Question RX5500XT or GTX1650Super for freesynch monitor and I7-7700 cpu?

Wizard19

Junior Member
Nov 8, 2020
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I am looking for a budget graphics card (under $250) to upgrade from integrated Intel HD 630. My monitor is LG 27UD68P (4k 60hz) that is compatible with freesynch. My question is should I go with an AMD freesynch card such as the RX5500XT or go with an Nvidia card such as 1650 super? CPU is a I7-7700. I hear the drivers for AMD can be bothersome but wondering, at this low end, if AMD card which is more tuned to AMD cpu, but with freesynch, would be an advantage or a go with Nvidia card. I am a light gamer (ie Flight Sim) currently, so maybe it doesn't make any difference. My PSU is 350W so I am expecting to upgrade it also if needed. Appreciate any thoughts. Thanks.
 
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Mopetar

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Jan 31, 2011
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Were you looking to buy now or sometime soon? Both companies will have new cards in that range early next Spring and both of the new architectures are solid improvements over the current generation. Also there will probably be some good Black Friday deals on both as they look to clear out the older stock ahead of their refreshes.

A recent comparison between the two cards by KitGuru has them basically neck and neck. The 5500XT does have an 8GB variant that gets slightly better FPS and is probably a little more future proof. Flight sims would definitely benefit from additional memory.

The 1650 Super does draw less power, but not be a whole lot. You can probably get by with your existing power supply in either case if it's a good one. Drivers for AMD aren't that much of an issue these days so I doubt it matters much in those regards. NVidia cards all support Freesync now so that really isn't a concern either.

I'd probably wait until Black Friday / Cyber Monday and snag whatever has the best deal.
 

GodisanAtheist

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2006
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If it wasn't for that super skinny PSU, I'd suggest finding an older RX580/570 or 1060 6gb that basically performs on par with the 5500xt or 1650S.

It's kinda nuts to spend $200 bucks on that level of performance nowadays.

Mighr want to look into upgrading the PSUto something in the 650-750 watt range regardless if you plan on DIYing or upgrading your computer, it's a part you can carry forward through several builds.
 

Wizard19

Junior Member
Nov 8, 2020
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Were you looking to buy now or sometime soon? Both companies will have new cards in that range early next Spring and both of the new architectures are solid improvements over the current generation. Also there will probably be some good Black Friday deals on both as they look to clear out the older stock ahead of their refreshes.

A recent comparison between the two cards by KitGuru has them basically neck and neck. The 5500XT does have an 8GB variant that gets slightly better FPS and is probably a little more future proof. Flight sims would definitely benefit from additional memory.

The 1650 Super does draw less power, but not be a whole lot. You can probably get by with your existing power supply in either case if it's a good one. Drivers for AMD aren't that much of an issue these days so I doubt it matters much in those regards. NVidia cards all support Freesync now so that really isn't a concern either.

I'd probably wait until Black Friday / Cyber Monday and snag whatever has the best deal.
Yes, I’m not in any rush and was looking at black friday time frame. Thanks.
 
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Wizard19

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Nov 8, 2020
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If it wasn't for that super skinny PSU, I'd suggest finding an older RX580/570 or 1060 6gb that basically performs on par with the 5500xt or 1650S.

It's kinda nuts to spend $200 bucks on that level of performance nowadays.

Mighr want to look into upgrading the PSUto something in the 650-750 watt range regardless if you plan on DIYing or upgrading your computer, it's a part you can carry forward through several builds.
Thanks. Yes, I realize I should upgrade the PSU also.
 
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Mopetar

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If it wasn't for that super skinny PSU, I'd suggest finding an older RX580/570 or 1060 6gb that basically performs on par with the 5500xt or 1650S.

It's kinda nuts to spend $200 bucks on that level of performance nowadays.

That's another option, but I suspect driver support will be better long term for RDNA cards. Look back at the first GCN cards and how well those kept up over time. Polaris is already 4 years old at this point, so I can see AMD putting it to bed sooner rather than later and I would imagine that the $150 - $300 RDNA2 cards will be a significant step up and they'll want people to upgrade. Similarly, NVidia is going to want to push people onto their new cards with RT technology.

Mighr want to look into upgrading the PSUto something in the 650-750 watt range regardless if you plan on DIYing or upgrading your computer, it's a part you can carry forward through several builds.

That's just overkill for someone who's looking at a 100 - 130W GPU and a 65W CPU. Sure it could be used again in the future, but why buy something now if there isn't a solid plan to go down that route? If he eventually does, he's probably better off waiting to get a new PSU at that future point that has the benefit of being newer and has the advantage of any improvements in technology made over the years?

He says he's only a light gamer, so I don't think it makes a lot of sense to get something that heavy duty when it's unlikely there's a real need for it anytime soon.
 

GodisanAtheist

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Nov 16, 2006
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That's another option, but I suspect driver support will be better long term for RDNA cards. Look back at the first GCN cards and how well those kept up over time. Polaris is already 4 years old at this point, so I can see AMD putting it to bed sooner rather than later and I would imagine that the $150 - $300 RDNA2 cards will be a significant step up and they'll want people to upgrade. Similarly, NVidia is going to want to push people onto their new cards with RT technology.

-TBF RDNA 1 is also kind of stuck in no man's land now with RDNA2 being such a huge arch overhaul. My thoughts are go with the cheapest thing for the performance tier at this level,because nothing is going to have a whole lot of longevity (the GTX 1600 line is also kinda out in the woods now as it looks like RTX is going to extend further down the stack).

That's just overkill for someone who's looking at a 100 - 130W GPU and a 65W CPU. Sure it could be used again in the future, but why buy something now if there isn't a solid plan to go down that route? If he eventually does, he's probably better off waiting to get a new PSU at that future point that has the benefit of being newer and has the advantage of any improvements in technology made over the years?

He says he's only a light gamer, so I don't think it makes a lot of sense to get something that heavy duty when it's unlikely there's a real need for it anytime soon.

-He's got what I'm guessing is a no name 350W PSU right now. I believe both the GPUs he suggested require a PCI-E connector to function, so he's likely going to need an upgrade anyway or he's running that system right on the edge of a comfortable power envelope. I admit it's been a long time since I picked up a PSU and I know prices are out of whack right now, but generally speaking the increase in cost from a 400w PSU to something in the 600w range isn't much, gives a lot of breathing room for upgrades in the future, and the whole system will run closer to the PSU's efficiency sweet spot.
 

Wizard19

Junior Member
Nov 8, 2020
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Were you looking to buy now or sometime soon? Both companies will have new cards in that range early next Spring and both of the new architectures are solid improvements over the current generation. Also there will probably be some good Black Friday deals on both as they look to clear out the older stock ahead of their refreshes.

A recent comparison between the two cards by KitGuru has them basically neck and neck. The 5500XT does have an 8GB variant that gets slightly better FPS and is probably a little more future proof. Flight sims would definitely benefit from additional memory.

The 1650 Super does draw less power, but not be a whole lot. You can probably get by with your existing power supply in either case if it's a good one. Drivers for AMD aren't that much of an issue these days so I doubt it matters much in those regards. NVidia cards all support Freesync now so that really isn't a concern either.

I'd probably wait until Black Friday / Cyber Monday and snag whatever has the best deal.
Like that kitguru link! Had not seen that one before. Thx.
 
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Mopetar

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I still think all of you are a bit insane for recommending 450W+ power supplies for a system that should draw less than half of that amount under heavy load. For someone who's not going to game all that much on it, getting a PSU that's too large might be worse off since even PSUs rated as 80 Plus aren't going to hit that efficiency at lower power loads, and it's pretty likely that something like this could easily sit below 25% load on a 600W PSU.

Tom's hardware shows that you pretty much need to run a torture test to get an i7 7700 to draw much more than 60W and the AT review of the 5500XT shows a total system power draw of 180W when gaming and that's paired with a i9 9900K which is a 95W TDP part as opposed the the 65W TDP of the i7 7700, though it's probably not using all of that power budget when paired with a 5500 XT.

Unless it's an old PSU that was hastily assembled in a Turkish basement to earn the coveted 60 Minus MOLD rating there's no need to replace it. Remember that a PSU will always deliver the rated watts so his 350W power supply will deliver that to the system with the exception of performance loss due to age. The efficiency is just how much excess power is being drawn at the wall and lost as waste heat. As long as he's got an 8-pin (or 6+2) connector on his existing PSU, I don't think there's a good reason to upgrade.
 
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Wizard19

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I still think all of you are a bit insane for recommending 450W+ power supplies for a system that should draw less than half of that amount under heavy load. For someone who's not going to game all that much on it, getting a PSU that's too large might be worse off since even PSUs rated as 80 Plus aren't going to hit that efficiency at lower power loads, and it's pretty likely that something like this could easily sit below 25% load on a 600W PSU.

Tom's hardware shows that you pretty much need to run a torture test to get an i7 7700 to draw much more than 60W and the AT review of the 5500XT shows a total system power draw of 180W when gaming and that's paired with a i9 9900K which is a 95W TDP part as opposed the the 65W TDP of the i7 7700, though it's probably not using all of that power budget when paired with a 5500 XT.

Unless it's an old PSU that was hastily assembled in a Turkish basement to earn the coveted 60 Minus MOLD rating there's no need to replace it. Remember that a PSU will always deliver the rated watts so his 350W power supply will deliver that to the system with the exception of performance loss due to age. The efficiency is just how much excess power is being drawn at the wall and lost as waste heat. As long as he's got an 8-pin (or 6+2) connector on his existing PSU, I don't think there's a good reason to upgrade.

https://www.tomshardware.com/review...i7-7700k-i7-7700-i5-7600k-i5-7600,4870-9.html
Thanks for your thoughts. My pc is a thee year ASUS Vivo M32CD4-k that I had to replace rather quickly and wasn’t able to configure my own. I was thinking lately along your thoughts of trying to get by with the PSU if possible. Otherwise another $40-$50 for a PSU is fine. I need to check what the power pin is off the current PSU to see if its an option to try to keep it for a while.
 

GodisanAtheist

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Nov 16, 2006
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I still think all of you are a bit insane for recommending 450W+ power supplies for a system that should draw less than half of that amount under heavy load. For someone who's not going to game all that much on it, getting a PSU that's too large might be worse off since even PSUs rated as 80 Plus aren't going to hit that efficiency at lower power loads, and it's pretty likely that something like this could easily sit below 25% load on a 600W PSU.

Tom's hardware shows that you pretty much need to run a torture test to get an i7 7700 to draw much more than 60W and the AT review of the 5500XT shows a total system power draw of 180W when gaming and that's paired with a i9 9900K which is a 95W TDP part as opposed the the 65W TDP of the i7 7700, though it's probably not using all of that power budget when paired with a 5500 XT.

Unless it's an old PSU that was hastily assembled in a Turkish basement to earn the coveted 60 Minus MOLD rating there's no need to replace it. Remember that a PSU will always deliver the rated watts so his 350W power supply will deliver that to the system with the exception of performance loss due to age. The efficiency is just how much excess power is being drawn at the wall and lost as waste heat. As long as he's got an 8-pin (or 6+2) connector on his existing PSU, I don't think there's a good reason to upgrade.

https://www.tomshardware.com/review...i7-7700k-i7-7700-i5-7600k-i5-7600,4870-9.html

- Good points, I just philosophically have a hard time with not overprovisioning if an upgrade is required (and given this is a pre-built, I doubt the required connectors are present).
 

Mopetar

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Jan 31, 2011
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- Good points, I just philosophically have a hard time with not overprovisioning if an upgrade is required (and given this is a pre-built, I doubt the required connectors are present).

Yeah if it's a pre-built who knows what it's got, but I'd have a hard time imagining that a 350W PSU wouldn't have some connectors. If they bothered to put a 350W PSU in a computer that won't even draw a third of that much it's probably because they have those as some kind of baseline for any of their other machines that have a discreet card that can't just run off bus power and it was easier to use those than find something else that's available in bulk and simultaneously not so shoddy that it won't catch fire while it's being shipped over.
 
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SteveGrabowski

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If you're talking US dollars, here's a 1660 Super for $245:


It's pretty decent for 1080p. I'm playing RDR2 on a 1660 Super right now using optimized settings provided by Hardware Unboxed that leave the game still looking pretty great and I'm usually above 60 fps with my worst dips to around 55 fps, and I have a three generations older cpu than you (Xeon E3-1231v3, which is basically an i7-4770 without an igpu).

As long as your monitor does FreeSync over DisplayPort I think you should be able to use FreeSync with the card. If I'm wrong I'd love to know since I'm considering getting a 4k60 FreeSync monitor too.
 

VirtualLarry

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Aug 25, 2001
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I was going to say this too until I looked up 1660 Supers on newegg and saw they were all sold out unless you wanted to pay $310+. Ugh freaking miners.
Hmm, you think that the 1660 Supers are mostly going to miners? They are decent for mining (I have 5x 1660ti cards, they're supposedly even better), but I've also seen YT vids online about how great the RX 5600XT (have a couple mining, 1350Mhz/860mv), and the RX 5700XT (have a couple of those too, but haven't built a rig for them yet).

They're all decent cards for mining, honestly. But I'm surprised that, for the money, miners would be buying the 1660 Super cards (29-30MH/sec), over the RX 5700/5700XT cards (50MH/sec).
 

Geranium

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Apr 22, 2020
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I still think all of you are a bit insane for recommending 450W+ power supplies for a system that should draw less than half of that amount under heavy load. For someone who's not going to game all that much on it, getting a PSU that's too large might be worse off since even PSUs rated as 80 Plus aren't going to hit that efficiency at lower power loads, and it's pretty likely that something like this could easily sit below 25% load on a 600W PSU.

Tom's hardware shows that you pretty much need to run a torture test to get an i7 7700 to draw much more than 60W and the AT review of the 5500XT shows a total system power draw of 180W when gaming and that's paired with a i9 9900K which is a 95W TDP part as opposed the the 65W TDP of the i7 7700, though it's probably not using all of that power budget when paired with a 5500 XT.

Unless it's an old PSU that was hastily assembled in a Turkish basement to earn the coveted 60 Minus MOLD rating there's no need to replace it. Remember that a PSU will always deliver the rated watts so his 350W power supply will deliver that to the system with the exception of performance loss due to age. The efficiency is just how much excess power is being drawn at the wall and lost as waste heat. As long as he's got an 8-pin (or 6+2) connector on his existing PSU, I don't think there's a good reason to upgrade.
Finding a good 450W PSU is lot easier than finding a good 350W PSU. That is why 450W recommendation.
 

GodisanAtheist

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Another option if OP is open to used cards are GTX1070's.

Looks like many sell used ~$200 and they are frankly better cards than anything else you're going to get at that price point. 8GB of VRAM as well.

Ah, nothing like taking a simple question from OP and committee-ing it to death, as is tradition.
 

SteveGrabowski

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Hmm, you think that the 1660 Supers are mostly going to miners? They are decent for mining (I have 5x 1660ti cards, they're supposedly even better), but I've also seen YT vids online about how great the RX 5600XT (have a couple mining, 1350Mhz/860mv), and the RX 5700XT (have a couple of those too, but haven't built a rig for them yet).

They're all decent cards for mining, honestly. But I'm surprised that, for the money, miners would be buying the 1660 Super cards (29-30MH/sec), over the RX 5700/5700XT cards (50MH/sec).

I think so. All gpus are shooting to ridiculous prices right now. I was browsing newegg's Black Friday ad and couldn't believe RX 570 for $190 was a BF deal ($15 off with promo code from the ad).


Man if PS5 wasn't so hard to find right now I'd just sell my 1660 Super and get back what I paid for it 5 months ago on the used market.
 

VirtualLarry

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All gpus are shooting to ridiculous prices right now. I was browsing newegg's Black Friday ad and couldn't believe RX 570 for $190 was a BF deal ($15 off with promo code from the ad).
Well, it doesn't seem to be as bad as early 2018, when RX 570/580 8GB cards were selling for $400-650, but still, there does seem to be a bit of elevated demand for GPUs currently. I'm not really sure that making "big" investments in mining GPUs is realistically warranted, with ETH moving to ETH 2.0 and PoS soon (scheduled to be within two years, after which, PoW aka. mining would stop for ETH). You would have to ensure break-even/ROI within two years, which for a $650+ purchase, might be difficult to justify.

Although, I did partake in the Asus dual RX 5700XT (possibly fire-sale) at Newegg, picked up some really nice RX 5700XT cards for $360 ea., roughly. Kind of basically half the price of an RX 6800XT, and 100MH/sec combined. I don't know if a single RX 6800XT will do 100MH/sec. If it does more, well, I may have made a "bad" choice, but in terms of mining opportunity cost, I got mine mining finally last night or the night before, I forget which, and I'd probably still be waiting to purchase an RX 6800XT for a couple of months at least. That's roughly $3/day x 60 days = $180 missed out on, if I waited. But I would have a "better" gaming card in the end, too, if I hit break-even on either set of GPUs.
 

Wizard19

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Nov 8, 2020
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I ended up getting a Radeon 5500xt 8gb and an ARESGAME 500W 80+ Bronze PSU. Installed the PSU a few weeks prior to the graphics card. Install went smooth. PSU is very quiet. The graphics card install went very smooth. Installing the drivers was a non-event and went very smoothly also. Everything running great without any problems. The graphics card prices did escalate quite a bit during Dec. and most suppliers had limited inventory and shipping dates end of Jan 2021. I was limited to Amazon due to some gift cards. Ended up with the 5500XT at $209 and the PSU was $42.
Thanks for everyone's advice!
 
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