Graphical card : performance and longevity ?

[torriep000]

Hello,

Sorry for my bad English (I'm French).
I need some help to find a new graphic card after my 7 years old “Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 7950 950 Mhz 3 Go PCI-Express 16x” just died (artifacts on the screen each time I boot) :

- Case Fractal Design Define R4 - Black Pearl
- Motherboard MSI Z77A-G45 (ATX/Intel Socket 1155)
- CPU Intel Ivy Bridge CPU Core i5-3570K / 3.80 GHz 4 cores Socket-LGA1155 6 Mo Cache
- DEAD Graphical card Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 7950 950 Mhz 3 Go PCI-Express 16x
- 16Go Corsair CMX8GX3M2A1333C9 XMS3 8GB (4x4GB) DDR3 1333 Mhz CL9 (changed 2 years ago)
- Power supply EVGA 100-W1-0600-K2 Alimentation PC 600 W. (changed 2 years ago)

I prefer to keep my “old” configuration for the moment as my motherboard and CPU are still functionning. I know that DDR3, the socket of my motherboard and the CPU are way too old, but for the moment, it doesn't stop me to play latest games on medium medium/high quality because with a 7 years old graphic card, I knew I couldn't have better.
I also know that my CPU will be limit the performance of my new graphic card but I know that, when my CPU and/or motherboard will die, I will enjoy the full capacity of my graphic card. (and with a 7 years old CPU/motherboard, if they don't die alone, I might change them in 2 years).

I didn't follow news about hardware recently, so I need some help to find the best graphical card for my budget, please.

To know what I'm looking for my new graphical card, I think you might know what I use it for : the last 7 years, I play the most of the time to sports games (FIFA, NBA 2K, Football Manager, Rocket League, F1, etc.), but also games like “Call of Duty” or “Assassin's Creed”. What I liked with my actual dead graphical card is that 7 years later, I still could play games like FIFA in high resolution/details, and medium medium/high with other games.
For my new graphical card, this is what I'm looking for : performance and longevity.

I don't have a preference for AMD or NVidia.
My budget is around 500€ (I'm from France), I could raise the budget a little if I'm winning in longevity with.

Thank you a lot for your help.

Goodbye

 

[Flayed]

If you want longevity you could add a fan to the side panel of your R4 which would reduce the card temperature.
I'd suggest a 5700XT which would be slightly under budget or a 2070 Super which would be slightly over budget.

 

[Stuka87]

My suggestion would be the same as Flayed. The 5700XT should fit inside your budget, but I am not sure if you guys have VAT and such that makes everything more expensive. A 2070S would also be a good card, its a little faster than the 5700XT.

If you go with the 5700XT, the Sapphire Pulse is currently the best bang for buck at $409 USD.

 

[guachi]

If you were in America and could find the card, I'd suggest the Sapphire Pulse 5700XT as well.

However, it might not be available where you are and/or the price compared to a 2060 Super or 2070 Super might not be competitive.

You don't mention what resolution you are gaming at but the 5700XT and 2070 Super are both outstanding at 1080 and great at 1440, so if you have a 1080 monitor you can upgrade later and not feel like your GPU is letting you down.

Speed-wise, the 5700 XT is about 10% faster than the 2060 Super for the same price (in the US) and the 2070 Super is (at 1440) 6% faster than the 5700 XT for about 25% more.

The prices might be different in your region, but the performance really won't. So you should be able to make the value comparison yourself once you look at the prices.

But without knowing anything else, I'd suggest the Sapphire Pulse.

 

[potato masher]

I get the impression qc is a notch higher with team green than team red. At least my personal experience thru the years leads me to this belief. I have a hammered crusty 660ti that still works normally. I also have one rx580 that works fine, but I get strange cold boot behavior occasionally. I never get anything like that from my old nvidia stuff.

Personally don't worry about longevity though, by the time parts are out of warrantee they are depreciated. And used stuff is so cheap, just buy another one. Breakage happens seldom enough to me that most of my things come used. Like almost never seldom.

If I were you I would buy a rx580. I'd go used, but even forced to choose something new, rx 5something. Such a good deal, worth a (my perceived) step down in qc.

 

[potato masher]

I'm posting this on a work box with an old demoted 7600gt btw.. but the 660ti example is probably the oldest thing I have that get stressed. I can't think of an nvidia gpu that broke on me EVER. I don't have enough amd gpu's to gauge.

 

[Stuka87]

I get the impression qc is a notch higher with team green than team red. At least my personal experience thru the years leads me to this belief. I have a hammered crusty 660ti that still works normally. I also have one rx580 that works fine, but I get strange cold boot behavior occasionally. I never get anything like that from my old nvidia stuff.

Personally don't worry about longevity though, by the time parts are out of warrantee they are depreciated. And used stuff is so cheap, just buy another one. Breakage happens seldom enough to me that most of my things come used. Like almost never seldom.

If I were you I would buy a rx580. I'd go used, but even forced to choose something new, rx 5something. Such a good deal, worth a (my perceived) step down in qc.

For the most part, the same companies make cards for both nVidia and AMD. The only real standouts are EVGA which is nVidia only, and Sapphire which is AMD only. Otherwise ASUS, MSI, etc make cards for both.

 

[potato masher]

Gotcha, am only human. My personal experiences are going to bias my view. Not enough of a bias to sway me from going rx580 again though! Its such a smokin deal..

 

[AtenRa]

Sapphire RX 5700 Pulse at 399 Euro (amazon.fr) including VAT
https://www.amazon.fr/SAPPHIRE-Pulse-Radeon-GDDR6-Triple/dp/B07W369951/ref=sr_1_11?__mk_fr_FR=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&keywords=rx+5700+xt&qid=1567097373&s=gateway&sr=8-11

Sapphire RX 5700XT Pulse at 442 Euro (amazon.fr) including VAT
https://www.amazon.fr/SAPPHIRE-Puls...ds=rx+5700+xt&qid=1567097373&s=gateway&sr=8-3

 

[AtenRa]

For the most part, the same companies make cards for both nVidia and AMD. The only real standouts are EVGA which is nVidia only, and Sapphire which is AMD only. Otherwise ASUS, MSI, etc make cards for both.

Just to point out that XFX is also AMD only now.

 

[Kenmitch]

Just to point out that XFX is also AMD only now.

No love or honorable mention for ASRock? Sure they're new to the gpu market(2018), but they're only selling AMD currently.

 

[Stuka87]

No love or honorable mention for ASRock? Sure they're new to the gpu market(2018), but they're only selling AMD currently.

Yeah, I forgot about XFX and ASRock being AMD only. There is also PNY and Zotac that is nVidia only.

 

[torriep000]

Thank you for all your answers.

If I understood well, the fight is between RX 5700 XT and 2700 Super.
On www.topachat.com or www.ldlc.com (some of the famous french websites for buying graphical cards), I have seen that there is almost 100€ of differences between these 2 cards. It don't bother me if these 100€ are justified because of the ray tracing or to win a little of longevity. I don't know what you think.

I also read a lot of the internet that this is a year of transition for graphical card and there could be major changes next year. It gives me the doubt that I could be buying a graphical card that could be obsolete faster that I want...

 

[Flayed]

There's always something new coming out in this game. If your current GPU has died then you don't really have the ability to wait for the next big thing.

 

[torriep000]

Thank you for these informations.
Thinking about it, if I listen all of your advices, I begin to doubt about upgrading the other components. I already have the case, SSD + HDD and power supply, so I need to find motherboard, DDR, GPU and CPU.
How much do you think it will cost me for an upgrading, please ?

 

[Guru]

For your setup the best option that wouldn't be too bottlenecked by the cpu is an RX 5700xt, custom models usually go for around $420 or in Europe prices are around 440 euros, so slightly below budget, which you can put forth towards your next pc upgrade.

 

[Shmee]

Another good AMD only brand, especially as of recent is powercolor. The red devil cards are top notch, but I bet they are hard to find for the 5700 series.

 

[Flayed]

Thank you for these informations.
Thinking about it, if I listen all of your advices, I begin to doubt about upgrading the other components. I already have the case, SSD + HDD and power supply, so I need to find motherboard, DDR, GPU and CPU.
How much do you think it will cost me for an upgrading, please ?

Depends. I usually suggest a build to fit a budget. I didn't see what resolution you game at, what is the resolution of your monitor?

 

[torriep000]

Thinking about it, one of the scenarios would be that I could spent 800-100€ max to replace CPU, GPU, MB and DDR.

GPU : AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT or GeForce RTX 2070.
CPU : AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or Intel Core I5-9600k.
MB and DDR, I will spend the remaining budget in it.

(my monitor is currently with an 1080 resolution but with a good sale or offer in the next months/years, I might change it too)

 

[Flayed]

You may as well just buy the graphics card first and see how it plays in your current system. You can then decide to upgrade the cpu, motherboard and ram if you want too.

 

[torriep000]

Thank for your advices.

I think I might choose this configuration (choosen with the actual sales in France and with some of your advices) :

CPU -> AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (3.6 GHz)
MB -> MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX
DDR -> DDR4 HyperX Predator RGB, 16 Go (2 x 8 Go), 3200 MHz, CAS 16
GPU -> Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT PULSE, 8 Go

 

[davide445]

Curious reading this thread since I'm also on a Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 Dual-X with Boost, and looking for future replacement. My card its still working but might be dead at any time, and start to be at the bottom of acceptable performances, so I suppose next year max I will need to change it anyway.

Looking for some of your games are DX12 where normally AMD does has some (now smaller) advantage, so perfect GPU choice. I will have lower budget and was looking for Vega 56 or 64, but Navi it's a better choice, even if 5700 and 5700X are midrange cards (let's say similar to 7850) respect a top of the line 7950 (only 7970 was better as single chip) that lasted so many years. Since you need to purchase it now, a valid choice anyway.

As for the CPU my choice beginning this year was for Ryzen 5 2600X and not the standard version.
Yes it's true you can achieve X performances just changing the cooler and a bit of OC, but since you appear similar to my mood of maintaining components a lot of time and not spend a lot of time in playing with the hardware configuration, the 3600x come with a better cooler (that mean also better heat management, useful for durability) and it's OC out of the box we can say. Also the silicon lottery didn't guarantee you will be able to OC effectively, vs a guaranteed performance if the X version (with also the possibility for OC).

For the mobo might worth looking at the QVL list of certified memories, even if to be honest I mounted a not certified GSkill 3200 MHz memory on mine Asus Prime B450 Plus mobo and is working perfectly. But if your choice it's on the QVL list this will give more pace of mind I suppose.