Upgrading from 7970 help

[ImBFish]

*I originally posted this on Tom's Hardware, but due to no response so far, I decided to copy and paste my post here in hopes of getting some feedback.*

With DirectX 12 and VR on the horizon, I'm feeling hesitant and am having a hard time deciding what parts to get for my second computer build. I did my first computer build around three years ago, and now that I want to upgrade what I have, I'm ready to ask for some help/recommendations, currently regarding a GPU upgrade.

PURCHASE DATE: Around Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year. I'll be refreshing multiple pages in an attempt to get a good deal!

BUDGET: USD $670.00

USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming [Current intensive games: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Grand Theft Auto 5, Mad Max, Dying Light -- and potential future intensive games: Fallout 4, Just Cause 3, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, etc. ], game modding, game development software (such as Unity or Unreal Engine 4), future VR tech (Oculus and Steam VR), watching videos on YouTube, Netflix, etc.

CURRENT GPU AND POWER SUPPLY: Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC with Boost and Thermaltake TR2 Bronze 700W (I plan to upgrade to a EVGA SuperNOVA 850 B2 80+ BRONZE PSU).

OTHER RELEVANT SYSTEM SPECS:
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4 GHz (OC'd to 4.3 GHz) (Might be upgrading)
CPU cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus (Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound)
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 Mhz (Will be upgrading)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Pro3 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 (Might be upgrading)

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: Newegg or Amazon, but other sites should be fine, as long as the part ships in the USA.

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: USA

PARTS PREFERENCES: Having only experienced an AMD GPU, I'm leaning towards going NVIDIA this time around. Although, I've read that AMD GPUs could potentially benefit greatly when DirectX 12 starts to become prevalent in future video games compared to NVIDIA's cards due to asynchronous compute. I realize it's hard to consider somewhat far off "what if" scenarios, but I just don't want to look back in a year when there are a few DirectX 12 titles out and think "Should of went AMD!" or something. So if you have any insight into this DirectX 12 business that you'd like to share, please do!

OVERCLOCKING: Yes.

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: I'm open to SLI/Crossfire, but haven't researched into it admittedly.

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1080 currently, although I will potentially be upgrading my monitor to a 2K or 4K resolution sometime early next year.

CURRENT CONSIDERATIONS:
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 Ti G1 Gaming - My top choice currently. My main hesitations are. 1.) AMD's Fury line of card's HBM tech is attractive. 2.) There are murmurings of AMD's current line of cards having an advantage compared to NVIDIA's current cards when it comes to DirectX 12. 3.) Is this GPU a bit more than I need, aka do I need this great of an expense for what I want to achieve? I'll probably be upgrading in two and a half years.

XFX R9-FURY-4QFA RADEON R9 FURY X - Close stock performance to 980 Ti a long with the bonus of HBM technology is what primarily makes this card a potential choice for me. My main hesitations are 1.) It's not a NVIDIA card. Having not owned a NVIDIA card, there seems like so many cool benefits in owning one that I'd like to have. 2.) Only 4GB of VRAM. 3.) From what research I've done, there doesn't seem to be much overclocking headroom, especially compared to the 980 Ti.

Some of my hesitations are repeated in the cards below:
Sapphire Radeon R9 Fury
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 G1 Gaming
Gigabyte AMD R9 390X G1 Gaming - OooOooo 8GB VRAM.
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 Overclocked
Gigabyte AMD R9 390 G1 Gaming - OoOooOo 8GB VRAM.

*Note: The GPUs I linked don't have to be Gigabyte or anything; that's just the version of some of the cards I decided to link.*

GOAL: I'm aiming for 1080p 60fps maxed out gaming in current and not too distant future video games. I also plan to mess around in Oculus and Steam VR when consumer versions become available. And VRAM is a concern for me, as I was a big modder of Skyrim and plan to be a big modder of Fallout 4, and I remember the VRAM usage could get pretty high with a lot of texture mods and what not installed for Skyrim.

So that's the gist of everything. Any help/recommendations/salient information would be greatly appreciated.

 

[RussianSensation]

BUDGET: USD $670.00

USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming [Current intensive games: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Grand Theft Auto 5, Mad Max, Dying Light -- and potential future intensive games: Fallout 4, Just Cause 3, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, etc. ], game modding, game development software (such as Unity or Unreal Engine 4), future VR tech (Oculus and Steam VR), watching videos on YouTube, Netflix, etc.

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1080 currently, although I will potentially be upgrading my monitor to a 2K or 4K resolution sometime early next year.

Welcome to AT ImBFish!

First thing, since you plan on playing FO4, wait for benchmarks of that game on November 10th. It's more important to see how AMD vs. NV stacks up in that game as far as optimizations go since it's going to be a GameWorks title, with what seems to be lighting effects that may heavily favour NV's Maxwell GPUs. Some other games you mentioned such as TW3, GTA V, Dying Light, UE4 games all run better on Maxwell vs. GCN as well.

The second thing is until you plan on upgrading to a 1440P or a 4K monitor, maybe it's overkill to buy a 980Ti for $650 for 1080P. Personally, in your shoes for 1080P I'd go for a single after-market 970 or EVGA B-stock 980 if that deal comes around. Before you consider a 390, I'd wait for those FO4 benchmarks though. If I were in your shoes, I'd get a 970/390 or a b-stock 980 and not buy a 980Ti for your monitor's resolution. Then should you decide to upgrade to a higher rez monitor (980Ti isn't fast enough for 4K without a pair of those), you can always just sell the 970/390 and get yourself a 2016 16nm GPUs.

You see next generation's Pascal/Arctic Islands should in theory bring a huge increase in performance due to 16nm node, new architectures and HBM or GDDR5X memory. If you are very certain that you'll get a 1440P monitor, then I would recommend a 980Ti then. I wouldn't go for the Gigabyte G1 Gaming 980Ti though unless you want to set up a custom fan curve profile.

EVGA SC+ 980Ti seems to be quieter.

Also, I would go for the EVGA 750W Gold PSU for $90 instead of an 850W Bronze. Even 750W sits somewhat in no man's land as it's not enough for dual 980Ti + i7 rig but it's overkill for a single 980TI + i5. Between an 850W Bronze and 750W Gold, I'd pick the Gold version though.

As far as Oculus/VR is concerned, wait until the tech actually launches in retail before trying to future-proof with a GPU for it. I personally think that for DX12+VR Arctic Islands and Pascal will be better than the 980Ti. That's also another reason I would jut grab a GTX970/390 as a stop-gap card and grab something sooner than your 2.5 year upgrade plan. For example, you could buy a new card in the summer or early fall of 2017 and it's going to blow the doors of a $650 980Ti in features and performance.

 

[happy medium]

I'm aiming for 1080p 60fps maxed out gaming in current and not too distant future video games

For your budget nothing beats the 980ti.
Should play 1080p games maxed @ 60fps for about another year.

 

[mysticjbyrd]

For your budget nothing beats the 980ti.
Should play 1080p games maxed @ 60fps for about another year.

If money isn't a concern, then I agree with this. If not, then I would just wait a year for arctic islands/pascal.

I heard that Pascal wouldn't initially release with HBM2, due to supply limitations, and stick with DDR5x. Meanwhile, AMD will only release HBM2 on their high end, and enthusiast cards.

 

[Mondozei]

The titles you'd play are all NV-biased, so I'd look for an NV GPU. The problem with 980 Ti specifically is that it's so powerful that even an Ivy i5 will bottleneck it at 1080p. This is what Anandtech's review of Skylake missed.

It used a 980 (non-Ti). The sites that used a 980 Ti at 1080p did see significant increases from Ivy/Sandy to Skylake. And not just generational differences, from i5 to i7 as well. If you can afford it, I'd upgrade to a Skylake i7 or a Broadwell i7(gotta love that massive eDRAM).

The broadwell one is better for gaming specifically, but you might find the architectual offerings of the Skylake platform more compelling, especially if you plan to go PCI-e SSD. Some Skylake Mobo's have plenty of PCI-e lanes, even if Z97 is no slouch in this dept, either.

If you can't afford a new mobo/CPU, then I'd go for something lower as a 980 Ti will be bottlenecked at 1080p with an Ivy/Sandy i5. A B-stock EVGA 980 seems like the best way to go, then.

 

[ImBFish]

The titles you'd play are all NV-biased, so I'd look for an NV GPU. The problem with 980 Ti specifically is that it's so powerful that even an Ivy i5 will bottleneck it at 1080p. This is what Anandtech's review of Skylake missed.

It used a 980 (non-Ti). The sites that used a 980 Ti at 1080p did see significant increases from Ivy/Sandy to Skylake. And not just generational differences, from i5 to i7 as well. If you can afford it, I'd upgrade to a Skylake i7 or a Broadwell i7(gotta love that massive eDRAM).

The broadwell one is better for gaming specifically, but you might find the architectual offerings of the Skylake platform more compelling, especially if you plan to go PCI-e SSD. Some Skylake Mobo's have plenty of PCI-e lanes, even if Z97 is no slouch in this dept, either.

If you can't afford a new mobo/CPU, then I'd go for something lower as a 980 Ti will be bottlenecked at 1080p with an Ivy/Sandy i5. A B-stock EVGA 980 seems like the best way to go, then.

Thanks for the response. Yeah, I think I want to go Nvidia this time around.

And I plan on upgrading my CPU to either an i7 6700k or an i7 5820k. I didn't consider getting an i7-5775C. Would you choose that processor over the other two I mentioned, and if so, why?

I planned on making a thread in the CPU section of the forums to essentially ask which CPU I should get, but if you have any input since you seem knowledgeable about CPUs, feel free to let me know what you'd choose considering everything I said in my first post.

 

[ImBFish]

Welcome to AT ImBFish!

First thing, since you plan on playing FO4, wait for benchmarks of that game on November 10th. It's more important to see how AMD vs. NV stacks up in that game as far as optimizations go since it's going to be a GameWorks title, with what seems to be lighting effects that may heavily favour NV's Maxwell GPUs. Some other games you mentioned such as TW2, GTA V, Dying Light, UE4 games all run better on Maxwell vs. GCN as well.

The second thing is until you plan on upgrading to a 1440P or a 4K monitor, maybe it's overkill to buy a 980Ti for $650 for 1080P. Personally, in your shoes for 1080P I'd go for a single after-market 970 or EVGA B-stock 980 if that deal comes around. Before you consider a 390, I'd wait for those FO4 benchmarks though. If I were in your shoes, I'd get a 970/390 or a b-stock 980 and not buy a 980Ti for your monitor's resolution. Then should you decide to upgrade to a higher rez monitor (980Ti isn't fast enough for 4K without a pair of those), you can always just sell the 970/390 and get yourself a 2016 16nm GPUs.

You see next generation's Pascal/Arctic Islands should in theory bring a huge increase in performance due to 16nm node, new architectures and HBM or GDDR5X memory. If you are very certain that you'll get a 1440P monitor, then I would recommend a 980Ti then. I wouldn't go for the Gigabyte G1 Gaming 980Ti though unless you want to set up a custom fan curve profile.

EVGA SC+ 980Ti seems to be quieter.

Also, I would go for the EVGA 750W Gold PSU for $90 instead of an 850W Bronze. Even 750W sits somewhat in no man's land as it's not enough for dual 980Ti + i7 rig but it's overkill for a single 980TI + i5. Between an 850W Bronze and 750W Gold, I'd pick the Gold version though.

As far as Oculus/VR is concerned, wait until the tech actually launches in retail before trying to future-proof with a GPU for it. I personally think that for DX12+VR Arctic Islands and Pascal will be better than the 980Ti. That's also another reason I would jut grab a GTX970/390 as a stop-gap card and grab something sooner than your 2.5 year upgrade plan. For example, you could buy a new card in the summer or early fall of 2017 and it's going to blow the doors of a $650 980Ti in features and performance.

I appreciate the response. I'm now thinking about whether now is a good time to upgrade at all, since the more research I do the more it seems the jump from Maxwell-Pascal will be more significant than say from Kepler-Maxwell.

I think I'll wait for Fallout 4 benchmarks to hit early next week like you recommended since it's a video game I plan to spend a lot of time with, to see how the current GPU I have as well as the GPUs I'm considering upgrading to hold up. Then, I'll revisit this forum post to say what I'm leaning towards doing.

It may be better to buy something like a 970/390 as a stop-gap card until Pascal/Arctic Islands releases like you mentioned. I've never sold a used computer part before, so say I bought a 970 now, used it, and then a year from now sold it to get some money towards a Pascal GPU, do you have any idea how much I'd be able to make off it? Now that I think about it, I'll probably want to sell the 7970 that I currently have. Do you (or anyone else) know of an optimal place to sell used computer parts? eBay?

And thanks for the PSU recommendation, I'll take it into consideration.

 

[ImBFish]

For your budget nothing beats the 980ti.
Should play 1080p games maxed @ 60fps for about another year.

If money isn't a concern, then I agree with this. If not, then I would just wait a year for arctic islands/pascal.

I heard that Pascal wouldn't initially release with HBM2, due to supply limitations, and stick with DDR5x. Meanwhile, AMD will only release HBM2 on their high end, and enthusiast cards.

Thanks for the responses.

Money isn't a concern necessarily, but I'd like to save money where I can.

There's a chance I might just wait for Pascal/Arctic Islands, but for video games, such as the upcoming Fallout 4, I really would like to play it maxed out. My 7970 is starting to show its age. I'm currently waiting for benchmarks of Fallout 4 (which should come out early next week) to see what GPUs are doing well on maxed out settings and what not.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Get a 390 with second hand 3770k. Or if you have the budget get a 6700k with 390. 980 Ti will be faster but Pascal will obsolete it quickly.

 

[RussianSensation]

It may be better to buy something like a 970/390 as a stop-gap card until Pascal/Arctic Islands releases like you mentioned. I've never sold a used computer part before, so say I bought a 970 now, used it, and then a year from now sold it to get some money towards a Pascal GPU, do you have any idea how much I'd be able to make off it? Now that I think about it, I'll probably want to sell the 7970 that I currently have. Do you (or anyone else) know of an optimal place to sell used computer parts? eBay?

And thanks for the PSU recommendation, I'll take it into consideration.

If 970/390 perform well in FO4 at 1080P, then why bother spending extra $ on a 980Ti as long as you are on a 1080P monitor? Since I am in Toronto very often, selling computer parts is very easy since the metropolitan area is so populated. I usually post my parts up on Kijiji (Canadian competitor to Craigslist). A lot of people on this forum sell their parts in our For Sale/Trade forum. Some sell on eBay but personally I've never used eBay to sell parts. Some here swear against Craiglist in the US. My experience on selling parts on Craigslist/Kijiji in Canada has been extremely positive in probably 10 years I've used this method. YMMV.

There are some good deals happening in the US with $25 off $200 with the AMEX Newegg deal that would allow extra savings by December 31st.

Get a 390 with second hand 3770k. Or if you have the budget get a 6700k with 390. 980 Ti will be faster but Pascal will obsolete it quickly.

I'd only recommend that if he can resell his existing CPU/platform. Upgrading to a 6700K platform is steep. An i5 IVB + 980Ti would mop the floor with an i7 6700K + 390 in games. In that case for $600, I'd just do a straight 980Ti upgrade with his existing CPU. Then he could choose to skip 6700K entirely and go for the full blown 6-core Skylake E in 2017. He has lots of good options. His CPU is still excellent imo and his GPU is by far the biggest bottleneck in his rig.

 

[ImBFish]

Purchased the MSI R9 390 last night from Newegg. Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone!

 

[kawi6rr]

Purchased the MSI R9 390 last night from Newegg. Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone!

You should be happy with that card, congrats!!

 

[happy medium]

BUDGET: USD $670.00

gtx980ti, that's an easy one.

oh I answered already.........

 

[ImBFish]

You should be happy with that card, congrats!!

Thanks!

 

[ImBFish]

gtx980ti, that's an easy one.

oh I answered already.........

Ha, yeah I decided that an R9 390 would be suitable for the time being.

But hey, I did take your suggestion from another thread and purchased the ASUS SABERTOOTH Z170 motherboard, so there's that!

 

[RussianSensation]

But hey, I did take your suggestion from another thread and purchased the ASUS SABERTOOTH Z170 motherboard, so there's that!

I am surprised you decided to do a 390 + Z170 upgrade over going with a 980Ti. I hope at least you went with the 6700K and not the 6600K.

 

[tweakboy]

I hope the next gen, can do 4k res @ 60fps locked.

 

[boozzer]

he probably got a good deal on it. 390 go as low as 230$ right now in the usa. brand new, not used.

 

[ImBFish]

I am surprised you decided to do a 390 + Z170 upgrade over going with a 980Ti. I hope at least you went with the 6700K and not the 6600K.

Yeah, I'm going with the 6700k. It's the only part I haven't purchased yet.

I had an opportunity to buy the 6700k for $399.99 last week, but ended up passing on it due to thinking I could find a better deal. Now at this point I'd even drop the $419.99 that Newegg had it for a few days ago (On Newegg it was advertised to come with three free game codes, including the recent Just Cause 3, which I could sell to get some money back), but that's currently out of stock. Throughout the next week or so I'll keep up to date on the 6700k's price. I might just go to my closest Micro Center (more than an hour away) and pick it up there.

And I got the MSI R9 390 for $294.49 ($274.99 after rebate).

Here's my build (before $20 rebates on my GPU and PSU)- http://pcpartpicker.com/p/RgFD99

The ram is so cheap due to me taking the $25 Newegg Visa Checkout promo's savings and applying it to the ram's at the time price of $74.99.

I also ended up selling the two Assassin's Creed: Syndicate codes I got with my SSDs for about $20 a piece, so that was nice.

 

[lawkmlaw]

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[ImBFish]

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