Graphics cards - best bang for the buck?
- Thread starter mossfoot
- Start date
It all depends on your budget, the 970 is fastest Nvidia card you can get before you start getting into really expensive cards i.e. 980's. (A 970 is roughly 10% slower than a 980 yet costs over £100 less). Wouldn't touch an AMD card, they use way more power and historically their driver support has left a lot to be desired.....
Of cards you can buy new now, I'd nominate the GTX 960. If you're not fussy about brand and shop around, they can be found under £150. That gets you over 60fps Ultra at 1080p in most places, dropping into the 40's on planets unless you start dropping the quality. No, it is not the fastest or bet card, but it doesn't cost a lot either.
The NVIDIA Bias on this forum is amazing. Currently AMD has the best price/performance and their driver releases are excellent.
Anyone claiming all AMD cards are irrelevant due to high power consumption and heat is merely stating their blind ignorance. Currently the ONLY Nvidia cards worth recommending are the GTX 970 and GTX 980 ti. The GTX 960/980 have incredibly poor price/performance and the owners of these cards were suckered for marketing.
2 GB VRAM cards are DOA. Go 4 GB of VRAM. The R9 280X/380/380X are all better deals than the GTX 960. The R9 390 is an excellent alternative to the GTX 970. Remember that historical figures point to the GTX 700 series (Kepler) has aged very poorly compared to the 200 series from AMD.
The GTX 970 is a great card with only the 3.5GB VRAM to bottleneck it after a few years. The difference in power,heat, and performance between the 970 and 390 is virtually impossible to notice.
The GTX 980 ti is the ultimate card to own. It overclocks 20-30% on air easily, has 50% more VRAM than its competitor, and will most likely have longer longevity.
Cards to recommend:
Mid-range: R9 380 4GB
High-end: GTX 970 or R9 390 or R9 290 Tri-X
Enthusiast: GTX 980 ti.
Don't buy the GTX 960, GTX 980, R9 380X, R9 Fury X.
Please don't post FUD/crap based on your old opinions.... Educate yourselves!
Anyone claiming all AMD cards are irrelevant due to high power consumption and heat is merely stating their blind ignorance. Currently the ONLY Nvidia cards worth recommending are the GTX 970 and GTX 980 ti. The GTX 960/980 have incredibly poor price/performance and the owners of these cards were suckered for marketing.
2 GB VRAM cards are DOA. Go 4 GB of VRAM. The R9 280X/380/380X are all better deals than the GTX 960. The R9 390 is an excellent alternative to the GTX 970. Remember that historical figures point to the GTX 700 series (Kepler) has aged very poorly compared to the 200 series from AMD.
The GTX 970 is a great card with only the 3.5GB VRAM to bottleneck it after a few years. The difference in power,heat, and performance between the 970 and 390 is virtually impossible to notice.
The GTX 980 ti is the ultimate card to own. It overclocks 20-30% on air easily, has 50% more VRAM than its competitor, and will most likely have longer longevity.
Cards to recommend:
Mid-range: R9 380 4GB
High-end: GTX 970 or R9 390 or R9 290 Tri-X
Enthusiast: GTX 980 ti.
Don't buy the GTX 960, GTX 980, R9 380X, R9 Fury X.
Please don't post FUD/crap based on your old opinions.... Educate yourselves!
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It's never the right time to buy a graphics card. There will always be something better come along later, which will either push the price of older but still desireable kit downwards, or up as they become more rare, or bring new shiny stuff that people want NAOW!
Of course, when some new cards are released, they are simply old ones with new badges. That annoys me immensely
Very true. We are more than halfway into this cycle. So I would recommend a cheap used GTX 970/R9 2(3)90 or R9 280(X)
NVIDIA rolls out their GPU lineup with small first and large dies later. So we will see small Pascal first, then BIG Pascal. Small Pascal will most likely compete well against the GTX 980 ti before it gets annihilated by big P.
Not True. The best time to buy a GPU is on release. When a new GPU series is being rolled out, last gen GPU prices plummet before rising again a month or so later. So it isn't a bad idea to buy a GTX 980 ti for CHEAP when small Pascal is rolled out. Alternatively, buying an overpriced brand spanking new GPU that was just released isn't a bad idea either. The key is to have leading-edge performance without getting ripped off (Titan-X).
When the GTX 700 (and 500) and R9 300 (and 6000) series was released it was mostly rebadges. This meant that last-gen prices for essentially the same hardware was ludicrously cheap. The GTX 480 when the 580 was released was 90% the same performance but for nearly half the price. Same thing with the R9 290, GTX 680, etc. Worst time to buy a GPU is in the middle of the cycle when prices remain high and your 'new' GPU has a much lower shelf life.
NVIDIA rolls out their GPU lineup with small first and large dies later. So we will see small Pascal first, then BIG Pascal. Small Pascal will most likely compete well against the GTX 980 ti before it gets annihilated by big P.
It's never the right time to buy a graphics card. There will always be something better come along later, which will either push the price of older but still desireable kit downwards, or up as they become more rare, or bring new shiny stuff that people want NAOW!
Of course, when some new cards are released, they are simply old ones with new badges. That annoys me immensely
Not True. The best time to buy a GPU is on release. When a new GPU series is being rolled out, last gen GPU prices plummet before rising again a month or so later. So it isn't a bad idea to buy a GTX 980 ti for CHEAP when small Pascal is rolled out. Alternatively, buying an overpriced brand spanking new GPU that was just released isn't a bad idea either. The key is to have leading-edge performance without getting ripped off (Titan-X).
When the GTX 700 (and 500) and R9 300 (and 6000) series was released it was mostly rebadges. This meant that last-gen prices for essentially the same hardware was ludicrously cheap. The GTX 480 when the 580 was released was 90% the same performance but for nearly half the price. Same thing with the R9 290, GTX 680, etc. Worst time to buy a GPU is in the middle of the cycle when prices remain high and your 'new' GPU has a much lower shelf life.
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It's never the right time to buy a graphics card. There will always be something better come along later, which will either push the price of older but still desireable kit downwards, or up as they become more rare, or bring new shiny stuff that people want NAOW!
Of course, when some new cards are released, they are simply old ones with new badges. That annoys me immensely
I admit, and normally would agree, but...
DX 12 & VR
Two good reasons to wait right now. The moment to wait is rare, but right now it is.
Yeah, see, here's the problem with your statement, the AMD drivers aren't excellent, the RELEASE may be, but the actual drivers, not so much, constant problems for over a decade with their drivers, it's literally what drove me, an AMD fan for a very long time, away and into the nVidia product line. I prefer the better quality that AMD cards have over the sheer speed that nVidia cards have, but due to the constant driver issues, which cause crashed, BSOD, and nice hard locks, I won't use them anymore, haven't for over 5 years now. I'm running an nVidia GTX 750 2g, not even the Ti, and it does very nicely in Horizons, 90+ in space, 30s on the ground, everything but SS maxed out and lots of customized higher than ultra settings in my config. When I set SS to x2, things get rather slow, 40s in space and 10s on the ground, but that's to be expected and I only do that for screenshots.
I recommended the 970 Ti or 980 Ti, and to wait until the release of the next gen cards by both companies next year to see what, if anything, happens to prices. I personally plan on getting a 980 Ti or two, but I also plan on going the VR route, just waiting on the commercial release of the OR and Vive to see the final specs/prices on each, and of course, some recommendations of the various members of this forum who use VR and can give me a good biased opinion on the best one..and that's not a typo.
Exactly, +1. There are certain points in the hardware cycle where it's just foolish to lay down cash. This is one of them. Buy a cheap 960 for a stopgap if you must, but new technology that is going to make everything current obsolete is on the way.
It also not a good idea to wait forever before upgrading either. Somewhere there is someone still watching prices before finally completing his Voodoo2 SLI setup
In a few months, comes Pascal
I agree with your first statement, but your second is simply not true. AMD are very good at supporting popular games with their driver releases (just look at the changelog each release). But they are very bad at everything else. Not being able to enable Hyper-V for over a year due to their issues with upgrading their drivers to work with Windows 8? Did NVidia have that problem?
As I said, I'd love to support AMD. I have, with my money, for years. But now I've educated myself.
I agree with your first statement, but your second is simply not true. AMD are very good at supporting popular games with their driver releases (just look at the changelog each release). But they are very bad at everything else. Not being able to enable Hyper-V for over a year due to their issues with upgrading their drivers to work with Windows 8? Did NVidia have that problem?
As I said, I'd love to support AMD. I have, with my money, for years. But now I've educated myself.
I did the opposite and switched from Nvidia to AMD... always was Nvidia but found AMD's to work better with lower end PSU's. Perhaps times have changed as that was several years ago now.
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Never understood the SLI setup as I never found a game that doesn't run perfectly with one powerful graphics card.. not to say I wouldn't want a setup like that
I'm pretty much of that same opinion myself...until I saw the VR setups and realized that it would really actually benefit from that extra power, since with VR you really NEED your fps to be over 70 constantly or you start to get...uncomfortable, or for most, flat out ready to puke their guts up. So, yeah, for VR, I'm definitely looking to go SLI with a set of 980 Ti's. I'll wait and see what the next generation cards are like however, might be worthwhile to invest in one of those instead of 2 previous generation cards, for now, not enough data to draw a meaningful conclusion on them.
I agree with your first statement, but your second is simply not true. AMD are very good at supporting popular games with their driver releases (just look at the changelog each release). But they are very bad at everything else. Not being able to enable Hyper-V for over a year due to their issues with upgrading their drivers to work with Windows 8? Did NVidia have that problem?
As I said, I'd love to support AMD. I have, with my money, for years. But now I've educated myself.
Hyper-V? I'm posting about the FUD regarding AMD's GPU performance in gaming. Nothing else. AMD's APU's and CPU's deserve to be avoided.
It goes both ways...
Anyway, to expand on my GTX 960 suggestion, that was specifically on the basis of "good enough" performance. No, it will not be the best, especially if you want everything turned up to 11, or at higher resolutions than 1080p. But it is a nice low cost, low power consumption card. What's the current AMD price equivalent? The R7 370? Haven't looked up on it in detail but it is ranked below the 960 in the last chart above. Now, I also have the older 280X, which is without question a faster card than the 960, but it takes double the power to give... not near double the performance. Plus it is a more expensive card when new.
At the top end, when building my latest system I ran both a Fury X and 980Ti, and kept the latter. It is SO MUCH QUIETER even with the standard nvidia reference design, not a fancy OEM upgraded cooler. The Fury X tiny little radiator just can't cope with it. It really should have had a double 120 as standard. Also the 4GB would likely be limiting longer term as Horizons has managed to eat most of the 6GB already (at higher resolutions than 1080p!).