Recommended GPU Upgrade

[Squall88uk]

Hi all,

 

I built a new PC for gaming about 6 months ago and bought all new parts except for a new GPU since I already had a fairly good one that was being bottlenecked by the old system that it was being used in prior to building my new rig. At first the decision to do this worked out fine but after getting a new monitor and going from a 1920x1080 resolution to an ultrawide 2560x1080 resolution there are times when it can struggle a bit. For example I have recently been playing the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot/prequel and the game would run on ultra at 60fps pretty much perfectly when I had a standard full HD monitor but now I'm trying to run with the ultrawide it can drop as low as 25 or 30 fps when there's a lot going on on screen. My worry is that when I come to play some slightly newer games like Rise of the Tomb Raider (which I'm going to play after finishing my current Tomb Raider playthrough), that I will have to play at much lower settings so I'm thinking about an upgrade. My current system specs are:

 

CPU: Intel Core i5 6600 3.3GHz (not 6600k since I never had any intention of overclocking)

RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4

GPU: MSI R9 280X Gaming 3GB

MoBo: ASRock H170A-X1/3.1

PSU: Corsair CXM 750W

SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 500GB

HDD: Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB (also could do with being replaced tbh)

Monitor: LG 29UM68P ultrawide 2560x1080

 

The problem I am having is that the monitor supports freesync (although my current GPU doesn't) and while I have never used freesync or gsync before I have heard good things so I would like to be able to use the feature (unless you really don't think its worth it), however this of course means that I will have to stick with an AMD card and I'm not really sure how big of an upgrade there is between my current GPU and something like an RX480. Would that be a worthwhile upgrade or is there something else you would recommend?

 

Thanks in advance

 

P.S I'm in the UK if it makes any difference

[n00bmlg]

I would say GTX 1070

[Squall88uk]

1 minute ago, n00bmlg said:

I would say GTX 1070

Even though this wouldn't support freesync? How much of an upgrade over my current GPU?

[aisle9]

Honestly, the 480 is a solid step up from the 280X, but it's not a "clouds parted and angels sang as the great green meadow was revealed" transformation. An 8GB 480 would certainly be a welcome improvement and can handle 1080p ultrawide without breaking a sweat.

 

That said, I have a 1070 on my LG 29UM58 monitor, and it's amazing the details you can pick out at infinityX MSAA.

[Cereal5]

I would say try to find an R9 390 used, unless new prices have fallen a lot. Depends on your budget though

[aisle9]

6 minutes ago, Squall88uk said:

How much of an upgrade over my current GPU?

It's like that girl in high school who was above average, decent looking but not spectacular. I mean, she wasn't going to date the captain of the football team, but she wouldn't be dating the captain of the chess club either.

 

Fast forward to the 10-year reunion and she's a supermodel who rolls up in a Ferrari with Tom Brady, who she's been banging for the last year.

 

That's kind of how it feels to go from a 280X to a 1070.

[Squall88uk]

9 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

Honestly, the 480 is a solid step up from the 280X, but it's not a "clouds parted and angels sang as the great green meadow was revealed" transformation. An 8GB 480 would certainly be a welcome improvement and can handle 1080p ultrawide without breaking a sweat.

 

That said, I have a 1070 on my LG 29UM58 monitor, and it's amazing the details you can pick out at infinityX MSAA.

 

1 minute ago, aisle9 said:

It's like that girl in high school who was above average, decent looking but not spectacular. I mean, she wasn't going to date the captain of the football team, but she wouldn't be dating the captain of the chess club either.

 

Fast forward to the 10-year reunion and she's a supermodel who rolls up in a Ferrari with Tom Brady, who she's been banging for the last year.

 

That's kind of how it feels to go from a 280X to a 1070.

The way you describe things is brilliant and hilarious! Wishing i'd got the version of the 29UM68P that featured g-sync instead of freesync. it would have made the decision easier. How much actual difference do the likes of freesync and g-sync make? And is it worth constraining myself to AMD just to use that feature? Or is the 1070 that good that I just won't care anyway?

[aisle9]

1 minute ago, Squall88uk said:

 

The way you describe things is brilliant and hilarious! Wishing i'd got the version of the 29UM68P that featured g-sync instead of freesync. it would have made the decision easier. How much actual difference do the likes of freesync and g-sync make? And is it worth constraining myself to AMD just to use that feature? Or is the 1070 that good that I just won't care anyway?

You'd have to ask someone else on those. I've never used them and never felt like I was missing out, but one of my best friends refuses to even consider NVIDIA because he loves FreeSync that much. Honestly, between the two, I don't blame him. If you want one of those two features, G-Sync is something of a massive rip-off.

[Squall88uk]

42 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

You'd have to ask someone else on those. I've never used them and never felt like I was missing out, but one of my best friends refuses to even consider NVIDIA because he loves FreeSync that much. Honestly, between the two, I don't blame him. If you want one of those two features, G-Sync is something of a massive rip-off.

OK. I've been looking a bit more at freesync and from what I can gather, while there is a difference when you use it, it's only useful when the fps of the game is within the range that the monitor supports for freesync. On the LG 29UM68P (and earlier iterations of that monitor) the range isn't that large (40-75 fps) and even when locking the fps to within that range via CCC some games just don't play well with it anyway. So while it's good when it works I might just be opening up a whole can of worms that I can't be bothered with anyway.

 

Understandably there's a £150 price difference between a RX 480 and a GTX 1070, and while that's not a deal breaker is the difference really worth that much extra? Also that price difference is based off the MSI RX 480 Gaming X 8GB and the MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X 8GB, since I have only looked at the MSI cards since that's what I normally buy. Would you recommend any other particular manufacturer or versions?

[aisle9]

20 minutes ago, Squall88uk said:

OK. I've been looking a bit more at freesync and from what I can gather, while there is a difference when you use it, it's only useful when the fps of the game is within the range that the monitor supports for freesync. On the LG 29UM68P (and earlier iterations of that monitor) the range isn't that large (40-75 fps) and even when locking the fps to within that range via CCC some games just don't play well with it anyway. So while it's good when it works I might just be opening up a whole can of worms that I can't be bothered with anyway.

 

Understandably there's a £150 price difference between a RX 480 and a GTX 1070, and while that's not a deal breaker is the difference really worth that much extra? Also that price difference is based off the MSI RX 480 Gaming X 8GB and the MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X 8GB, since I have only looked at the MSI cards since that's what I normally buy. Would you recommend any other particular manufacturer or versions?

EVGA is my usual go-to for pricier cards, but I've used MSI, PNY and Zotac extensively on team green with no complaints. On the team red side, MSI and Sapphire have never let me down. The XFX cards I've used haven't had any particular performance issues, but they seem to run hotter than other brands. PowerColor is just a clusterfudge, imo. I've owned two PowerColor cards, I've RMA'ed two PowerColor cards, and I've sold two PowerColor cards for about half of what they were worth at the time because I'd had so many problems with them. Gigabyte is kind of a buyer beware for me. It's not terribly likely that something will go horribly wrong, but if it does, you're stuck with arguably the worst customer service in the industry.

[samiscool51]

depends what reslotion you will be playing at and what detail you want in your games.....

if you want a budget card a RX480 will do it

if you don't mind spending a little bit more then a 1060 or wait till the 1050 or 1050TI to come out

[Squall88uk]

5 hours ago, aisle9 said:

EVGA is my usual go-to for pricier cards, but I've used MSI, PNY and Zotac extensively on team green with no complaints. On the team red side, MSI and Sapphire have never let me down. The XFX cards I've used haven't had any particular performance issues, but they seem to run hotter than other brands. PowerColor is just a clusterfudge, imo. I've owned two PowerColor cards, I've RMA'ed two PowerColor cards, and I've sold two PowerColor cards for about half of what they were worth at the time because I'd had so many problems with them. Gigabyte is kind of a buyer beware for me. It's not terribly likely that something will go horribly wrong, but if it does, you're stuck with arguably the worst customer service in the industry.

OK great. Thanks for all the help. It's given me something to think about until I decide what I want to do.

 

2 hours ago, samiscool51 said:

depends what reslotion you will be playing at and what detail you want in your games.....

if you want a budget card a RX480 will do it

if you don't mind spending a little bit more then a 1060 or wait till the 1050 or 1050TI to come out

Resolution is 2560x1080 on the LG 29UM68P. I generally like to be playing at high or above settings, althoigh I'm quite happy to fiddle with settings when I need to. My understanding was that the 1060 was pretty much a direct competitor to the 480 anyway so wouldn't be that much difference in it?

[samiscool51]

46 minutes ago, Squall88uk said:

My understanding was that the 1060 was pretty much a direct competitor to the 480 anyway so wouldn't be that much difference in it?

i think the 1060 gets more FPS but i can't remember.