Hardware & Technical Graphics card upgrade for AMD A10-5800K APU / 8GB system

[Sigrid]

Before purchasing Eliteangerous, I was already aware that my current system would maybe be a bit on the weak side to run E in a "playable" way.
I have now noticed that FPS is at most about 25 when executing the training missions and at about 6 to 10 when docked. I play windowed at a 1280*720 resolution and have not tweaked the graphics options (default:high).

My budget is not that high and a high end graphics adapter would probably result in a GPU bottleneck anyway.
Therefore I was thinking along the lines of a Radeon RX460 based card.

Would that be a reasonably good buy?

Alternative suggestions would be most welcome as well.

Thank you.

Sigrid

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

What's your budget (ideally in £)…?

There's a few choices at each range.

An new nVidia GTX 1050ti is about £150~. And they're pretty good. You'd get well above 30fps on high, probably close to, or pinned at 60fps at 720p. And I doubt you'd see a bottleneck. It's much better than the RX460. (From what I've read)

Or you can try your local CEX (webuy.com) store and pick up a good deal on a used GPU.
I grabbed a GTX 770 the other day. 2 year warranty, for £95. (I traded in my semi-broken R9 280x for £75!)
With CEX, you're better off going for the last generation stuff, like the nVidia GTX 9 series, as they tend to over charge for 10 series stuff.
I think a used GTX 970 at CEX is about £195 or something. Not too bad. You can search almost any new-ish GPU on their site.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Sigrid]

We don 't have CEX in Sweden, so that's not a viable option...
Elite is probably the only game I'll play, that's why I don't want to spend too much. Around GBP 150 / SEK 1600 max.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Damn. Lol

Hmm, probably an nVidia 1050ti then?
Cheapest one I saw was about £160 though. But that £10 gets you far more performance than a RX460. (I think)

You can always try eBay to save some cash.

 

[Sigrid]

I've read that some GTX1050Ti cards need an extra power connector.
This one doesn't and fits within my budget: https://www.asus.com/us/Graphics-Cards/PH-GTX1050TI-4G/

I'll try to find some reviews.

 

[Earthshine]

They are currently out of stock but Amazon.co.uk has this GPU listed at £119.99 - https://www.msi.com/Graphics-card/GeForce-GTX-1050-Ti-4GT-OC.html#hero-specification

Don't know how being in Sweden affects it though, nor how soon you would get one with them being out of stock, but that card doesn't seem to require extra power connectors, has better cooling and higher clocks than the Asus, and seems a good bit cheaper too.

 

[duckofdeath]

One thing to keep in mind is, if you stick to an RX460 over an GTX 1050Ti you also get access to budget adaptive sync monitors. FreeSync is bliss for eyesores like tearing. You will never find a budget adaptive sync monitor compatible with Nvidia cards as Nvidia slaps a 100-200 buck tax on any G sync display.

 

[Sigrid]

I ordered an MSI GTX1050i based card with a local web shop. Won't be buying a new monitor anytime soon, anyway!

Thanks for the advice.

Sigrid

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I ordered an MSI GTX1050i based card with a local web shop. Won't be buying a new monitor anytime soon, anyway!

Thanks for the advice.

Sigrid

Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

 

[Sigrid]

I just got and installed the card.
Guess what? The slideshow is no more...
A solid 58-62 FPS at the same settings as before is the result of this relatively minor investment.
I can finally start practicing the tutorials.