Upgrade path for my GPUs?

[Icywolfe]

I have 2 machines. My Red team and my Blue/green team machine. Both are beyond outdated. (Yes, I have all 3 companies that hate each other.)

 

Shorten version near end of post.

 

 

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My Red Team machine, is my personal choice not to ditch.

 

I have 2x Radeon 6870. So I was thinking of either getting the R9 290x or R9 295x2 (While it's about 700 USD) But is this worth it if the R9 3xx might be coming out soon?

 

Currently my CPU might bottleneck any upgrades as it's a 1090T. (Currently it's back at stock speeds due to a Mobo change, but will OC back up.) But pretend I get the Fx9590 + (290x or 295x2) for 1080p gaming which choice would be better? The 290x or the 295x2..... or wait for the 3xx. I try to make sure my systems lasts about 3 years.

 

I think I derped.... I have the 970 chipset so no CF support. (Well decent CF support.)

 

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My Blue/green team machine.... isn't running..... Watercooling accident destroyed my waterblocks and some "stuff".

 

It used to be SLi GTX 580 3GB. I'm not sure how well the 580s still work in current day games as I can't find any aftermarket waterblocks (okay not really waterblock)  for it until now which is the NZXT G10 kit. If the 580s still are powerful enough for current day I might just reuse them. I never went 680 because of from what I heard Nvidia nerfed the cuda cores and I liked using gpu accelerated apps.

 

But if the 580s are far too weak I might just get the 970....... even though I do not want a upgrade of .5 GB vram. 3 GB to 3.5 GB in 3 generations (okay I know the real comparison is to the 980 but then that only 1 GB gain.) But the GTX 980 is far far too expensive it almost the cost of the 295x2. And the 960 looks far too tiny with the 2GB of vram. (Downgrade from 3 GB to 2GB >.> ) So the 970 is the best buy....

 

But in the end I might ditch the Blue/green machine as it would be far too costly, but the DSR and the Shadowplay and the Gamestream. Too bad I never tried any of those extras yet but they make it sound sooo nice.

 

 

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Shorten version:

 

AMD: Get the 290x or 295x2 or wait for the 3xx.

 

Nvidia: Get the Nzxt G10 kit or 960 or 970 or 980 or trash the system.

 

Note:

 

- I don't care for the heat. My laptop can heat up the room so I'm used to it.

 

- I don't care for the noise. Gunshots or music covers the noise. Also special foam in the walls to prevent sound leakage to other parts.

 

- I really don't think I will be max loading the gpu 24/7. Actually I'm sure I won't be doing that.

 

- I will overclock the gpus 1 year after purchase.

 

- If you think it's best to trash the Nvidia system. What do I do with the cards? Build a mini pc with the 1090T?

 

- I 1080p game. But I will like to be able to 1080p game 3 - 4 years later on the same pc.

 

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Semi Conclusion:

 

- R9 290x

 

- i7 5930k

 

- Ditching Nvidia Machine

[Jerakl]

A 970 or 290x would be good if you plan to stay on 1080p.

 

Or you could get a baller GPU like the 295x2 and go 3*1080p.

[Lolzious]

The 295x2 when the the 300 series comes out. It will probably be around $500 then, which is amazing. Then you may be able to save some more money for a 970, and it's nice to have two PCs

[Icywolfe]

A 970 or 290x would be good if you plan to stay on 1080p.

 

Or you could get a baller GPU like the 295x2 and go 3*1080p.

That was my plan for the future to either do 2 way monitor or 3 way. But that is way way later. And I'll add a second card to help the load by then.

 

 

 

The 295x2 when the the 300 series comes out. It will probably be around $500 then, which is amazing. Then you may be able to save some more money for a 970, and it's nice to have two PCs

 

One plus side of 2 machines was to get the best of both worlds. If a game hated amd stuff I would switch over to the nvidia stuff.

 

Extra bonus was a shield against the "fanboy" comment. You can't be a fan boy when you have both sides.

[Fate]

I agree with 970/290(x), you can find a R9 290 for $220 right now on Newegg which kills any other GPU in price:performance. 

Don't get a 9590, it's one of the worst CPU's to buy. 

1. It's just an overclocked 83xx

2. It'll bottleneck any high end GPU at 1080p in games that don't have perfect optimization (which are basically none)
The lowest CPU to not bottleneck a 970/290(x) would be an i5-4440, not a single AMD CPU will let you use your high end GPU's to their full potential almost all the time due to their abysmal single core performance (read my signature for more info). 

 

But! If you're spending this much money on GPU's/CPU's, I'd recommend you pick up a 1440p monitor for about $300. 1440p/4k is soooo much better than 1080p.

[Icywolfe]

I agree with 970/290(x), you can find a R9 290 for $220 right now on Newegg which kills any other GPU in price:performance. 

Don't get a 9590, it's one of the worst CPU's to buy. 

1. It's just an overclocked 83xx

2. It'll bottleneck any high end GPU at 1080p in games that don't have perfect optimization (which are basically none)

The lowest CPU to not bottleneck a 970/290(x) would be an i5-4440, not a single AMD CPU will let you use your high end GPU's to their full potential almost all the time due to their abysmal single core performance (read my signature for more info). 

 

But! If you're spending this much money on GPU's/CPU's, I'd recommend you pick up a 1440p monitor for about $300. 1440p/4k is soooo much better than 1080p.

I was planning to do 2 or 3 way smaller 1080p monitors. I have some serious brain reaction slow downs in extremely tall (large monitors that are bigger than 25in) And I get to turn off the side 3 when I'll be playing fast reaction games.

 

Well I thought AMD binned the 9590 higher so I'm able to get higher clocks plus it's 4.7 out of the box! No overclock lottery. I failed the previous lottery. I apparently have the most non-overclockable i7 2600k. Anything higher than stock = unstable. And that was when I had super great watercooling but it was tried far after purchase so no way to return that.

 

Well another reason for choosing the 9590 was the i7 5930 is sort of expensive. I realized that when I used some game recording software they will see only 4 cores and use 2 of them. The game uses another 2. Holy lag. I liked my x6 1090T. So it was I need a 5 core cpu..... and nobody ever makes a 5 core cpu.

[Fate]

I was planning to do 2 or 3 way smaller 1080p monitors. I have some serious brain reaction slow downs in extremely tall (large monitors that are bigger than 25in) And I get to turn off the side 3 when I'll be playing fast reaction games.

 

Well I thought AMD binned the 9590 higher so I'm able to get higher clocks plus it's 4.7 out of the box! No overclock lottery. I failed the previous lottery. I apparently have the most non-overclockable i7 2600k. Anything higher than stock = unstable.

 

Well another reason for choosing the 9590 was the i7 5930 is sort of expensive. I realized that when I used some game recording software they will see only 4 cores and use 2 of them. The game uses another 2. Holy lag. I liked my x6 1090T. So it was I need a 5 core cpu..... and nobody ever makes a 5 core cpu.

5930k and 9590 are on completely different levels, the 5930k will destroy the 9590 in virtually every scenario.

The i7-4790k will do similar things to the 9590. The 9590's heavily threaded performance is along the lines of a very heavily overclocked 4690k. 

If you're gaming and recording I'd recommend a 4790k all day every day over the 9590.

[Icywolfe]

5930k and 9590 are on completely different levels, the 5930k will destroy the 9590 in virtually every scenario.

The i7-4790k will do similar things to the 9590. The 9590's heavily threaded performance is along the lines of a very heavily overclocked 4690k. 

If you're gaming and recording I'd recommend a 4790k all day every day over the 9590.

I do know that those 2 are very different levels, but I gotten some very trollish usage management on my 2600k that almost made me give up intel. (I know it's more the software's fault but....) But in the end made me extremely dislike quad cores and the Intel's option is about 300 USD more than AMD's option.  So much difficult in choosing or touching a quad core. (I know my my laptop now has a quad core, but laptops don't get hex cores! I also experienced the very oddness that all the HT threads are 0% but the physical cores are at 100% and the game is laggy.) I use thirdplay party software as my clan doesn't play any Shadowplay supported games.

 

I get mixed reviews of the FX cpus some say that they are great for gaming + mutitasking. And other says it's worse. Then others says it's only like 5 fps less than Intel's option.

 

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But does anybody know if the GTX 580s are still relevant now a days even for gpu accelerated programs?

[Fate]

I do know that those 2 are very different levels, but I gotten some very trollish usage management on my 2600k that almost made me give up intel. (I know it's more the software's fault but....) But in the end made me extremely dislike quad cores and the Intel's option is about 300 USD more than AMD's option.  So much difficult in choosing or touching a quad core. (I know my my laptop now has a quad core, but laptops don't get hex cores! I also experienced the very oddness that all the HT threads are 0% but the physical cores are at 100% and the game is laggy.) I use thirdplay party software as my clan doesn't play any Shadowplay supported games.

 

I get mixed reviews of the FX cpus some say that they are great for gaming + mutitasking. And other says it's worse. Then others says it's only like 5 fps less than Intel's option.

Cores do not matter when comparing completely different architectures. 

The FX-9590 is essentially a quad core CPU, but worse than that because it has horrible single core performance (which games need). 

If you read my signature, you can see for yourself how badly FX performs with high end GPU's, and it's much more than 5 fps. 

The i7-4790k will beat any FX cpu in every scenario. Be it multitasking, gaming, streaming, rendering, etc.

[Icywolfe]

Cores do not matter when comparing completely different architectures. 

The FX-9590 is essentially a quad core CPU, but worse than that because it has horrible single core performance (which games need). 

If you read my signature, you can see for yourself how badly FX performs with high end GPU's, and it's much more than 5 fps. 

The i7-4790k will beat any FX cpu in every scenario. Be it multitasking, gaming, streaming, rendering, etc.

I generally avoid reading a bundled of links against a certain thing as..... a person compiled them which a certain bias. Anandtech shows it's still within playable frames. Same for THW.

 

I might end up with one weird Amd(290x) + Intel (i7-5930k), and maybe a Nvidia(GTX 580) + Amd (1090T) grouping.

 

Hmmm appox 1.6k USD for a upgrade path like that.

[Fate]

I generally avoid reading a bundled of links against a certain thing as..... a person compiled them which a certain bias. Anandtech shows it's still within playable frames. Same for THW.

 

I might end up with one weird Amd(290x) + Intel (i7-5930k), and maybe a Nvidia(GTX 580) + Amd (1090T) grouping.

 

Hmmm appox 1.6k USD for a upgrade path like that.

Did you look at the minimum framerates? Bioshock for example

 

I don't see how sharing factual information is biased. Would you rather listen to someone who has wild opinions with no sources, or someone with actual benchmarks and facts from reliable sources?

The list was put together because I was tired of hearing people scream, "FX is the better value for gaming!" when it's clearly not these days.

[Icywolfe]

Did you look at the minimum framerates? Bioshock for example

 

I don't see how sharing factual information is biased. Would you rather listen to someone who has wild opinions with no sources, or someone with actual benchmarks and facts from reliable sources?

The list was put together because I was tired of hearing people scream, "FX is the better value for gaming!" when it's clearly not these days.

Those benchmarks never say if it's sustained low frames or a random spike. On my 2600k system I had random 9 fps spikes in BF3 before.

 

Because most of your links are forum threads or posts. This is just me being me from going to many different types of forums. Where a user would do similar thing just to support their own bias. I did look at the THW and Anandtech stuff though.

 

But I'll either try to find a used last gen hex core from Intel or just buy a Haswell. Due to a weird turn of events with Nvidia. A R290x might go with the Intel. Bottlenecking by the cpu should be no issue and Mantle might do a darn good job with that in the future. (as the Intel Hex core got a lower clock. So I can run stcok speeds much longer!)

[Fate]

Those benchmarks never say if it's sustained low frames or a random spike. On my 2600k system I had random 9 fps spikes in BF3 before.

 

Because most of your links are forum threads or posts. This is just me being me from going to many different types of forums. Where a user would do similar thing just to support their own bias. I did look at the THW and Anandtech stuff though.

The forum posts I linked (half are forum posts, not most) are full of factual information with sources to back them up.

If you want to go FX ultimately that is your choice, I gain nothing and lose nothing from that, I'm just trying to help you make the correct decision because every single day on these forums someone is complaining about bottlenecks/low performance with their FX CPU.