Graphics card upgrade. Which would be the best value for money?

[Dabombinable]

I'm building a rig at the moment that I am going to be selling, and I've got a few choices at the moment as to how I'll sort out the graphics card for it and my own rig:

1. Keep GTX 970 G1 Gaming and game at 1080p, put GTX 650ti OC 2GB into new rig and use the money to upgrade my laptop (not cost effective to replace it despite it being 6 years old)
2. Keep GTX 650ti OC 2GB and game at 720p for a while, put GTX 970 into new rig and use the money to get an: Asus Strix OC R9 Fury, or Asus R9 Nano (same cost as the Fury), or Gigabyte GTX 980 G1 Gaming ($53 less than the Fury and Nano)
3. Sell rig with GTX 650ti and upgrade laptop

My rig:

• i7 4790K
• Z97 Sabertooth MKII
• 2x 4GB Kingston DDR3 1333 VLP (bought with i5 4440)
• Corsair LS Force 60GB (37.3GB still free)
• Seagate Baracuda 2TB (2013 model)
• Antec GX500B-W Dominator
• GTX 970 G1 Gaming
• (replacement PSU on the way because, fuck Corsair and their CX850M not surviving a 600W load unlike my VS650)
• Arctic Freezer Pro 7 Rev 2.0 (Seidon 120V has a dead mounting bracket)

Rig that I'm building:

• i5 4440
• Asus H87M Pro (can take i7 4790K past 4.8GHz)
• 1x Crucial 4GB DDR3 1333, 1x Corsair 4GB DDR3 1600
• 240GB OCZ ARC 100
• WD Blue 1TB
• Corsair VS650
• TP Link 300Mbps dual channel wifi card
• Stock Intel cooler (nothing else is needed with the i5 4440, it runs silent on it)
• Thermaltake Commander MS-I
• Apacer all in 1 USB 2.0 card reader w/USB port.

Laptop:

• Upgrade including motherboard to i5 580M
• Upgrade to 8GB RAM
• Upgrade to 480GB SSD
• Upgrade battery to 9cell extended
• Replace keyboard with backlit one

[Clyne]

Well how about selling the laptop and getting a higher end Clarksfield/Sandy laptop?

[Dabombinable]

Just now, Bubblewhale said:

Well how about selling the laptop and getting a higher end Clarksfield/Sandy laptop?

Its only worth about $200 in its current config (can't run Windows 10 due to its primary dGPU being an Ati MR HD4250), and I can't get a better laptop for that price (second hand off Ebay AU)..

[Morgan MLGman]

I highly advise you to look for another brand of AMD cards than ASUS/Gigabyte, they're exceptionally bad when it comes to Radeon cards, although the Nano should be okay as it's the reference design anyway. I'd still pick MSI/Sapphire for better customer service/warranty though

R9 Nano has a full Fiji XT core like a Fury X but throttles, which makes it a little bit slower than a Fury in DX11. This might change though in DX12 as the additional hardware might be utilized more efficiently, and if you have a good airflow in your case it might not throttle a lot, so it's up to you, the performance difference between the two is negligible, with the Fury pulling out ahead by 2-5%, but the Nano is super-small, awesome and is like a half of a Fury in terms of size

If I were you I wouldn't consider a 980, as it's not a significant upgrade from a 970 and it's not worth the many. It should also need to be replaced sooner than one of the Furys imo considering many factors.

[INS_Everett]

You just need to take all the parts that are better out and build a rig with them, then put the other worse rig together with bad parts and sell it. I would personally not use a laptop and instead go and buy a windows tablet that has a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. You will have something portable and good for work school and low end gaming if you get something that is mid range.

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, Morgan MLGman said:

I highly advise you to look for another brand of AMD cards than ASUS/Gigabyte, they're exceptionally bad when it comes to Radeon cards, although the Nano should be okay as it's the reference design anyway. I'd still pick MSI/Sapphire for better customer service/warranty though

R9 Nano has a full Fiji XT core like a Fury X but throttles, which makes it a little bit slower than a Fury in DX11. This might change though in DX12 as the additional hardware might be utilized more efficiently, and if you have a good airflow in your case it might not throttle a lot, so it's up to you, the performance difference between the two is negligible, with the Fury pulling out ahead by 2-5%, but the Nano is super-small, awesome and is like a half of a Fury in terms of size

I don't have any other options, and I know they aren't the best for AMD cards (Sapphire>MSI=XFX>otherbrands>Gigabyte>Asus). And I'd forgotten about the throttling-which would reduce the lifespan of the GPU (BTW remember that I have a GTX 970 G1 Gaming, graphics card size isn't an issue). 

 

3 minutes ago, INS_Everett said:

You just need to take all the parts that are better out and build a rig with them, then put the other worse rig together with bad parts and sell it. I would personally not use a laptop and instead go and buy a windows tablet that has a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. You will have something portable and good for work school and low end gaming if you get something that is mid range.

Replacing my current laptop still isn't cost effective, and even in its current config it lets me do everything despite its age (that and I'd have to spend at least $700 to get a laptop that is better in all ways).

[Clyne]

3 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Its only worth about $200 in its current config (can't run Windows 10 due to its primary dGPU being an Ati MR HD4250), and I can't get a better laptop for that price (second hand off Ebay AU)..

Weird...my C2D has a HD3400 MR and it runs Windows 10 fine.

Well i'm talking about laptops like this.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/HP-EliteBook-8440p-Laptop-14-Intel-i5-520M-2-4GHz-2-GB-RAM-250GB-SATA-/131751033839?hash=item1eacf93bef:g:tFAAAOSw~OVW1Xo1

 

 

[Morgan MLGman]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

I don't have any other options, and I know they aren't the best for AMD cards (Sapphire>MSI=XFX>otherbrands>Gigabyte>Asus). And I'd forgotten about the throttling-which would reduce the lifespan of the GPU (BTW remember that I have a GTX 970 G1 Gaming, graphics card size isn't an issue). 

No no, the Nano doesn't thermally throttle. Idk why tbh, if you watch JayzTwoCents video, he says that the card was below 75 degrees at stock and throttled by over 100mhz sometimes, but when he actually overclocked the card and it was around 82-85 degrees, the throttling decreased to 20-30 mhz difference from the OC

I'm not sure why it does it, maybe AMD didn't want it to compete with the Fury X and made it auto-throttle a little so it's slower, but I think all this info should be somewhat helpful to you

[Dabombinable]

6 minutes ago, Bubblewhale said:

Weird...my C2D has a HD3400 MR and it runs Windows 10 fine.

Well i'm talking about laptops like this.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/HP-EliteBook-8440p-Laptop-14-Intel-i5-520M-2-4GHz-2-GB-RAM-250GB-SATA-/131751033839?hash=item1eacf93bef:g:tFAAAOSw~OVW1Xo1

 

 

The motherboard which I'd be getting allows me to run an i5 580M (3GHz base, 3.3GHz boost), which will make it better than that HP elitbook (which also has less RAM+only a 250GB HDD+a slower CPU as it takes an i5 540M to match a Phenom II N970-benched a newer revision of my laptop). And there is no driver support at all for laptop's with Mobility Radeon HD4250 as the primary dGPU, and Mobility Radeon HD5650 as the secondary dGPU.

3 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

No no, the Nano doesn't thermally throttle. Idk why tbh, if you watch JayzTwoCents video, he says that the card was below 75 degrees at stock and throttled by over 100mhz sometimes, but when he actually overclocked the card and it was around 82-85 degrees, the throttling decreased to 20-30 mhz difference from the OC

I'm not sure why it does it, maybe AMD didn't want it to compete with the Fury X and made it auto-throttle a little so it's slower, but I think all this info should be somewhat helpful to you

I'll keep that in mind then, although I don't feel comfortable with anything that runs over 70^oC stock. Especially after past experiences with graphics cards.