar games. Plus Europa Universalis IV and some RPGs.

I won’t switch to 4k before I build a new rig, and I am not sure if I will want to game on full 4k; I often play games windowed 1600x900 on my 1200p monitor, so I might often want 3200x1800 or similar for multitasking.

The GTX 960 has fixed function HEVC hardware decode, is that a big plus for playback of 4k content (and power consumption/noise during playback)?

I will be waiting for the coming launch, but right now I am weighing a shorter term investment in 960 vs. a longer term 970. Does 4GB make sense on the 960 although it gets it halway to the 970 pricewise?

Power supply probably has degraded already. Might want to think about replacing it also. I wouldn't base a GPU purchase on it as it's going not going to last forever.

 

[Headfoot]

Wait to buy your card with your whole build. Buying a bad card like the 960 in advance, only to be replaced with something that isnt junk when you do the rest. Any good video card upgrades are going to require you to get a new PSU. If you're okay staggering your purchases you could do PSU + Video card now as if you're buying it for an August Skylake build, and move those parts over.

You're going to want to replace that PSU, nearly 10 years is a good lifespan for that but if your PSU goes it takes a lot of other components with it. I wouldn't change the load on it now, get a new PSU. PSUs are much cheaper than they have been.

Wait until the 16th and see what AMD is dropping, and re evaluate the market then. Now is literally the worst time to buy a video card.

 

[atticus14]

With a node change and a hopefully significant architecture change next year, it is a bad time to attempt to future proof a GPUs purchase...but it's still a long time to wait.

 

[riversend]

I agree with Headfoot that you either wait for the entire build, or wait until after the 16th of June and then do a GPU + PSU upgrade with the mobo/CPU/RAM in the fall/early winter.

By purchasing the GPU and PSU now, it will stagger your costs and allow you to make more discrete decisions about the rest of the build later. I find it harder to build an entire system at once, but concentrating on one or two issues at a pop is simpler to tackle.

Pretty much any PSU you purchase now will be good in the future since most CPU/GPU designs these days are aiming toward lower power consumption... unless you determine you need to go SLI/Crossfire with top of the line or overclocked cards - but you probably already know whether you are inclined to do that or not.

 

[xthetenth]

If you are planning to upgrade your CPU early in the lifespan of the GPU, I wouldn't worry about the current CPU bottlenecking it at all.