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Question mid-range recommendation

I

Icepick

Diamond Member
My graphics card but the dust. I'm looking for a mid-range option to replace it with. Haven't been following the industry lately so I'm out of touch with what to expect.

My current system was built in 2014. Here's the specs.

Cpu: Intel core i5 4690k
Mobo: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7
RAM: Corsair 16GB dual channel

Please recommend the current best bang for the buck mid-range offering.

Thank you!
 
6700xt or 6750xt if you can find it at the the same price. If your budget is lower then 6600XT. AMD owns the budget market if you are looking at price/performance.
 
Icepick said:
I'm going with the ASRock RX6600 at $224. Given the age of my processor I think that the 6700's might be CPU bound.
Click to expand...

- Always get the most GPU you can afford. Processor bottlenecks are real, but they're also a bit overblown. At the range you're in, more GPU power will mean more GPU power and you can always turn up image quality settings and not lose any framerate if you have a hard CPU cap.

Upgrade the rest of the system later and get more performance.
 
GodisanAtheist said:
- Always get the most GPU you can afford. Processor bottlenecks are real, but they're also a bit overblown. At the range you're in, more GPU power will mean more GPU power and you can always turn up image quality settings and not lose any framerate if you have a hard CPU cap.

Upgrade the rest of the system later and get more performance.
Click to expand...
I'll be that guy. 😈

This has been the rule of thumb for a long time now. But there are so many qualifiers and exceptions to the rule, that I more oft than not, disagree with it.

We are at the end of the generation; Hell, RDNA2 cards cost more now than they did 6 months ago.

ARC needs ReBar. The under $200 Nvidia cards are all drastically underpowered. Under $200 AMD cards need PCIe 4.0 and are still drastically underpowered. Which leads us right back to the 6600 being the best place to spend the least while getting the most for his old platform. As @Icepick concluded. The 6600 will be fully utilized when a platform upgrade occurs. Also, by the time it is at the kind of experience the 290 was providing at the end, replacing it will be with something better than an already 2yr old 6700XT.

I don't think CPU bottlenecks are overblown at all; it as always, depends on the games you play or plan to. And just what kind of a CPU limitation is happening. In the case of a Devil's Canyon i5, it will suffer every CPU limitation. You also can't simply turn up all the visuals anymore to leverage some types of CPU bottlenecks either, some have to be lowered. E.G. Ray tracing and crowd density and variety. Nor can turning up visuals speed up agonizingly long turn times in a sim. Or load times for the game. The GPU won't help with frame pacing issues like stutter, freezing, hitching, in CPU intense multiplayer matches. It won't help when the park you built is a slide show because of the CPU. Then there is assets failing to load and/or having jarring pop in because the CPU isn't just on the struggle bus. The struggle bus also has 2 flat tires and the check engine light is on.☠️ Better visuals won't keep you from having to turn off everything but the game. And possibly still have voice chat and audio issues.
 
I'll offer a counterpoint here, don't necessarily be afraid to look used either. I see a bunch of 5700XT's around here listed for ~CAD250 (US$185) and I would expect a little messaging around could get you one cheaper. It's pretty likely to have been mined on, but you'll get 6600XT performance for quite a bit cheaper.
Ultimately you're probably going to be looking at a platform upgrade in a couple years anyway, 4-thread Haswell and DDR3 is getting pretty long in the tooth at this point. Save the cash now and put it towards a bigger upgrade then.
 
Icepick said:
Cpu: Intel core i5 4690k
Mobo: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7
RAM: Corsair 16GB dual channel
Click to expand...
Along with the 6600 XT, I say pick up the Core i7-5775C from Aliexpress.com. It can take up to 3 to 4 weeks to deliver (may be quicker if you pay a bit more for shipping). Your mobo supports it:

1680532435346.png

This will breathe new life into your system and you can also overclock it above 4 GHz.
 
MrTeal said:
I'll offer a counterpoint here, don't necessarily be afraid to look used either. I see a bunch of 5700XT's around here listed for ~CAD250 (US$185) and I would expect a little messaging around could get you one cheaper. It's pretty likely to have been mined on, but you'll get 6600XT performance for quite a bit cheaper.
Ultimately you're probably going to be looking at a platform upgrade in a couple years anyway, 4-thread Haswell and DDR3 is getting pretty long in the tooth at this point. Save the cash now and put it towards a bigger upgrade then.
Click to expand...

If you're going used, I've seen a lot of 3060 and 2070 Supers locally for around $200 +/- a bit. I bought a 2070 Super for my son's PC awhile back and it's great for high FPS at 1080p. That and a 3060 are pretty competent at 1440p as well.
 
I'd honestly be worried about Nvidia driver overhead with that CPU. Everything is subject to change and it might get fixed in the future, but as it stands right now I'd avoid them.
1680535572219.png
That i3-10100 is going to be quite a bit faster than an i5-4690k even if it's OCed, and even that is trashing performance on Ampere. With older and lower end CPUs AMD is the way to go right now.
 
That's an important vendor specific CPU issue @MrTeal pointed out. There are port specific CPU issues now too. PS5 has Kraken, but the PC ports have the CPU doing it now. I am seeing people with fairly modern 6 core CPUs getting hammered in the last of us because of the 2 issues mentioned; Nvidia driver overhead + CPU doing the asset decompression and streaming.

I am against buying used mining cards for anything close to the price performance of NIB. I got a faulty 3060, and I have seen others here get faulty cards too. A $175 5700XT with at most a 30 day warranty, is not a good deal compared to a NIB $225 6600 imo. Especially if looking at performance per watt.
 
MrTeal said:
I'll offer a counterpoint here, don't necessarily be afraid to look used either. I see a bunch of 5700XT's around here listed for ~CAD250 (US$185) and I would expect a little messaging around could get you one cheaper. It's pretty likely to have been mined on, but you'll get 6600XT performance for quite a bit cheaper.
Ultimately you're probably going to be looking at a platform upgrade in a couple years anyway, 4-thread Haswell and DDR3 is getting pretty long in the tooth at this point. Save the cash now and put it towards a bigger upgrade then.
Click to expand...
I'm a believer in buying used tech whenever possible. This time I drew the line at video cards. I'm concerned about getting one that's been beaten into the ground by running 24/7/365 mining crypto.
 
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