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Looking for a new GPU

Freeway
By Freeway
in Graphics Cards
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Posted

I cleaned up my old Radeon 5870, added thermal paste how ever it's not given me any sort of performance increase, thus I came to the conclusion that I'd like to upgrade my GPU.

 

My current specs:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 970 (3.7GHz)

Motherboard: Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0

GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5870

PSU: Cooler Master V850

Playing at 1920x1200, looking for a target of 60FPS

I don't personally care whether it's Nvidia or AMD, looking purely for performance and price.

 

The first question I have is whether or not I should just upgrade my GPU by itself or upgrade both my CPU and GPU together. Will my CPU be a bottleneck at this point in its life? Does it also need an upgrade or could I get by for now without upgrading it.

 

Second is which GPU I should get (and CPU depending on whether you think it's time to upgrade that too). I've personally been looking at a price range of £120 - 180 for my GPU, how ever if you think I could spend a little bit more and get even better performance for the price then please do say. I've looked out a MSI GeForce GTX 960 STRIX so far, but seeing as I'm not up to date on GPU's and it's taking a little while to become so, I thought I could do with some advice from others.

 

If I'm missing any vital information please do say.

 

Thank you for reading and for any help/advice.

 

Edit: Yes this is for gaming, forgot that part.

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R9 380 is about 15% faster than a 960 and isn't bottlenecked by the 128-bit bus usually found on laptops

Archangel (Desktop) CPU: i5 4590 GPU:Asus R9 280  3GB RAM:HyperX Beast 2x4GBPSU:SeaSonic S12G 750W Mobo:GA-H97m-HD3 Case:CM Silencio 650 Storage:1 TB WD Red
Celestial (Laptop 1) CPU:i7 4720HQ GPU:GTX 860M 4GB RAM:2x4GB SK Hynix DDR3Storage: 250GB 850 EVO Model:Lenovo Y50-70
Seraph (Laptop 2) CPU:i7 6700HQ GPU:GTX 970M 3GB RAM:2x8GB DDR4Storage: 256GB Samsung 951 + 1TB Toshiba HDD Model:Asus GL502VT
Windows 10 is now MSX! - http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/440190-can-we-start-calling-windows-10/page-6

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You could get an R9 380 on sale this season.

 

If you want to push your budget a bit up by £50, you could even wait for an R9 380X, hopefully when it comes out. I'm waiting for it myself as it will be the only GPU in the 250 sweet spot when it comes out...

You can bark like a dog, but that won't make you a dog.

You can act like someone you're not, but that won't change who you are.

 

Finished Crysis without a discrete GPU,15 FPS average, and a lot of heart

 

How I plan my builds -

Spoiler

For me I start with the "There's no way I'm not gonna spend $1,000 on a system."

Followed by the "Wow I need to buy the OS for a $100!?"

Then "Let's start with the 'best budget GPU' and 'best budget CPU' that actually fits what I think is my budget."

Realizing my budget is a lot less, I work my way to "I think these new games will run on a cheap ass CPU."

Then end with "The new parts launching next year is probably gonna be better and faster for the same price so I'll just buy next year."

 

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