Need advice for a beginner- best GPU choice for the next few years

[TTtheTremendous]

A 6300 should be an easy and decent overclock.

Mine hits 4.5 at 1.25V

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37687424&postcount=287

Nice that's what I'm hoping for. But I think I had trouble bc of my motherboard maybe? I've got the Asus m5a97 r2.0

 

[TTtheTremendous]

I don't buy this.

3.5gb is probably enough for NORMAL gpu consumers at 1080p for the next couple of years. However the biggest consumer of VRAM is texture mods. You said you're going to be doing witcher and skyrim modded out. Probably Cyberpunk mods too. I would NOT gamble that 3.5 will be enough for mods when its basically the same price to get the 390 which is basically the same speed but with 8GB VRAM.

Modders = use more VRAM than normal.

I would go no less than 390, or 980 Ti if you want to go big.

Good point!! I almost forgot about that for awhile lol

 

[TTtheTremendous]

Even if you game with headphones, the 290 is unacceptably loud unless you undervolt it. I have a pair of closed over ear cans and I can still hear that thing screaming like a PMSing banshee if there's not a lot of sound in the scene. The fan ramping up during web browsing when a flash video comes on screen is even worse since it's unexpected.

This is a situation where you're almost instantly going to regret not spending that extra $20 to get an aftermarket card with a better cooler, or even the same priced open box Turbo Duo.

Hm I thought as long as I avoided a reference model the 290 would be ok. Are all 290s that bad with cooling? Can you explain the Turbo duo? (honestly I'm not even sure why exactly it is that reference cards are so bad with cooling lol)

 

[TTtheTremendous]

Why not just wait a year and upgrade all at once? The new generation GPU's should be a large upgrade from the current generation.

You likely could even use a PSU upgrade.

I'd like to but I'm poor lol. Honestly tho I don't think I'd ever get a higher range gpu than $350ish.

I'm thinking it'd be worth it to upgrade now anyway since I could get a really decent improvement over my 660. And I'm really looking forward to play Fallout 4 haha.

 

[Seba]

Yeah, I’m thinking that I’ll check the Black Friday sales and compare between the 290 and 390/ 970. How much of a price difference/reduction would you say would be worth it to get the 390 or 970 over the 290?

Between those, I'll get the one with the biggest discount (unless it would be a R9 290 with centrifugal fan or something like that). At very close prices, I'll get a R9 390 card.

 

[MrTeal]

Hm I thought as long as I avoided a reference model the 290 would be ok. Are all 290s that bad with cooling? Can you explain the Turbo duo? (honestly I'm not even sure why exactly it is that reference cards are so bad with cooling lol)

Just the reference model, though some aftermarket coolers would be better than others. The one RS linked for $240 is a reference card. The TurboDuo is just a 290 with an aftermarket cooler also available on Newegg for the same price with an open box.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...4131569R&cm_re=r9_290-_-14-131-569R-_-Product
Gigabyte's Windforce is also excellent.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125748&cm_re=r9_290-_-14-125-748-_-Product

You might as well wait until BF at this point though. I'd just steer away from the reference model of the 290, even if it is the cheapest. It's not worth the pain.

 

[TTtheTremendous]

Just the reference model, though some aftermarket coolers would be better than others. The one RS linked for $240 is a reference card. The TurboDuo is just a 290 with an aftermarket cooler also available on Newegg for the same price with an open box.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...4131569R&cm_re=r9_290-_-14-131-569R-_-Product
Gigabyte's Windforce is also excellent.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125748&cm_re=r9_290-_-14-125-748-_-Product

You might as well wait until BF at this point though. I'd just steer away from the reference model of the 290, even if it is the cheapest. It's not worth the pain.

Oh ok, I'm sorry I guess I was confused over what reference model actually means lol!

& yes I am most likely going to wait til Black Friday

 

[tential]

Hm I thought as long as I avoided a reference model the 290 would be ok. Are all 290s that bad with cooling? Can you explain the Turbo duo? (honestly I'm not even sure why exactly it is that reference cards are so bad with cooling lol)

No they aren't it's just the reference model. What you linked is the reference cooler.

This whole convo is pointless though.

Wait for black Friday come back and pick up a good r9 390 for around 240. No reason to get anything else given your comments here although people will try to convince you to get inferior options because of their favorite brand.

 

[RussianSensation]

Even if you game with headphones, the 290 is unacceptably loud unless you undervolt it. I have a pair of closed over ear cans and I can still hear that thing screaming like a PMSing banshee if there's not a lot of sound in the scene. The fan ramping up during web browsing when a flash video comes on screen is even worse since it's unexpected.

This is a situation where you're almost instantly going to regret not spending that extra $20 to get an aftermarket card with a better cooler, or even the same priced open box Turbo Duo.

I am with you. I would personally gladly spend $20-40 extra for a quieter card. Anyway, looks like the OP is willing to wait out for a nice deal this holiday season. In that case I recommend an after-market 290X/970/390, whichever comes closest to $220. Of course as newer games come out like FO4, SW BF, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, etc. whichever games the OP is interested in playing the most and whichever cards perform the best is the one I'd pick. This level of GPU though essentially requires the OP to upgrade his CPU platform from FX6300 sooner or later or it's going to be bottlenecking such a GPU.

Wait for black Friday come back and pick up a good r9 390 for around 240. No reason to get anything else given your comments here although people will try to convince you to get inferior options because of their favorite brand.

True. In fact, some of the best GPU deals are actually not on or around Black Friday. Sometimes they happen on Cyber Monday or even in December. I remember last year there were $200 PowerColor PCS+ 290 and Sapphire Tri-X. I think we should see 290X/970 or 390 hit $220-230, or at least one would hope

 

[JackTheB]

Either one should serve you fine at 1080p. I don't think you need to worry about video RAM at that resolution. Even 970 3.5GB should be sufficient for the foreseeable future, just stay away from 2GB cards.

They're more-or-less evenly matched at 1080p, with a slight edge to 970. The one wild card factor here is how much AMD's DX12 advantage is going to matter. Probably not that much in terms of the overall experience.

Still, AMD can use all the help it can get, and the 390 is probably overall more robust. If you can get them for basically the same price, that'd be my pick. Any decent 500W PSU can handle a 390, though with overclocking, you may be cutting it a bit close.

Best answer and follow it

 

[RussianSensation]

Going cheap on a PSU is one of the things at the bottom of my list.

His existing 520W Antec PSU should be fine. It has 40A on 12V rail. For the record, I ran my i7 860 @ 3.9Ghz with GTX470 @ 760mhz on a 520W Corsair without any issues. As long as he doesn't purchase the MSI Gaming 390X, he should be fine with a 290X/970 or a 390.

 

[TTtheTremendous]

His existing 520W Antec PSU should be fine. It has 40A on 12V rail. For the record, I ran my i7 860 @ 3.9Ghz with GTX470 @ 760mhz on a 520W Corsair without any issues. As long as he doesn't purchase the MSI Gaming 390X, he should be fine with a 290X/970 or a 390.

According to pcpartpicker the 390 would bring my power load to 510w http://pcpartpicker.com/p/MNbvMp (note the link includes not my current psu but one I'm considering if i go with the 390)

Wouldn't that be cutting it too close? I don't know anything about the technicalities, is pcpartpicker not an accurate way to gauge power requirements?

I'm going to be overclocking my cpu too.

 

[RussianSensation]

According to pcpartpicker the 390 would bring my power load to 510w http://pcpartpicker.com/p/MNbvMp (note the link includes not my current psu but the one I'm considering if i go with the 390)

Wouldn't that be cutting it too close? I don't know anything about the technicalities, is pcpartpicker not an accurate way to gauge power requirements?

I'm going to be overclocking my cpu too.

3770K @ 4.6Ghz + R9 390 max overclocked = 419W.

FX6300 uses 31W more than 3770K at stock.

So ya, if you max overclocked a 390 + FX6300, it would be close but overclocking 390 with an FX6300 is pointless. How long are you going to keep the FX6300 for? In all honesty it's a very underpowered CPU. If you are not going to swap it out really soon, it's better to get a 950/960 as a stop-gap and sell the CPU/GPU when you have the $ to upgrade the CPU platform to Skylake. I don't see much value in buying a nearly $300 graphics card with such a weak CPU because GPUs drop in value like a rock and next year we'll see 16nm cards. That means let's say if you are only going to buy a new CPU platform by next summer, might as well get a 950/960 now. If you really want to go out of the way to get the best value, you'll need to look at a used after-market 290. I just cannot recommend a $300 card with an FX6300 unless you plan on upgrading it soon.

It's even worse to buy a $60-70 new PSU + $300 R9 390 because that's even more $ sunk on an outdated CPU platform.

 

[boozzer]

next few years? wait for the next gen coming in summer of 2016.

 

[TTtheTremendous]

3770K @ 4.6Ghz + R9 390 max overclocked = 419W.

FX6300 uses 31W more than 3770K at stock.

So ya, if you max overclocked a 390 + FX6300, it would be close but overclocking 390 with an FX6300 is pointless. How long are you going to keep the FX6300 for? In all honesty it's a very underpowered CPU. If you are not going to swap it out really soon, it's better to get a 950/960 as a stop-gap and sell the CPU/GPU when you have the $ to upgrade the CPU platform to Skylake. I don't see much value in buying a nearly $300 graphics card with such a weak CPU because GPUs drop in value like a rock and next year we'll see 16nm cards. That means let's say if you are only going to buy a new CPU platform by next summer, might as well get a 950/960 now. If you really want to go out of the way to get the best value, you'll need to look at a used after-market 290. I just cannot recommend a $300 card with an FX6300 unless you plan on upgrading it soon.

It's even worse to buy a $60-70 new PSU + $300 R9 390 because that's even more $ sunk on an outdated CPU platform.

Well I hoped that overclocking only the cpu would increase the performance just enough to catch up with whatever card i go with (but I'm still confused how to tell if the power requirement would be too high? Are sites like pcpartpicker not accurate enough?)

Depending on well my overclocked 6300 + new gpu performs, I'm guessing I'd upgrade the cpu in 2 or 3 years maybe?? (This was my first build so not really sure the average time between cpu upgrades for most ppl.) I'm thinking of going with an intel ddr4 setup since i'd have to change my motherboard anyway and I figure by that time maybe ddr4 will be what future games move over to. (??)

I though something like the 390 or 970 would be good in this case because I'd be able to use it with my current build but also carry it over to a new cpu setup.

Whatever card I go with, I'm definitely planning on using it with my next cpu update.

 

[RussianSensation]

Depending on well my overclocked 6300 + new gpu performs, I'm guessing I'd upgrade the cpu in 2 or 3 years maybe?? (This was my first build so not really sure the average time between cpu upgrades for most ppl.) I'm thinking of going with an intel ddr4 setup since i'd have to change my motherboard anyway and I figure by that time maybe ddr4 will be what future games move over to. (??)

I think if we take emotions out of the equation, for gaming purposes, a CPU platform is worth upgrading when your CPU either holding back your GPU or you managed to sell your old platform for a good price so that an upgrade is very cost effective. Otherwise, the primary reasons to upgrade the CPU platform are to take advantage of faster PCIe SSDs or get more CPU cores to reduce render/encoding times, etc. In your case, the FX6300 is already outdated if we consider that it holds back cards like 390/970 in some games, and especially cards like 980Ti. You can always crank MSAA though and increase the load on the GPU but in CPU limited scenarios it's going to be bottlenecked either way. That's why a 390/970/290 is probably the highest level GPU I'd even recommend, the cheapest of those 3.

though something like the 390 or 970 would be good in this case because I'd be able to use it with my current build but also carry it over to a new cpu setup. Whatever card I go with, I'm definitely planning on using it with my next cpu update.

Don't forget R9 290/290X. Because they have a tarnished reputation their prices keep dropping. For your CPU, whichever you can find the cheapest among R9 290/290X/970/390 is the card you should get. By the time you upgrade to Intel+DDR4 in 2-3 years as you said, all of these cards will have been surpassed by something in the $250 range. I mean think about it November 2013 R9 290X cost $550 and GTX780Ti cost $700 and today that level of performance can be purchased for $280 without any sale. Therefore, there is no need to overspend $60-80 extra for 5-10% more GPU performance your CPU won't even provide to the card.

 

[TTtheTremendous]

I think if we take emotions out of the equation, for gaming purposes, a CPU platform is worth upgrading when your CPU either holding back your GPU or you managed to sell your old platform for a good price so that an upgrade is very cost effective. Otherwise, the primary reasons to upgrade the CPU are to take advantage of faster PCIe SSDs or get more CPU cores to reduce render/encoding times, etc. In your case, the FX6300 is already outdated if we consider that it holds back cards like 390/970 in some games, and especially cards like 980Ti. You can always crank MSAA though and increase the load on the GPU but in CPU limited scenarios it's going to be bottlenecked either way. That's why a 390/970/290 is probably the highest level GPU I'd even recommend, the cheapest of those 3.



Don't forget R9 290/290X. Because they have a tarnished reputation their prices keep dropping. For your CPU, whichever you can find the cheapest among R9 290/290X/970/390 is the card you should get. By the time you upgrade to Intel+DDR4 in 2-3 years as you said, all of these cards will have been surpassed by something in the $250 range. I mean think about it November 2013 R9 290X cost $550 and GTX780Ti cost $700 and today that level of performance can be purchased for $280 without any sale. Therefore, there is no need to overspend $60-80 extra for 5-10% more GPU performance your CPU won't even provide to the card.

Thanks alot, this was really helpful to know.

I think what I'm going to do is keep my eye out for a 290 level card, see how prices go around Black Friday. Ofc if I see something really good around the 390 level i might consider that too but most likely Ill go with a 290.

Thanks so much everyone else too, I learned alot from this discussion! :thumbsup:

 

[RussianSensation]

Thanks alot, this was really helpful to know.

I think what I'm going to do is keep my eye out for a 290 level card, see how prices go around Black Friday. Ofc if I see something really good around the 390 level i might consider that too but most likely Ill go with a 290.

Thanks so much everyone else too, I learned alot from this discussion! :thumbsup:

If you don't mind used with 1-year-warranty, keep an eye out on EVGA B-stock as they often have GTX970 for $240 as well. Good deal if you don't need the bundles Assassin's Creed Syndicate/Rainbow Six Siege games. Either way, if you plan to keep the GPU for a couple years and you aren't in a rush, see what deals come up in the next 1.5 months. This is the time of the year when some of the best sales happen. From what I've noticed in the last 2 years, the prices of GPUs in Q1 tend to be dreadful and far higher than the best deals of Q4.

What you could do is set up Alerts at Slickdeals.net for GTX970, R9 290, R9 290X, R9 390. Also, you could try adding various SKUs of R9 290, 290X, R9 390, 970 on Newegg into your card and just check the prices on them once in a while. Check our Hot Deals section.

 

[TTtheTremendous]

If you don't mind used with 1-year-warranty, keep an eye out on EVGA B-stock as they often have GTX970 for $240 as well. Good deal if you don't need the bundles Assassin's Creed Syndicate/Rainbow Six Siege games. Either way, if you plan to keep the GPU for a couple years and you aren't in a rush, see what deals come up in the next 1.5 months. This is the time of the year when some of the best sales happen. From what I've noticed in the last 2 years, the prices of GPUs in Q1 tend to be dreadful and far higher than the best deals of Q4.

What you could do is set up Alerts at Slickdeals.net for GTX970, R9 290, R9 290X, R9 390. Also, you could try adding various SKUs of R9 290, 290X, R9 390, 970 on Newegg into your card and just check the prices on them once in a while. Check our Hot Deals section.

Will do, thanks so much for the tip. Appreciate it!