shopping for my first GPU.

[Okjoek]

I've never bought a GPU before. I've been using default integrated graphics or the most powerful one I had given to me a GT 740 sc. I like to play a few games, the most demanding of which is Planetside 2. I made a thread in the CPU section yesterday thinking my i5 3450 was holding me back from enjoying the game, but after looking around a bit it seems that my lower FPS is more likely because of my old GPU. This doesn't mean I won't replace my aging processor too at some point, but that can wait.

 

I've never shopped for a GPU myself though. I used wiki to figure out what top of the line consumer models were out there. My brother uses an R9 390 and he said It runs Planetside 2 on max graphics with no problem and it's top of the line on their side so I would be set for a long time hopefully. I read one comment that when you run two R9 390 together it even beats the Titan x, but I can only fit one GPU on my motherboard so that's important to keep in mind.

 

But there's also the Nvidia GTX 890 ti which according to this beats the R9 390, but is a lot more expensive on Amazon.

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-390-vs-GeForce-GTX-980-Ti

 

The AMD choices seem to be more bang for the buck, but seem weaker across the board, but I'm still tempted to go for the AMD option because I feel I'm getting more for my money and my brother has first hand experience. Ontop of this I may go the same way with my Motherboard/CPU when it comes time to upgrade from my aging CPU that so I can go to a full AMD build. My brother says Linus likes to bash AMD because he's sponsored by the competition. As far as AMD goes I bought a 130 dollar AMD office computer and I was impressed how much I was able to do with it for that price after I slapped an old 30-50 dollar GPU we had sitting around into it.

 

[Starelementpoke]

4 minutes ago, Okjoek said:

I've never bought a GPU before. I've been using default integrated graphics or the most powerful one I had given to me a GT 740 sc. I like to play a few games, the most demanding of which is Planetside 2. I made a thread in the CPU section yesterday thinking my i5 3450 was holding me back from enjoying the game, but after looking around a bit it seems that my lower FPS is more likely because of my old GPU. This doesn't mean I won't replace my aging processor too at some point, but that can wait.

 

I've never shopped for a GPU myself though. I used wiki to figure out what top of the line consumer models were out there. My brother uses an R9 390 and he said It runs Planetside 2 on max graphics with no problem and it's top of the line on their side so I would be set for a long time hopefully. I read one comment that when you run two R9 390 together it even beats the Titan x, but I can only fit one GPU on my motherboard so that's important to keep in mind.

 

But there's also the Nvidia GTX 890 ti which according to this beats the R9 390, but is a lot more expensive on Amazon.

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-390-vs-GeForce-GTX-980-Ti

 

The AMD choices seem to be more bang for the buck, but seem weaker across the board, but I'm still tempted to go for the AMD option because I feel I'm getting more for my money and my brother has first hand experience. Ontop of this I may go the same way with my Motherboard/CPU when it comes time to upgrade from my aging CPU that so I can go to a full AMD build. My brother says Linus likes to bash AMD because he's sponsored by the competition. As far as AMD goes I bought a 130 dollar AMD office computer and I was impressed how much I was able to do with it for that price after I slapped an old 30-50 dollar GPU we had sitting around into it.

 

You can´t compare the 390 to the 980ti, those are 2 different tiers. The 390 compares against the 970, which it beats. AMD wins at Med. High, and very high tier. Nvida wins at the bottom and the top as of now. If you can afford the 980ti, be my guest. 390 will also do very well at video games.

[desertcomputer]

980ti beats 390 in every benchmark and also there are not not in same teir in price term. 

[courtiousdoge]

8 minutes ago, Okjoek said:

whI've never bought a GPU before. I've been using default integrated graphics or the most powerful one I had given to me a GT 740 sc. I like to play a few games, the most demanding of which is Planetside 2. I made a thread in the CPU section yesterday thinking my i5 3450 was holding me back from enjoying the game, but after looking around a bit it seems that my lower FPS is more likely because of my old GPU. This doesn't mean I won't replace my aging processor too at some point, but that can wait.

 

I've never shopped for a GPU myself though. I used wiki to figure out what top of the line consumer models were out there. My brother uses an R9 390 and he said It runs Planetside 2 on max graphics with no problem and it's top of the line on their side so I would be set for a long time hopefully. I read one comment that when you run two R9 390 together it even beats the Titan x, but I can only fit one GPU on my motherboard so that's important to keep in mind.

 

But there's also the Nvidia GTX 890 ti which according to this beats the R9 390, but is a lot more expensive on Amazon.

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-390-vs-GeForce-GTX-980-Ti

 

The AMD choices seem to be more bang for the buck, but seem weaker across the board, but I'm still tempted to go for the AMD option because I feel I'm getting more for my money and my brother has first hand experience. Ontop of this I may go the same way with my Motherboard/CPU when it comes time to upgrade from my aging CPU that so I can go to a full AMD build. My brother says Linus likes to bash AMD because he's sponsored by the competition. As far as AMD goes I bought a 130 dollar AMD office computer and I was impressed how much I was able to do with it for that price after I slapped an old 30-50 dollar GPU we had sitting around into it.

 

whats ur budget? 

[Shahnewaz]

Go for the R9 390. Sapphire cards pefereably.

[Clonzoo]

Amd tends to give you more bang for the buck. But Linus don't bash on them because he's sponsored by Nvidia or Intel, its just because he likes the green and blue team better, because he is more interested in the top line.

980 ti is an awesome card, but comes at a price, R9 390 is also a fantastic GPU's although not as powerful by quite a bit but again much more affordable.

[byalexandr]

Well your brother is wrong, AMD makes much higher end cards than the 390. I'd say the 390 is mid to high tier actually.

[Okjoek]

13 minutes ago, courtiousdoge said:

whats ur budget? 

There is none as of yet. I'm still "window shopping"

 

Thanks for some of the comments, especially clearing up some of my misconceptions and mistakes such as comparing the wrong tiers.

[Aereldor]

Your processor is extremely capable, and will likely perform on par with the much more recent i5 4460 and 6400 in most games, as almost every game around is GPU-bound.

 

However, you have to keep in mind that GPUs lend themselves better to different resolutions.The GTX 980 Ti is built to play demanding games at 1440p and even 4k resolutions, and 1080p won't even test its limits. If you're going to get a 4k monitor, I'd advise purchasing the 980 Ti over the R9 390.

 

However, at about half the price, the R9 390 presents better value. At 1080p, the cards will max out anything you can throw at them and won't even be stressed. Even at 1440p with a 60Hz monitor, while the 980Ti does pull ahead, it still doesn't make it worth paying literally double the price.

 

Only at 4k does the 980Ti become feasible, but since higher resolutions are what the new Pascal and Polaris GPUs are probably going to be geared towards, if you're looking at a 4k display, you'd be better off waiting. However, if you just can't wait, the 980 Ti is the best you can buy right now.

However, the R9 390 and 390 presents one key advantage over the GTX 980 Ti, and it becomes especially relevant if you modify your games a lot- especially Bethesda titles like Skyrim or Fallout 4. The R9 390 has 33% more VRAM than the 980 Ti, and while its GPU compute performance is inferior to the 980 Ti, it will be able to contend with more textures and objects, and is the perfect card for a modder, as VRAM is usually the first fuse to blow.

[Okjoek]

2 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

Your processor is extremely capable, and will likely perform on par with the much more recent i5 4460 and 6400 in most games, as almost every game around is GPU-bound.

 

However, you have to keep in mind that GPUs lend themselves better to different resolutions.The GTX 980 Ti is built to play demanding games at 1440p and even 4k resolutions, and 1080p won't even test its limits. If you're going to get a 4k monitor, I'd advise purchasing the 980 Ti over the R9 390.

 

However, at about half the price, the R9 390 presents better value. At 1080p, the cards will max out anything you can throw at them and won't even be stressed. Even at 1440p with a 60Hz monitor, while the 980Ti does pull ahead, it still doesn't make it worth paying literally double the price.

 

Only at 4k does the 980Ti become feasible, but since higher resolutions are what the new Pascal and Polaris GPUs are probably going to be geared towards, if you're looking at a 4k display, you'd be better off waiting. However, if you just can't wait, the 980 Ti is the best you can buy right now.

However, the R9 390 and 390 presents one key advantage over the GTX 980 Ti, and it becomes especially relevant if you modify your games a lot- especially Bethesda titles like Skyrim or Fallout 4. The R9 390 has 33% more VRAM than the 980 Ti, and while its GPU compute performance is inferior to the 980 Ti, it will be able to contend with more textures and objects, and is the perfect card for a modder, as VRAM is usually the first fuse to blow.

It's funny you mention that, we were thinking of upgrading from my really old monitor to something newer.

This is my current monitor: http://www.amazon.com/HP-W1907-19-inch-Widescreen-Monitor/dp/B000OK1046/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1459426906&sr=8-1&keywords=hp+w1907

I've never shopped for a monitor either. What's the difference between 1080p and 1440p and what other stats do you look for in monitors? Is there a techquickie video that could help explain this?

[Clanscorpia]

27 minutes ago, Starelementpoke said:

You can´t compare the 390 to the 980ti, those are 2 different tiers. The 390 compares against the 970, which it beats. AMD wins at Med. High, and very high tier. Nvida wins at the bottom and the top as of now. If you can afford the 980ti, be my guest. 390 will also do very well at video games.

I thought the 980 beats the Fury?

[courtiousdoge]

basically 1080p = 970

1440p or 4k = 980 ti or fury x 

 

[Aereldor]

7 minutes ago, Okjoek said:

It's funny you mention that, we were thinking of upgrading from my really old monitor to something newer.

This is my current monitor: http://www.amazon.com/HP-W1907-19-inch-Widescreen-Monitor/dp/B000OK1046/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1459426906&sr=8-1&keywords=hp+w1907

I've never shopped for a monitor either. What's the difference between 1080p and 1440p and what other stats do you look for in monitors? Is there a techquickie video that could help explain this?

There are a few. Things I would consider are monitor size and resolution (this guide also includes lots of other information), panel types, refresh rates, response time, and adaptive sync (hardware V-sync). 

[GreezyJeezy]

Your brother thinks a 390 is the top of the line AMD card, more like the fury x is.  

 

The 980ti is on par with the fury x not the 390

[bigneo]

Getting GPU, in my opinion, these are the things that you should consider:

1. Resolution you are playing on (Monitor)

2. CPU (Will it bottleneck your new GPU or the other way around?)

3. Games you play

 

Eventually, everything boils down to your budget.

 

If I was you I would got for the card that your brother has or 970 and would upgrade monitor to 24'' 1080p, both at the same time tho

[Starelementpoke]

2 hours ago, Clanscorpia said:

I thought the 980 beats the Fury?

980 or 980ti?

[ybriK]

Never use gpuboss for comparing GPU horsepower, the only thing they're good for is hardware specs comparison. Other than that their benchmarking system is horrible. Reading up is the best way to do your computer part purchases. Multi-GPUs setups imho are not that great due to lack of proper utilization support.

 

http://www.guru3d.com/

http://www.techspot.com/

http://www.techpowerup.com/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9PBzalIcEQCsiIkq36PyUA

 

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_390_Nitro/23.html

Raw GPU horsepower comparison not actual gaming/computational performance. In a real modern gaming situation I'd get a 390 over a 7990 due to vram limitations on the 7990 as an example.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html

[Clanscorpia]

2 hours ago, Starelementpoke said:

980 or 980ti?

980

[Starelementpoke]

1 hour ago, Clanscorpia said:

980

Fury and Nano are faster than 980, easily.