Hardware & Technical Starting to regret AMD GPU... =(

[CMDR_FIREFLY90]

So i updated my pc build about a month ago, so far I've had a faulty motherboard which was replaced with a better one, and 2 graphics cards that struggle to crossfire well on any of my favourite games. Not to mention trying to manage the heat from both gfx cards and keep performance up. I've always stuck with AMD and ATI since they always produced cheaper hardware with similar performance.

I think it may be time to go for an Nvida card with a custom water-cooling loop, something like a 1060 or 1070 (1080 might be a bit out of my price range) with the option to SLI later on. I've done quite a bit of research already but any advice and recommendations would be nice.

Here is my current build:-

ASUS TUF Sabertooth 990fx R3.0 Motherboard
AMD FX8320 8-core CPU @3.7GHz /w AIO CPU watercooler
Corsair 16Gb RAM @1600MHz
2x Gigabite RX480 8GB G1 @1290Mhz (1330MHz OC)
Intel 600p 256Gb M.2 SSD
Seagate 2Tb SSHD
Corsair HXi 1200W PSU

From what i've read/heard the gigabyte rx480 cheaped out on the vrm cores so i'd prefer to avoid that brand in future, and don't even get me started on ASRock!

 

[InDigital]

I dont think you should regret AMD.
I have R9 290 and it's great.
New crimson drivers allows you to tune everything so it will be quiet. and about 77 degrees (mine) and it's okay.
But i had NVIDIA cards and they always were slower actually. And to be fast you should always buy uber expensive one. That's not good.
Also new model is always as twice as expensive but performance is just a bit better.

 

[Connor Caple]

The Gigabyte RX480 is at the same performance level as the NVidia 1060, so no point doing that swap (Based on actual gaming benchmarks, not fiddled tests)

The 1070 will give you a 25 to 30% framerate boost in games, but that's a big investment for an incremental improvement.

I'm happy with my AMD rig, it does what I want and is very 'mid range' unlike some of yours.

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

Wait for AMD Vega? Might end up being outside your budget but no-one knows the prices yet. Will almost certainly be launched at CES 5th Jan. Most likely just a paper launch.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Wait for AMD Vega? Might end up being outside your budget but no-one knows the prices yet. Will almost certainly be launched at CES 5th Jan. Most likely just a paper launch.

I can barely contain my anticipation of this event....

Also waiting (semi-)patiently for RyZen.

 

[Insomnia]

The GTX 1060 was beating the 480 in almost every title in the beginning. But much has happened since release and now 6 months later, the RX480 is well above the 1060 in Dx12 and well on par with the 1060 in most Dx11 titles.
I don't think you should be regretful at all. And by the way, AMD hyped the Polaris cards too much, without people even read the actual facts.
But switching from RX480 to GTX 1060 won't do much in the end.
Vega 10 is rumoured to hit a sweet spot between the 1070 and 1080 which is a genius move. So if you're cheering for team Red, wait for Vega.

 

[Jon flint]

So i updated my pc build about a month ago, so far I've had a faulty motherboard which was replaced with a better one, and 2 graphics cards that struggle to crossfire well on any of my favourite games. Not to mention trying to manage the heat from both gfx cards and keep performance up. I've always stuck with AMD and ATI since they always produced cheaper hardware with similar performance.

I think it may be time to go for an Nvida card with a custom water-cooling loop, something like a 1060 or 1070 (1080 might be a bit out of my price range) with the option to SLI later on. I've done quite a bit of research already but any advice and recommendations would be nice.

Here is my current build:-

ASUS TUF Sabertooth 990fx R3.0 Motherboard
AMD FX8320 8-core CPU @3.7GHz /w AIO CPU watercooler
Corsair 16Gb RAM @1600MHz
2x Gigabite RX480 8GB G1 @1290Mhz (1330MHz OC)
Intel 600p 256Gb M.2 SSD
Seagate 2Tb SSHD
Corsair HXi 1200W PSU

From what i've read/heard the gigabyte rx480 cheaped out on the vrm cores so i'd prefer to avoid that brand in future, and don't even get me started on ASRock!

From what I've read, there were a couple of "bad" rx480s that cheaped out on certain components, the powercolor red devil version being one and I think the other was a gigabyte one. The manufacturer even advised owners not to run benchmark software as it might physically damage the cards!!

Apart from those couple of shockingly bad cards the 480 is an excellent gpu.

I don't think switching to a 1060 would be worth it in your case. It'd pretty much be the same performance level as the 480 except that you can't SLI it, meaning you're stuck with one card.

A 1070 would be more powerful and more power efficient but IMO you'd be better off waiting for whatever Vega brings on launch. If nothing else, some competition should drive down nvidia pricing for the 1070/80.

 

[Morbad]

The Gigabyte RX480 does indeed have one of the worst VRMs available among RX480s, but it's still perfectly sufficient for air and most water cooling scenarios. Here is a breakdown of the VRM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdYzPEK9A30

Anyway, the RX480 is a solid GPU. Polaris isn't as power efficient as Pascal, but unless you went with a GTX 1070 or better, you wouldn't have as powerful a GPU setup. The GTX 1060 6GiB (the 3GiB does not have enough VRAM to run Horizons well) is about the same speed stock (though it does OC better) and generally costs more. CFX also works pretty well in Elite: Dangerous (I have CFX 290Xes in the system I play on most often) all things considered, though I generally don't recommend multi-GPU setups if they can be avoided.

Overall value of your GPU setup is pretty solid and I wouldn't worry about it. If anything that CPU is the real problem...Vishera's performance is rather lackluster (especially anywhere near stock...3.7GHz is very low when most of these parts are capable of 4.5GHz+) and it's only real saving grace for gaming is that most games tend to be GPU limited. However, you have a relatively powerful multi-GPU setup and AMD still has a bit more DX11 overhead than NVIDIA, so you are almost certainly going to be CPU limited in some areas.

 

[GuruNot]

I am another one from the dont dismiss AMD camp. Unlike CPUs where I have always been Intel (although that may change with their Ryzen CPU) , I have pretty much always flipped and flopped between AMD and NVIDIA GPUs. With VEGA cards due to make an appearance early in the New Year I would suggest you hang fire on any change until then.

Even if VEGA does not beat NVIDIA's flagship cards, it may still be good enough to provide competition and therefore get NVIDIA to adjust pricing.

 

[xondk]

So i updated my pc build about a month ago, so far I've had a faulty motherboard which was replaced with a better one, and 2 graphics cards that struggle to crossfire well on any of my favourite games. Not to mention trying to manage the heat from both gfx cards and keep performance up. I've always stuck with AMD and ATI since they always produced cheaper hardware with similar performance.

I think it may be time to go for an Nvida card with a custom water-cooling loop, something like a 1060 or 1070 (1080 might be a bit out of my price range) with the option to SLI later on. I've done quite a bit of research already but any advice and recommendations would be nice.

Here is my current build:-

ASUS TUF Sabertooth 990fx R3.0 Motherboard
AMD FX8320 8-core CPU @3.7GHz /w AIO CPU watercooler
Corsair 16Gb RAM @1600MHz
2x Gigabite RX480 8GB G1 @1290Mhz (1330MHz OC)
Intel 600p 256Gb M.2 SSD
Seagate 2Tb SSHD
Corsair HXi 1200W PSU

From what i've read/heard the gigabyte rx480 cheaped out on the vrm cores so i'd prefer to avoid that brand in future, and don't even get me started on ASRock!

Generally multi card is a tricky thing to support, DX12/Vulkan is the only thing that seemingly can do it properly, because, unlike previous engines behind those two api's, those two are build with multi GPU in mind, with the others multi GPU is at best hacked into the whole thing, but that is also why right now DX12/Vulkan isn't performing so great, it is a significant change from what we are used to.

 

[cmdr_Sisko]

save yourself the torment, just stick with nvidia and intel.