HTPC / Steam Box GPU Recommendation

[Collider]

Hi all - I'm looking to use my HTPC as a SteamBox and need a GPU recommendation. The case is a full size case so no low profile restrictions. Budget is $250-300 range.

Here are the HTPC specs
i3 SandyBridge, low voltage, 4GB Ram, 80Gb SSD, 2GB HDD

OS Windows 10

TV Resolution 1080p

I know that I may be limited by the CPU in some instances with really high end GPUs as its not an i5 but I think its still perfectly fine for gaming and the budget range that I have.

I read somewhere that going with NVidia for steam box is more preferable due to some sort of streaming feature (correct me if I'm wrong here).

Very comfortable with overclocking the GPU. Looking to play things on high / ultra settings.

Thanks in advance.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Any Nvidia card is better because AMD Linux drivers suck.

At that budget I say a GTX 970

 

[Collider]

Any Nvidia card is better because AMD Linux drivers suck.

At that budget I say a GTX 970

Sorry I should have mentioned I'm running Win 10.

 

[happy medium]

At that budget I say a GTX 970

this.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Sorry I should have mentioned I'm running Win 10.

For an i3 Sandy I still think a 970. That card will do better with current Directx11 games than AMD alternatives considering that CPU.

 

[bystander36]

Sorry I should have mentioned I'm running Win 10.

Are you making a Steam box or Win 10 box? Or both? Steam OS is built on Linux, which is why everyone has mentioned Linux drivers.

 

[Collider]

Are you making a Steam box or Win 10 box? Or both? Steam OS is built on Linux, which is why everyone has mentioned Linux drivers.

Its a Win 10 HTPC box, and I just run a steam client on it.

 

[bystander36]

Its a Win 10 HTPC box, and I just run a steam client on it.

That's not a Steam box. That is why everyone has pushed Nvidia. AMD is perfectly valid for a Windows machine.

 

[NTMBK]

Its a Win 10 HTPC box, and I just run a steam client on it.

Go AMD in that case!

 

[tential]

Lol this forum has a handful of htpc gamers. Get the best performing gpu in your price range op. I got the R9 290 for my setup but you can get the 390. The reason I recommend it is the down sampling helps on the big screen a lot in my eyes.
I played arkham city at 1080p 1440p and 1800p on my card on my 80 inch projector and I love the vsr.

970 isn't a bad choice either and you can dsr from 4k on older titles but I don't like the dsr look at all compared to vsr. But I think that's a nitpick.

970 vram though is what I really don't like.

Either way both are good choices imo and as long as you go 970 bstock and 390 new on sale on a good sale, you're in a great position.

 

[Collider]

That's not a Steam box. That is why everyone has pushed Nvidia. AMD is perfectly valid for a Windows machine.

For some reason I assumed if it runs steam its a steam box lol. thanks for clarifying

 

[monstercameron]

Wait for the 380x maybe or craigslist a decent gpu.

 

[SPBHM]

That's not a Steam box. That is why everyone has pushed Nvidia. AMD is perfectly valid for a Windows machine.

he is using an old i3, Nvidia tends to be a lot less CPU limited with slower CPUs (apart from DX12 which is not used in any games),

most reviews are made using ultra fast CPUs, so just don't look at results from 4.5GHz i7s

an AMD VGA that is 5% faster than an NV VGA with this i7 can easily be a lot slower with an i3

also, HTPC, low voltage, i3... seems like it would be a good fit for a gtx 960.

 

[Collider]

he is using an old i3, Nvidia tends to be a lot less CPU limited with slower CPUs (apart from DX12 which is not used in any games),

most reviews are made using ultra fast CPUs, so just don't look at results from 4.5GHz i7s

an AMD VGA that is 5% faster than an NV VGA with this i7 can easily be a lot slower with an i3

also, HTPC, low voltage, i3... seems like it would be a good fit for a gtx 960.

Thanks for pointing that out, I had no idea that ATI's are more CPU limited.

 

[littleg]

he is using an old i3, Nvidia tends to be a lot less CPU limited with slower CPUs (apart from DX12 which is not used in any games),

most reviews are made using ultra fast CPUs, so just don't look at results from 4.5GHz i7s

an AMD VGA that is 5% faster than an NV VGA with this i7 can easily be a lot slower with an i3

also, HTPC, low voltage, i3... seems like it would be a good fit for a gtx 960.

He's said he's using Windows 10 so DX12 IS an issue. AMD GPUs are performing better than Nvidia in DX12 at the same price points and pretty much all the games coming out in the near future will be DX12.

Not to mention Nvidia has a new arch coming out soon so the current crop will be gimped in the planned obsolescence cycle.

 

[mysticjbyrd]

Any Nvidia card is better because AMD Linux drivers suck.

At that budget I say a GTX 970

Isn't AMD about to update the linux drivers?

 

[poofyhairguy]

Isn't AMD about to update the linux drivers?

AMD Linux drivers have been worse than Nvidia for over a decade. Nvidia has gone out of their way to make the core of their drivers as universal as possible to achieve great performance in Linux. I think the Nvidia linux driver shares 85+% of the same code as the Windows driver, that is their secret weapon. I will believe AMD will catch up when I see it, which most likely is never. It was a huge task for Nvidia to modularize their drivers to be mostly OS agnostic like that. That probably isn't worth doing for AMD. Nvidia does it for commercial uses of Linux.

Honestly AMD has a different open source strategy than Nvidia- they release specs which allow the open source developers to make open source drivers. In the open source community this approach is much preferred to a binary driver like Nvidia provides and AMD is kinda a hero, but it means AMD on Linux is best served by those open source drivers that aren't anywhere near as effective as the closed source Windows drivers for 3D games.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Isn't AMD about to update the linux drivers?

Nope.

 

[cbn]

Isn't AMD about to update the linux drivers?

They are changing the way they do things:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9726/...d-rseries-apus-for-embedded-with-ddr4-support

AMD is moving its entire graphics driver stack to open source, removing the disconnect with some closed source drivers. Elements of the stack are under different open source licenses, but it allows customers to develop and distribute a custom driver kernel specific to their needs.

 

[Collider]

So to clarify, if drivers aren't the issue (using Windows 10) AMD R9 380 or 380X seems like the best choice for $250-300 price point?

 

[poofyhairguy]

So to clarify, if drivers aren't the issue (using Windows 10) AMD R9 380 or 380X seems like the best choice for $250-300 price point?

I still think Nvidia is better for that weaker CPU. Its drivers are simply more efficient in Directx 11 games, everyone will admit that.

I mean sure MAYBE Directx 12 will close some of that gap, but guess how many complete Directx 12 games you can buy today? Zero. I wouldn't make some future Directx 12 benefit my deciding criteria personally. If I had a budget for a 970 I would get one.

 

[RussianSensation]

So to clarify, if drivers aren't the issue (using Windows 10) AMD R9 380 or 380X seems like the best choice for $250-300 price point?

The 4 best cards in the $250-300 range are R9 290/290X/390 and 970.

The easiest is to work backwards:

GTX960 2GB/R9 285/GTX960 2GB should be discounted as 2GB is not a good choice.

GTX960 4GB is $165. R9 380 4GB is $180.

GTX970 is $280 but comes with a choice of AC Syndicate or R6S.

XFX R9 290 is $240 and has lifetime warranty.

PowerColor R9 390 is $280.

With your CPU and the free AAA game, I'd pick MSI Gaming 970 over the R9 390.

I'd eliminate the GTX960 because in GPU limited games, its performance is abysmal compared to the R9 290. Honestly, even with your i3, I am now leaning towards not recommending even a $165 GTX960 against a $240 R9 290, even with your Core i3.

DX12 benchmarks - the only ones we have - show GTX960 bombing. If you intend to keep the card for a while and play DX12 games, do you want to take that risk? Plus R9 290 has 64 ROPs. Will 960 perform better in other DX12 games? Maybe but why take that chance if your budget is $250?

The second reason is some games aren't actually very CPU limited. So what happens in those games? Well, the GTX960 completely falls apart in GPU demanding titles where CPU is less relevant. Star Citizen is a prime example of that. The performance of a 960 in SC is horrendous compared to an R9 290X (~ after-market 290), even when paired with a low end AMD CPU like the 860K:

or this

or this

That means even though you will be CPU limited in some games, in situations where you are going to be more GPU limited, 960 shows its true colors - aka it's not a very good graphics card. If you are CPU limited, with a 290 you can at least increase MSAA/AA, pile on mods, enable VSR and improve your IQ. With a GTX960 you have no such options since the GPU is underpowered.

I think for you, I'd look into a used after-market R9 290/290X, a $240 R9 290 or a $280 GTX970 or wait for a deal on a 290/390/970. Sometimes EVGA b-stock has a $240 GTX970.

I know on paper GTX960 sounds like a good fit with the i3 but every time I come to terms that 960 may be an OK card, I see it just bombing in newer benchmarks like Star Citizen which makes me want to not recommend it once again.

Then again, I can't deny that if you have an i3 2120 or something along those lines, you will get bottlenecked in A LOT of games which means if you go R9 290/970, you are not going to get max performance out of those cards either. You also may need to bump your RAM from 4GB to 8GB too. Maybe buying a used after-market 290 and another 4GB DDR3 stick could be the best choice for you as spending upwards of $300 on a 970 may not be the brightest idea either.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Maybe buying a used after-market 290 and another 4GB DDR3 stick could be the best choice

Great idea!!

 

[Collider]

So far I'm leaning heavily towards GTX 970 as it seems to get better performance than its AMD counterparts.

But the branding / model names couldnt be more confusing. For example amazon has 7 different versions of the same EVGA 970 card, all look very similar and with similar clocks :
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...90957&creativeASIN=B00NVODXR4&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

For example NewEgg has one of those cards priced at $289 + a free game, but I'm not sure how it compares to some of the more expansive variants.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ..._mmc=EMC-GD110415-_-index-_-Item-_-14-487-076

How do I make sense of this all to make an educated choice?

 

[poofyhairguy]

But the branding / model names couldnt be more confusing. For example amazon has 7 different versions of the same EVGA 970 card, all look very similar and with similar clocks :

The cooler is better on some EVGA cards, and some have a dual bios or higher stock clocks. That is the real difference. If you don't plan on overclocking the cheapest one will do. If you do plan on overclocking look at getting a Gigabyte G1.