Upgrading from a GTX 560 Ti?

[Jim, in Iowa]

Hello! I have an elderly i7-2700k CPU with a GTX 560 Ti video card. The CPU is really not that bad, but the GPU is. What would you recommend for a new gpu on a PCIe 2.0 system? Would a low-end PCIe 3.0 card work? The full upgrade will be to a i7-9700k, 2080, but for now, I'm just trying to get another year out of this build. 

 

Thanks for the help!

 

Jim, in Iowa

[TomvanWijnen]

You could upgrade to a 2080 no problem, PCIe 2.0 x16 is no bottleneck for the 2080 - the things that could perhaps bottleneck it is the CPU speed and RAM speed, but it's probably better to just buy something proper now, than buying something meh now and something proper again later, saves you some money.

[Fasauceome]

The RX 570 is the best budget card there is, serious bang for buck. Although, Navi graphics cards are due soon enough and should be very competitive.

[Daniel Z.]

Well if you’re getting a 9700k soon, a 2080 or Radeon VII would work. The 2700k will bottleneck it but not too severely depending on resolution.

[xhackforeverxdx]

2080 has a bad value right now i would go for a used 980/ti and wait 1 or 2 years for next gen gpus and upgrade the hole system then 

[Slayer3032]

I'd try to find like a used AMD RX 480/570/580 or a GTX 970, PCI-E 2.0 is fine.

 

Craigslist can be great depending on where you live, eBay is generally more expensive due to convenience, forums used to be better but there's still occasionally great deals on them and there's also like r/hardwareswap.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/MSI-Radeon-RX-480-4GB-Gaming-X-Edition-Dual-Fan-Graphics-Card/123784295903

 

I've seen some decent deals on the LTT Classifieds section, this seems pretty fair if you can't find something new and on sale.

 

[xhackforeverxdx]

5 minutes ago, Slayer3032 said:

I'd try to find like a used AMD RX 480/570/580 or a GTX 970, PCI-E 2.0 is fine.

 

Craigslist can be great depending on where you live, eBay is generally more expensive due to convenience, forums used to be better but there's still occasionally great deals on them and there's also like r/hardwareswap.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/MSI-Radeon-RX-480-4GB-Gaming-X-Edition-Dual-Fan-Graphics-Card/123784295903

 

I've seen some decent deals on the LTT Classifieds section, this seems pretty fair if you can't find something new and on sale.

 

wow the rx480 is only 15% slower then a 980 did not know that ^^ is the driver support still fine ? so ye i would say a decent 480 for around 100 would be the best deal 

[Slayer3032]

22 minutes ago, xhackforeverxdx said:

wow the rx480 is only 15% slower then a 980 did not know that ^^ is the driver support still fine ? so ye i would say a decent 480 for around 100 would be the best deal 

From my experience, I've had issues with AMD drivers for old cards like my HD5870 and R9 280(GCN1) when they started to near EOL. Polaris is still current gen though and from everything I've ever heard has had pretty great support, even on Linux.

 

I gave away my GTX 260 to my buddy for SLI just because the entire month I had it, the drivers would crash every 10 minutes or so in any game. I can't remember what drivers those were but they were the initial releases for those cards and they were hilariously bad, I jumped straight to the 5870 on release week of it. Worst thing with that though was that those cards were driver limited to 2 monitors since Eyefinity was a planned thing I guess. GTA V was picky with the drivers on those cards I think towards the end and then AMD half ass pushed out a final revision with the new panel that wasn't finished yet.

 

Both companies have their fair share of terrible drivers really, generally most are either at launch or after EOL.

[Daniel Z.]

3 hours ago, Alexsolo said:

An RX 590 8GB would be a great upgrade and kind to your wallet. 

https://www.newegg.com/sapphire-radeon-rx-590-100415nt-8gsel/p/N82E16814202327?Description=rx 590&cm_re=rx_590-_-14-202-327-_-Product

 

If you'd prefer the used route instead of new, check your local classifieds (ebay, craigslist) for cards such as RX 580, GTX 1060, 1070

On ebay.com the 580 8GB goes for about $125-150 from what I've seen.

 

I'd go with a cheaper card, which impacts the budget less, making it easier to upgrade the entire build down the road, I7 9700K, RTX and all!

And when it comes to that keep in mind your build can be given to a family member (son/daughter/nephew/niece) for games! Or it can be resold to pay for a bit of the new machine.

There’s no point getting the 590 when the 1660 exists. Faster/similar speed, uses half the power, has NVENC, and now both support Freesync.

[Jim, in Iowa]

Wow, you guys are awesome. If I can get away with upgrading my gpu on my existing PCIe 2.0 board I'll be happy, as my cpu is still strong for my needs. I was thinking I'd have another year for the 2080 to drop in price, but since I can go now with gpu only, I'm thinking in the 1060/1660/1070 range. Future-proofing is a gamble, but I imagine that any of these would pair nicely with the cpu upgrade in a year.  

[Humbug]

10 minutes ago, Jim, in Iowa said:

 I was thinking I'd have another year for the 2080 to drop in price, but since I can go now with gpu only, I'm thinking in the 1060/1660/1070 range. Future-proofing is a gamble, but I imagine that any of these would pair nicely with the cpu upgrade in a year.  

The GTX 1660 is a good buy! This performance tier is a good buy now. Definitely choose it over the GTX 1060.

 

Don't purchase a GTX 1070. If you want that level of performance or higher better wait until July Navi launch to see the new products available and the price shake up from both AMD and Nvidia. We will get more info on June 10th. If you have to buy right now and want GTX 1070 like performance then get a GTX 1660ti.