Upgrading Soon

Bloodaxes

Hi guys! 

Next month or the one after, I'm probably going to upgrade my system. I would love to get some help about what to choose, and if there's anything that could be bottlenecking my system.

My current specs are:

GPU: R9 290 Sapphire Tri-X - https://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Version-PCI-Express-Graphics-11227-00-40G/dp/B00HJOXUKC

CPU: i5-4670k - https://ark.intel.com/products/75048/Intel-Core-i5-4670K-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3-80-GHz-

RAM: HyperX Fury 16GB DDR3 - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00J8E8YZC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

HD: WD Blue 2TB - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B013QFRS2S/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
       SandDisk SSD 240 GB Sata III - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01F9G43WU/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Motherboard: MSI Z97-G55 - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00K8KOR74/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Power Supply: EVGA 750 GQ - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B017RO39TK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Operating System: Windows 10

(The ram, power supply, hard drive and ssd have been purchased last year.)

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My main aim was the GPU, as it's quite old. It has become quite noisy (One of the fans is making noises), and produces a lot of heat. If there's any other suggestions for parts to upgrade please let me know.

Now, I'm not sure on what card I should be aiming for. I'm currently using a single monitor (25 inch 1080p), but I've been considering getting another as it's become quite frustrating when I have to program and research. I'm not that well versed in what is best, but I did some research, and the GTX 1060 is best for 1080p, while going for 1070 or higher is more suitable for higher resolutions. Even if that's true, I was still inclined on the 1070/80 over the 1060 even tough the price jump would limit other options.

I've also been considering overclocking my CPU once I switch my AMD card. If I do try, I was thinking on purchasing a Hyper EVO 212 instead of the stock fan (As it would make more sense). 

Any suggestions/tips? 

Thanks  

Quizzical

A GeForce GTX 1060 wouldn't be much of an upgrade over a Radeon R9 290.  Less power, certainly, but not really faster.  My advice is that if you're going to upgrade a video card, you at least double your previous performance.  That would put you in Radeon RX Vega 56 or GeForce GTX 1080 or better territory.  Maybe a GTX 1070 Ti would be enough to justify an upgrade, but a plain GTX 1070 wouldn't.

If you're in the United States, this is a pretty good deal for $380 with the promo code:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202318

Alternatively, you can shop around and see what you prices you can find.  There are also a lot of used cards on the market as miners try to get rid of what they have.  Be warned that if you buy a used card, it might have spent the last year mining Ethereum around the clock with heavily overclocked memory.

Bloodaxes

I'm from Europe not US sadly  

Thanks for warning me about the optimal jump from my R9 290 is. I'll be sure to keep an eye on some deals. 

Quizzical

To double your performance, the cards you should probably look for are a GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, Radeon RX Vega 56, GeForce GTX 1080, Radeon RX Vega 64, or GeForce RTX 2070, in roughly increasing performance, though there isn't a big gap between them.  The RTX 2070 hasn't launched yet, but will probably offer performance in that ballpark.  It's going to be a lot more expensive than the others, though.

Which particular card it makes sense to get depends tremendously on what prices look like.  A Vega 64 will have power consumption at full load similar to your current card, while the rest will use a lot less.  Though either of the Vega cards are easy to throttle way back if so inclined; AMD set the stock turbo to burn a lot of power, while Nvidia set their nominal stock clocks much more conservatively.

Ridelynn

This guy is in more or less the exact same boat:

https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/476032/r9-290x-vs-rx580#latest

A lot of good advice over there Re: GPU.

The rest of your system, sadly, isn't that outdated and you aren't going to get much better (at least with respect to gaming).

Also, if your using stock Intel fan- that thing sucks badly, and can throttle even under stock conditions. A Hyper212 is miles better -- you won't get earth shattering overclocks out of it, but it can at least bump out a bit past stock clocks. I've found on most chips it's not unreasonable to at least get Boost clock full time with a 212.

That won't give you amazingly better game play experience though - especially at 1080. 

Bloodaxes

In the upcoming month or the one after, I'll have around 1.4k euros. However, I don't really want to spend an astronomical amount on a GPU alone. I've seen the 1070/80 having some pretty nice discounts on amazon, so hoping on grabbing one of those for a good price. 

As for the CPU, I wasn't thinking on overclocking it that high, maybe from 3.4GHz to around 4.0Ghz. Besides going for a Hyper EVO 212, the only other option is watercooling? 

Vrika

Bloodaxes said:

As for the CPU, I wasn't thinking on overclocking it that high, maybe from 3.4GHz to around 4.0Ghz. Besides going for a Hyper EVO 212, the only other option is watercooling? 

You've got some dozens of different air coolers besides Hyper 212 EVO that you can use. Hyper 212 EVO is just often mentioned because it offers really good price/performance ratio.

Bloodaxes

The contenders I've found so far from amazon uk are these two:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/EVGA-GeForce-Scanner-Graphics-08G-P4-5671-KR/dp/B076VSXDH4/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1538482933&sr=1-1&keywords=1070ti

https://www.amazon.co.uk/GIGABYTE-NVIDIA-GeForce-1080-GAMING-Black/dp/B01GCAW1IA/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1538482839&sr=1-2&keywords=1080

The 100 sterling jump between the two is kinda pushing me for the Ti to be honest, but I'm willing to add an extra for better performance if the difference is marginal.  

Grunty

Don't have any advice on upgrading but I just replaced the fans on my R9-270.  Look up the specific model you have.  $20, thermal compound, a couple of small phillips head screwdrivers and it cools like new.

Bloodaxes

Grunty said:

Don't have any advice on upgrading but I just replaced the fans on my R9-270.  Look up the specific model you have.  $20, thermal compound, a couple of small phillips head screwdrivers and it cools like new.

Yeah, that could also work. 

However, I've been using this card for ages, and it's time to upgrade. Some of the newer games have higher requirements than my card (Can't max everything), and the amount of heat it produces limits my options in OC the CPU. 

Bloodaxes

[Bump]

Got my income, and now I can select the appropriate GPU. Now, I'm torn between the 1070Ti, 1080/Ti or the RTX 2070.

In my local area, there's a shop selling an RTX 2070 for 640 Euro (Link: https://www.ultramalta.com/GIGABYTE-GeForce-RTX-2070-GAMING-OC-8G_p_2018.html)

It's only around 40 euro more than some 1080 cards. I'm assuming the RTX 2070 is better than the 1080 but weaker than the 1080ti?

Buying the 1080 seems to be more expensive, even from amazon (After including shipping).

What do you people say?

Thanks

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Bloodaxes

blueturtle13 said:

I would go with that card if that is what you want is one of those listed

The 2070 for what you are coming from is a powerful upgrade. 

I linked the RTX 2070, as It seems odd (I think?) that its almost equivalent to the price of a 1080. 

Not sure performance wise tough. Have to do more research. 

Quizzical

Bloodaxes said:

[Bump]

Got my income, and now I can select the appropriate GPU. Now, I'm torn between the 1070Ti, 1080/Ti or the RTX 2070.

In my local area, there's a shop selling an RTX 2070 for 640 Euro (Link: https://www.ultramalta.com/GIGABYTE-GeForce-RTX-2070-GAMING-OC-8G_p_2018.html)

It's only around 40 euro more than some 1080 cards. I'm assuming the RTX 2070 is better than the 1080 but weaker than the 1080ti?

Buying the 1080 seems to be more expensive, even from amazon (After including shipping).

What do you people say?

Thanks

I say you should read the site more carefully.  This GTX 1080 cheaper than the RTX 2070 by 70 Euros:

https://www.ultramalta.com/GIGABYTE-GeForce-GTX-1080-G1-Gaming-Overclocked--8GB--RGB_p_1396.html

Bloodaxes

I said it's around 40 euro more. There's quite a few 1080 cards with different prices. I also read the 1080 is more expensive in europe than in america. 

Does it justify that jump tough?

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Bloodaxes

blueturtle13 said:

I still rock a 1080 and to be honest a cant see going above that for a long time. There is nothing my PC cant handle and I don't see that changing anytime soon

That's true in your situation.

I am jumping from an R9 290 tough. If the RTX 2070 is a lot better than the 1080, I might as well go for it. The 1080ti is way too high priced for my tastes tough.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Bloodaxes

blueturtle13 said:

Bloodaxes said:

blueturtle13 said:

I still rock a 1080 and to be honest a cant see going above that for a long time. There is nothing my PC cant handle and I don't see that changing anytime soon

That's true in your situation.

I am jumping from an R9 290 tough. If the RTX 2070 is a lot better than the 1080, I might as well go for it. The 1080ti is way too high priced for my tastes tough.

oh agreed. I mean a 290 is still not a bad card even today. Yet wanting to upgrade it I can understand. I would go for the 2070 as well in your situation if it is not that much more. 

Yea, it served for quite a few years (Also bought it refurbished), but there's some games I can't go full on graphic options (Not that its a high priority to me. Still, nice to have).

At the moment I got some income to spare, so I'd like to use some of it on upgrading my system.

Quizzical

Bloodaxes said:

I said it's around 40 euro more. There's quite a few 1080 cards with different prices. I also read the 1080 is more expensive in europe than in america. 

Does it justify that jump tough?

The RTX 2070 is a little better than the GTX 1080, but not a lot.  Perhaps you could justify paying an extra 40 Euros for it, but probably not 70.  So the difference in price matters.

Are there other sites that you can buy from?  Your options there seem rather limited.

Bloodaxes

Quizzical said:

The RTX 2070 is a little better than the GTX 1080, but not a lot.  Perhaps you could justify paying an extra 40 Euros for it, but probably not 70.  So the difference in price matters.

Are there other sites that you can buy from?  Your options there seem rather limited.

There are. However, the RTX 2070 is still not listed in other stores.

I might end up going for the 1080 then, if the difference isn't that big. I might still look for a couple days on ebay/amazon tough. Maybe I can find a good deal for a 1080 ti.

Asm0deus

I would avoid the RTX cards for now due to them having issues.

See here:

https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/477077/nvidia-rtx-2080-ti-graphics-cards-are-dying-on-a-lot-of-users#latest

From what I am reading on the geforce forums lots of people with problem on new card and after some use so much such that apparently most peeps are having long wait times and issues with returns.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/board/227/geforce-rtx-20-series/

Ozmodan

Bloodaxes said:

blueturtle13 said:

I still rock a 1080 and to be honest a cant see going above that for a long time. There is nothing my PC cant handle and I don't see that changing anytime soon

That's true in your situation.

I am jumping from an R9 290 tough. If the RTX 2070 is a lot better than the 1080, I might as well go for it. The 1080ti is way too high priced for my tastes tough.

In what world?  The 1080 is a better graphics card and cheaper.  Performance is pretty much the same.  The 2070 is a card that does not fit in any bracket.  It cannot do ray tracing very well, it does not have the HP.  It would be a mistake to go with the 2070!

Quizzical

Asm0deus said:

I would avoid the RTX cards for now due to them having issues.

See here:

https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/477077/nvidia-rtx-2080-ti-graphics-cards-are-dying-on-a-lot-of-users#latest

From what I am reading on the geforce forums lots of people with problem on new card and after some use so much such that apparently most peeps are having long wait times and issues with returns.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/board/227/geforce-rtx-20-series/

That's a problem of a particular SKU that seems to have not properly cooled the memory.  It's one thing to avoid that particular SKU, but that doesn't mean that you need to avoid an entire generation of hardware.

A GeForce RTX 2070 tends to be a little faster than a GeForce GTX 1080 or Radeon RX Vega 64, but not a lot.  All of those cards tend to be a lot slower than a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, though there are a handful of games where the Vega 64 and RTX 2070 will be more competitive with the GTX 1080 Ti, possibly because the 1080 Ti is having problems with its lack of register space or one of the other ways in which Pascal lacks some compute resources that the others have.

What you should get depends tremendously on the price tag.  If you can get an RTX 2070 for the same price as a GTX 1080 or Vega 64, then sure, do it.  But if it costs a lot more, then I'd look at a GTX 1080 or Vega 64, whichever is cheaper.

Bloodaxes

I'm going to give it a couple more weeks and see how it flows with RTX 2070. In some countries, the difference is like 20 euro between the 1080 and it. I'd say that would justify going for one over the other. Evga also has some in store coming "soon" that are way cheaper than here:

https://eu.evga.com/products/productlist.aspx?type=0&family=GeForce+20+Series+Family&chipset=RTX+2070

That also depends on whether I find a good deal on a used 1080 Ti. I'm a little weary about buying used, but I'll be sure to examine it before deciding.

Quizzical

Unless you're anti-AMD, don't forget to check prices on the Vega 64 for comparison.  If it's more expensive than a GTX 1080 or RTX 2070, then sure, don't get it.  But you don't know what prices will be until you look, and sometimes, there are good deals on it.

There are two cautions about buying a used video card right now.  One is that there's a good chance that it just spent the last year or so mining cryptocurrencies around the clock with heavily overclocked memory.  With the crash in Ethereum prices, miners have largely been selling off their GPUs, as using them for mining is no longer profitable.

The other is that there have been reports of a number of fraudulent Nvidia GPUs at cheap prices on Ebay.  What they apparently do is to take some older Nvidia GPU and market it as something much newer.  Apparently someone figured out how to change a string somewhere so that if you ask what the GPU is, it claims to be the newer card.  But it's actually something much older and slower.  I haven't heard of them doing that with AMD cards, but if they can do it with Nvidia, it seems likely that they could do it with AMD, too.  That shouldn't be a concern for cards purchased new through a reputable vendor.