GPU OC Help / Upgrade Advice

[allison1derland]

Hi all,

 

Info per guidelines:

1. Thinking future upgrade budget $300-$400 if multiple parts, if just GPU, around $300 in USA

2. Purposes = gaming and website work, general non-intensive tasks

3. Currently one 1400x900 monitor and sometimes a 720p tv too, I would like to run 2 actual monitors (one 1400x900 and one 1920x1080) when I get a 1080p monitor eventually

4. Peripherals already purchased for original build 

5. Thought Process: 

My hope was that this build would last a few years.  It is still 90% fine.  I was very annoyed/disappointed with the AMD 16.xx drivers.  15.x came on the disc w/ the GPU, and that worked mostly fine, but then I upgraded to 16.x and experienced crashes and glitches, so I rolled back and 15.x was better.  After skipping a few 16.x releases, it seems AMD mostly fixed the problems causing the crashes, so I am on the latest drivers now.  I don't think I NEED to upgrade hardware now.  What I want to know is about how long my current hardware should last for playing about 1 new AAA title per year with as many max settings as possible.  Framerate is less important to me, anything between 50-60 is fine.  Now that the new generation of both AMD and NVIDIA GPUs are out, I fear the new titles will be written to leverage those resources and my previous gen 380 will get smoked trying to keep up.  

 

How can I optimize my GPU settings in the ASUS Tweak Tool 2 or OverDrive to make it perform the best? I don't care about noise and I think its temps are fine.  I tried increasing the power target and gpu clock, and then click apply to save the settings as a custom profile, but it would not actually save and I would switch profiles and go back and everything would be undone.  Could someone please link to a guide or explain step-by-step how to OC an ASUS AMD GPU?  One time when I tried creating a custom profile, it actually undid everything and all the sliders went down to 0 in the previously included OC mode.  All the guides I have found just say, "increase the clock speed by 10 until it becomes unstable, then go down 20 and you're done!" but that doesn't help when none of my settings get saved/applied and the default OC mode gets undone.

 

As you can see in my linked build, I am using micro ATX. It was really hard to shove the ASUS Strix 380 into this case because of the non removable DVD cage.  Its length is the problem.  Whenever I do upgrade, I am thinking a single fan GPU on something like a 1060 (Maybe 1160 by the time I need it).  That seems super tiny and good for a micro ATX build.  I am also leaning toward NVIDIA because I am annoyed that AMD drivers caused so many problems and the software is not intuitive.  

 

I have included pictures of the settings that I pretty much leave on and have not successfully messed with much. I did toggle frame rate target control on and set it to 60.  I don't really understand what the other settings do.  The default OC mode gets 104%.  I don't know if that is good.  I believe I saw some guy in a video get 118%.  I think my 600W PSU should give me a lot of headroom right?  What can I do to get better than the default OC mode?  

 

I built this system in March 2016:  http://pcpartpicker.com/list/MbJqbj

RIGHT before the new generation of GPUs came out.  Had to, I wanted to play Dark Souls 3.  

 

I thought it went in this section of the forum because whenever I do need to upgrade the GPU, I figure it could be worth it to upgrade the motherboard.  I am on a Skylake i5, so I figure that CPU should last a while.  I think 16GB of RAM should last a while.  My wifi card has an annoying antenna that is attached to wires that come out of the back.  I wonder if the motherboards that have onboard wifi have 1-2ft of wires out of the back too.  If not, I might want to get a motherboard with onboard wifi that is much tidier and maybe only has a rigid antenna or 2 that sticks out of the back but can be rotated up or down.  I also want one with more fan headers so I can plug in my case fans and I can eliminate one of the PSU cables that I have plugged into my modular PSU that is solely for a molex cable to plug into 1 case fan.  The case fan in question is a large (240?mm) with LED.  I tried plugging it into a fan splitter, but it would not work.  

 

 

[bgibbz]

Tl; dr?

[allison1derland]

9 minutes ago, bgibbz said:

Tl; dr?

Would it make sense to spend $270-$300 on something like a 1060 for a build w/ the total original cost of about $800?  

Also, how can I optimize the OverDrive or GPU Tweak Tool 2 settings to get max performance and extend the time the 380 will be fine for running games at as max settings as possible? (Mainly care about game appearance, less about FPS.  50-60FPS is fine) Also, don't care about noise or temps.

[bgibbz]

48 minutes ago, allison1derland said:

Would it make sense to spend $270-$300 on something like a 1060 for a build w/ the total original cost of about $800?  

Also, how can I optimize the OverDrive or GPU Tweak Tool 2 settings to get max performance and extend the time the 380 will be fine for running games at as max settings as possible? (Mainly care about game appearance, less about FPS.  50-60FPS is fine) Also, don't care about noise or temps.

Upgrading to a 1060 would be a good upgrade. It's about 50% better than the 380, and it's still very new so it will remain relevant for years to come. That being said, amd is about to release there next micro architecture, vega, sometime in late 2016. If you think you might want to wait for that launch, there is a few things you can do to increase the performance of your gpu. Manually overclock your gpu for starters. I have never used tweak tool, as I usually use msi afterburner, but you can find guides online how to overclock on that tool. Keep in kind though - vegan will be expensive. You may very well end up saving up for 2 months only to buy an Rx 480.

 

 

So basicallg, If you are prepared to spend 350+$ on an upgrade, consider waiting for vega, as it will lower prices at the very least. Otherwise, a 1060 6g will be a great upgrade for the long term. 

[allison1derland]

1 hour ago, bgibbz said:

Upgrading to a 1060 would be a good upgrade. It's about 50% better than the 380, and it's still very new so it will remain relevant for years to come. That being said, amd is about to release there next micro architecture, vega, sometime in late 2016. If you think you might want to wait for that launch, there is a few things you can do to increase the performance of your gpu. Manually overclock your gpu for starters. I have never used tweak tool, as I usually use msi afterburner, but you can find guides online how to overclock on that tool. Keep in kind though - vegan will be expensive. You may very well end up saving up for 2 months only to buy an Rx 480.

 

 

So basicallg, If you are prepared to spend 350+$ on an upgrade, consider waiting for vega, as it will lower prices at the very least. Otherwise, a 1060 6g will be a great upgrade for the long term. 

A new architecture immediately after polaris? That's so soon.  Would that be 5 series? 580, 570, 560? 

I don't want to spend over $350 yet.  Probably $300 +/- 20.  Is MSI Afterburner still better for non MSI cards? I have tried OCing it, but none of my settings save or get applied.  As soon as I switch away, all of my changes go away even after choosing "Apply and save."  Are there detailed guides that are better than "bump up clock speed by 10 aaaaaaand you're done." ?? 

 

Thanks for your opinions.  I appreciate the advice.

[bgibbz]

1 hour ago, allison1derland said:

A new architecture immediately after polaris? That's so soon.  Would that be 5 series? 580, 570, 560? 

I don't want to spend over $350 yet.  Probably $300 +/- 20.  Is MSI Afterburner still better for non MSI cards? I have tried OCing it, but none of my settings save or get applied.  As soon as I switch away, all of my changes go away even after choosing "Apply and save."  Are there detailed guides that are better than "bump up clock speed by 10 aaaaaaand you're done." ?? 

 

Thanks for your opinions.  I appreciate the advice.

Msi afterburnerbworks on any cards, as the Gpus are all nvidia or amd anyways. Polaris will be the performance line of the rx 4xx cards I believe. Currently, AMD has no competition for the Gtx 1070, 1080, or titanxp. If I remember Amds naming sheme correctly, they will release a 490x and some dual gpu variants of the other rx cards. , and then something like the fury.