Recommended video card for X58 motherboard?

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tripecac

Junior Member
Oct 27, 2014
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Hi, like many people I feel like I will probably need to upgrade my video card for Assassin's Creed Unity.

My current video card is a Radeon HD 5850 (1GB), which has served me well since I bought it back in 2010. Assassin's Creed 4 (Black Flag) and Shadows of Mordor both ran fine on it (though I didn't max out those games' settings). I've been perfectly happy with the 5850, and felt no need to upgrade... until the AC Unity requirements were announced. Sigh.

Anyway, here's my problem: my motherboard is an X58, purchased back in 2010. More specifically, it's this:

ASUS P6X58D-E Intel X58 Core i7 PCI-E DDR3 LGA1366 SATA3+USB3 ATX

I read in a forum somewhere that some of the more modern video cards won't work well with X58 motherboards, either having their speed throttled dramatically or, even worse, causing BSODs. Specifically, the Radeon R9 290 cards are supposed to not work well with X58 motherboards.

So my question is this:

Which video card(s) would you recommend for an X58 motherboard (or even my motherboard in particular if you want to get that granular), for playing AC Unity?

As a reminder, here are the minimum and recommended video cards for AC Unity:

- minimum: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 or AMD Radeon HD 7970 (2 GB VRAM)
- recommended: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 or AMD Radeon R9 290X (3 GB VRAM)
- also supported: GeForce GTX 700 series, Radeon R9 200 series


Note: I don't want to do anything "fancy" like overclocking, third party cooling, crossfire, etc. I'm more interested in reliability, coolness, and quietness than maximizing frame rates... as long as Unity runs "pretty well", I will be happy.

Thanks a bunch!
 
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dmoney1980

Platinum Member
Jan 17, 2008
2,471
38
91
question for you OP - what CPU do you have, and what speed are you running it at? The x58 platform still holds up pretty well, but it helps if you have your CPU overclocked.
 
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tripecac

Junior Member
Oct 27, 2014
15
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My CPU is this:

Intel Core i7 950 Nehalem 3.06GHz 8MB 1333MHz LGA1366

...and I'm running it at the normal speed. I don't overclock.

In case you're wondering, my RAM is:

12 GB Corsair CMP6GX3M3A1600C7 DDR3-1600 CL7 Dominator

It's got 2 SSDs and 3 large SATA drives. It's a solid system, and I never felt any need to upgrade until the Unity requirements announcement. In addition to gaming, I use it for making music (Sonar), and video editing (Vegas). I've got a lot of time invested in it, which is part of why I don't want to upgrade the motherboard; reinstalling and reconfiguring all my apps would be a pain!
 
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RussianSensation

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
Wait until the game comes out. I my then you will be able to know what is a good upgrade. For example right now R9 290 is an unbeatable on value but what if a GTX770 performs faster in Unity?
 
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tripecac

Junior Member
Oct 27, 2014
15
0
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I would love to wait until the game comes out. I preordered it, and who knows, maybe it actually runs on my 5850, at low settings.

Waiting would be the wise thing to do.

HOWEVER...

I'd like to at least be prepared, in terms of knowing what card I intend to buy, so that if Unity runs badly (or not at all), I will at least have an upgrade plan in place, which would make me feel better. Also, I live in New Zealand, so if I want a good deal on a card, I need to order it from the US, which means waiting a couple weeks... That wait can seem interminable. Of course Far Cry 4 would tide me over, but still... I've been looking forward to Unity for a while now, so it's hard to be patient...
 
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3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
11,951
204
106
AFAIK the only X58 issues with Hawaii (290/290X) is with Crossfire. And then not all of the time or with all boards. It can sometimes be fixed with a mobo bios update. Still I would steer clear of Crossfire with X58.
 
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tripecac

Junior Member
Oct 27, 2014
15
0
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I'd like to spend less than $300 US. It's hard to justify spending more than just to have a single game (AC Unity) play better on a 4 year old PC! :)
 
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tripecac

Junior Member
Oct 27, 2014
15
0
0
Which brand of R9 290x would you recommend? I prefer favor cool, quiet, and reliable to max FPS.
 
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tripecac

Junior Member
Oct 27, 2014
15
0
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Another question: my power supply is 850W (Corsair TX850). Would I need to upgrade that for a R9 280 or 290, given that I'm also running 2 SSD and 3 SATAs? Should 850W suffice for upgrading to any (single) video card?
 
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Morgoth780

Member
Jul 3, 2014
67
2
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tripecac said:
Another question: my power supply is 850W (Corsair TX850). Would I need to upgrade that for a R9 280 or 290, given that I'm also running 2 SSD and 3 SATAs? Should 850W suffice for upgrading to any (single) video card?
Click to expand...
850w should be good for most dual GPU setups. Perhaps tri-SLI if you went with GTX 970s even.
 
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tripecac

Junior Member
Oct 27, 2014
15
0
0
I'll just be running a single GPU. So 850W should be more than enough, right?

Are the R9 290's significantly louder and hotter than the R9 280X's?
 
netxzero64

netxzero64

Senior member
May 16, 2009
538
0
71
get a good AIO cooler, slap that in and OC the cpu to remove bottlenecks. go with the 970 or 980 if budget permits.
 
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tripecac

Junior Member
Oct 27, 2014
15
0
0
netxzero64, I'd rather not venture into overclocking, because I use the computer for things other than gaming, and reliability of those other apps (and lifespan of the PC) is more important to me than how fast the games run. If this were just a gaming PC, I'd experiment with overclocking, but it's not, so I won't.

Why do you recommend Geforce (970/980) rather than Radeon (R9 280/290)?
 
Shmee

Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 13, 2008
8,039
2,985
146
^ That is a very nice choice. My how those 290 prices have dropped.
 
netxzero64

netxzero64

Senior member
May 16, 2009
538
0
71
tripecac said:
According to this article:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/09/19/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-review/1

...the GTX tends to be both faster and cooler than the 280X. Interesting. It costs about $100 more, though. Hmm...
Click to expand...
Well is there significant proof that overclocking really decreases the life of your pc? I have a friend who is using an old AMD thuban x6 @ 4.5ghz under aio for more than 4 years now and still working and a friend who is using a sandy bridge 2500k @4.5ghz for 4 years and still kicking ass. I got an acquaintance who ran an ivy i3 before no overclocking and died after one year use and he has that rig under air conditioned room. In addition to that, I live in asia where summer is as hot as it gets so where is the proof proving that overclocking really kills processors? I would be more than happy if you can find a significant information backing your statement.

Setting that aside, i prefer nvidia over amd as i gave up amd after the 5xxx series as my experience with driver issues never stopped. Plus electricity bill here is as crazy as it gets so power consumption is a big issue.
 
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