First build gpu advice

[GreenMadman]

Hello, I'm planning my first build and I'm looking for some advice.

 

First off the more general question : How do you decide which model of a certain card to buy? Do you always go for the cheapest one, the one priced in the middle, do you stick with a manufacturer/model or do you try to thoroughly go through model reviews and find the best option?

 

Second question : The upcoming 5700XT custom models will cost less than a 2070 and have more or less similar performance, but they won't have ray tracing support. Now my friend has told me that once ray tracing gets going and developers start implementing it in games, hardware that doesn't support it will take a big hit in performance. I'll be honest, I know nothing about ray tracing and that is kind of why I'm here. Basically, does what my friend say make sense, or is he talking rubbish? And no he isn't an Nvidia fanboy, he has an RX 580.

 

Final question : GPU prices here are massively inflated, pretty much $250 more than if I ordered one online. How safe is it to buy GPUs online, or to put it differently, has a GPU you got online arrived with problems that required you to return it? I'm asking because returning products would be a massive pain where I live.

Thank you very much to everyone who reads all this, especially to those who also reply, much love to all of you!

[spartaman64]

I buy the one i can afford with the performance that i think i will need/want. and i look for benchmark comparisons of games/applications i use

i dont really believe in rtx i think its this generation's physX they made a big deal about it and say eventually every game will have it but whats the last game that released with physX? 

 

it depends on where you are buying it from online. if you buy from reputable online retailers like newegg theres pretty much no risk and even if you buy from private sellers if they have a good rating its probably fine

[Zando_]

I don't see how better ray tracing support will make non-RTX cards take a hit in performance. RT is what gives you a hit in performance, you get more fps with it off. RTX cards do support DLSS though, that can actually improve your performance, but again I don't see how that makes other cards slower. 

As for the GPU itself, the 5700XT fights the 2070 Super AFAIK, beats the 2070 while costing less. It's definitely the better value unless you already have games that use the RTX features and those are worth the extra cost to you. 

 

[Sorenson]

I went with the 2070 super because I wanted the card with more performance and I could afford it. If going with the 2070 super would cause you to compromise in other areas then I would go with a partner model 5700 xt (I actually really enjoy the ray tracing and DLSS in single player games). As for how to choose the model, go to the gpu section of the form and they have a break down of all of the models and how good they are. Essentially all you really need to do is avoid blower style cards, and if you want to overclock extensively you will want a larger heat sink with more fans. If you're worried go with EVGA, even their cheap models are decent. 

 

Also playing games with ray tracing in the future won't effect non-raytracing cards. The effects will just be disabled. 

[GreenMadman]

19 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

I buy the one i can afford with the performance that i think i will need/want. and i look for benchmark comparisons of games/applications i use

i dont really believe in rtx i think its this generation's physX they made a big deal about it and say eventually every game will have it but whats the last game that released with physX? 

 

it depends on where you are buying it from online. if you buy from reputable online retailers like newegg theres pretty much no risk and even if you buy from private sellers if they have a good rating its probably fine

The performance within the same card group is generally very close as far as I could tell. The model differences are temperatures, noise levels, overclocking potential and durability. Since my old PC has been running pretty much like a heater for the past 2 years I'm more inclined to go for a cool and quiet model over one that can overclock like a champ. The problem is that most benchmarks that compare models only show fps comparisons, and thermals are only shown between different card groups, like 2060 vs 2070, which is useless to me, and I don't recall seeing any discussions on model durability, and while that would be anecdotal evidence it would still help in making a choice (though the fault there probably lies with me). Hope you are right about ray tracing, and I really hope that you are right about newegg. Thank you!

 

19 hours ago, Zando Bob said:

I don't see how better ray tracing support will make non-RTX cards take a hit in performance. RT is what gives you a hit in performance, you get more fps with it off. RTX cards do support DLSS though, that can actually improve your performance, but again I don't see how that makes other cards slower. 

As for the GPU itself, the 5700XT fights the 2070 Super AFAIK, beats the 2070 while costing less. It's definitely the better value unless you already have games that use the RTX features and those are worth the extra cost to you. 

 

That was what I thought, but I wanted to make sure, thanks. And as rtx is meaningless to me, I can't even tell the difference with it on and off, if custom 5700 and 5700xt end up costing less than 2060 and 2070 supers, I think I'll definitely go for them.

 

18 hours ago, Sorenson said:

I went with the 2070 super because I wanted the card with more performance and I could afford it. If going with the 2070 super would cause you to compromise in other areas then I would go with a partner model 5700 xt (I actually really enjoy the ray tracing and DLSS in single player games). As for how to choose the model, go to the gpu section of the form and they have a break down of all of the models and how good they are. Essentially all you really need to do is avoid blower style cards, and if you want to overclock extensively you will want a larger heat sink with more fans. If you're worried go with EVGA, even their cheap models are decent. 

 

Also playing games with ray tracing in the future won't effect non-raytracing cards. The effects will just be disabled. 

Going with Nvidia's cards won't force me to compromise elsewhere, they are within my budget, I just want to know if it makes sense to spend more money for them. Did you mean the Graphics Card (Cooling) Tier List thread? If so, I'll check it out, thanks for the advice. And yeah, I've heard only bad things about blower cards, that's why I'm waiting for the custom models to arrive where I live. Based on your comment in the other thread, if you have a 144Hz monitor, is the 2070 super more than enough for 100+ fps on high in most titles?

[SupersonicSaint]

22 hours ago, GreenMadman said:

Hello, I'm planning my first build and I'm looking for some advice.

 

First off the more general question : How do you decide which model of a certain card to buy? Do you always go for the cheapest one, the one priced in the middle, do you stick with a manufacturer/model or do you try to thoroughly go through model reviews and find the best option?

 

Second question : The upcoming 5700XT custom models will cost less than a 2070 and have more or less similar performance, but they won't have ray tracing support. Now my friend has told me that once ray tracing gets going and developers start implementing it in games, hardware that doesn't support it will take a big hit in performance. I'll be honest, I know nothing about ray tracing and that is kind of why I'm here. Basically, does what my friend say make sense, or is he talking rubbish? And no he isn't an Nvidia fanboy, he has an RX 580.

 

Final question : GPU prices here are massively inflated, pretty much $250 more than if I ordered one online. How safe is it to buy GPUs online, or to put it differently, has a GPU you got online arrived with problems that required you to return it? I'm asking because returning products would be a massive pain where I live.

Thank you very much to everyone who reads all this, especially to those who also reply, much love to all of you!

RTX is ray tracing. It improves lighting, shadows ect but isn't essential. RTX actually makes performance slower meaning lower FPS, frames per second. You really do not need RTX at least not for the next generation of games coming out and it would be better to wait for games to actually start using the technology before you invest totally in it. Most people will say FPS over RTX but it's down to you. Do you want more frames and accuracy or dynamic effects?

[GreenMadman]

1 minute ago, SupersonicSaint said:

RTX is ray tracing. It improves lighting, shadows ect but isn't essential. RTX actually makes performance slower meaning lower FPS, frames per second. You really do not need RTX at least not for the next generation of games coming out and it would be better to wait for games to actually start using the technology before you invest totally in it. Most people will say FPS over RTX but it's down to you. Do you want more frames and accuracy or dynamic effects?

I have a rough understanding of what rtx is, I was just wondering if what my friend said about the performance hit on hardware without rtx support was true, but it seems it isn't. The way he explained is roughly that lighting, shadows and reflections without rtx is implemented one way, and with rtx in another way, and that later on developers will only implement rtx which will cause hardware that doesn't support it to suffer. Something along those lines at least, don't lynch me for my ignorance. And ray tracing to me is really meaningless, since I can't even tell the difference between having it on and off. So if it makes no difference down the road, I'd rather not pay the premium for it. Especially since even right now performance with rtx on isn't very good.