what Graphics Card to get?

[Deleted]

im looking at building a pc i wouldnt say a top quality gaming one that would play the best games at super high but i wanna get wow on ultra and be able to handle other stuff on a secondary monitor ie internet explorer / videos maybe even HS??

but im confused on the graphics to get
i am going to buy Intel Core i5 4690K Processor.
likely 16gb RAM (as its really cheap atm)

though im not sure of the graphics to get hold of, if possible i dont wanna have to spend £250 on that but?!
whats worth doing ?

im told to get a few things
GTX 970 (which is top notch?)
Radeon R9 290x? though when i search that it gives 100's different kinds of graphic cards at different ranges of price.

[Lathais]

No reason to get the 4690K, look at the 6600K, it's not too much more and it's the new socket. Unless you are upgrading from something else that uses the old socket and do not want to have to buy a Motherboard as well.

16GB RAM is a solid choice.

For WoW, at 1080p, you could go with a 960 and should be ok. The 970 would be a safer bet though, and last a while longer. A 290x is still a good choice as well, but it's last gen, look for a 390 or a 390x instead. WoW does favor nVidia, so you may want to keep that in mind, but a 390 or 390x is plenty of power for it still and will server you better in other games. The 390 and 390x also support ASync Compute on the hardware level which the current gen from nVidia does not, so as games that have DX12 support start coming out the AMD cards will be better.

[Archermit]

It comes down to what games do you want to play moving forward. 970 will be a decent card for a while to come, I have a 980 and don't plan on touching my build for another 5 years at least

[Deleted]

hmm but are you running 4690k? :P
for someone who has no idea about stuff - what does this mean then- im guessing dearer is better but doesnt always mean that?

Intel Core I5-6600K Processor (3.5 GHz, 6 M Cache, LGA1151) - £218
Intel Core i5 6600K Quad Core CPU Processor (Socket 1151, 3.50 GHz, 6 MB, Skylake, 91 W, Integrated Graphics) - £250
Intel Core i5 6600K / 3.5 GHz processor - £207

[Lathais]

hmm but are you running 4690k? :P
for someone who has no idea about stuff - what does this mean then- im guessing dearer is better but doesnt always mean that?

Intel Core I5-6600K Processor (3.5 GHz, 6 M Cache, LGA1151) - £218
Intel Core i5 6600K Quad Core CPU Processor (Socket 1151, 3.50 GHz, 6 MB, Skylake, 91 W, Integrated Graphics) - £250
Intel Core i5 6600K / 3.5 GHz processor - £207

I have a 4690K because the 6600K was not out when I did my build. The 6600K will be about 5% faster than the 4690K. It's also on the new socket, so when it's time for an upgrade there may be something available for it. The socket 4690K uses is now dead, nothing new will be made for it.

[Bigvizz]

I have a 4690K because the 6600K was not out when I did my build. The 6600K will be about 5% faster than the 4690K. It's also on the new socket, so when it's time for an upgrade there may be something available for it. The socket 4690K uses is now dead, nothing new will be made for it.

I think the I-5 4690K is the better deal atm £168.95 vs the I-5 6600K £218.58, but may vary depending on what deals you might get. Also the z-170 motherboards are also more expensive. The z-97 motherboards might not have anything new being made for it, but it still has a very strong place in the market. Also like you said the performance difference is barely noticeable or not at all in gaming.

OP:My money is still on the Haswell chip (I5 4690K) being better bang for your buck. As for your graphics card the 970 vs 390, get whatever is cheaper at the time.

[Lathais]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($253.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! PURE ROCK 51.4 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($34.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($114.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $403.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-18 09:54 EST-0500

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($226.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! PURE ROCK 51.4 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($34.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($79.88 @ OutletPC)
Total: $341.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-18 09:55 EST-0500

It certainly depends on where you live. OP has not really stated where he lives. You are looking at about $60 more here in the USA. $60 for a 5% increase, faster RAM and being in the new socket is worth it IMO. 4690K is still a solid choice though and yes, in other countries that price gap increases, so going Skylake may not be worth it at all.

[Bigvizz]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($253.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! PURE ROCK 51.4 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($34.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($114.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $403.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-18 09:54 EST-0500

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($226.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! PURE ROCK 51.4 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($34.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($79.88 @ OutletPC)
Total: $341.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-18 09:55 EST-0500

It certainly depends on where you live. OP has not really stated where he lives. You are looking at about $60 more here in the USA. $60 for a 5% increase, faster RAM and being in the new socket is worth it IMO. 4690K is still a solid choice though and yes, in other countries that price gap increases, so going Skylake may not be worth it at all.

Look for it, it's in his original post.... Hint £250. Also in a budget build you'd be wrong. Using that extra £60 for a better graphics card would serve him better, but if you like "keeping up with the Jones" by all means.

[Kushana]

The biggest performance increase you're going to get is moving from a hard drive to any current SSD. You'll need 80GB for your OS, plus apps and games. Keep your movies and other data on the hard drive.

If you're not going to overclock, use the stock cooler.

I'm running a GTX 970 with an 2009-era i5-750 and 8GB DDR3 and I can easily play Ultra everything. My wife plays on a 2009 ATi Radeon 5850 and i5-750 and 8GB DDR3, and she runs on Good. The point of that is: spend your discretionary money on the video card.

[Vash The Stampede]

Nvidia GTX 970 for immediate exceptional DX11 performance.

Radeon R9 390 for eventual exceptional DX12 performance.

Some will tell you that Nvidia is the devil and AMD is a sinking ship run by retarded monkeys. Time to choose.

[Pharstar]

Nvidia GTX 970 for immediate exceptional DX11 performance.

Radeon R9 390 for eventual exceptional DX12 performance.

Some will tell you that Nvidia is the devil and AMD is a sinking ship run by retarded monkeys. Time to choose.

Lol! ^^^This. Gtx 970 simply best price/performance hands down. Don't forget Nvidia DSR (super sampling) which gives richer colors with a few keystrokes (10 seconds).

[Twoddle]

Lol! ^^^This. Gtx 970 simply best price/performance hands down. Don't forget Nvidia DSR (super sampling) which gives richer colors with a few keystrokes (10 seconds).

What if I don't want richer colors?

[Usagi Senshi]

Lol! ^^^This. Gtx 970 simply best price/performance hands down. Don't forget Nvidia DSR (super sampling) which gives richer colors with a few keystrokes (10 seconds).

Yeah, no, and my 390 does that just as well and as easy. Try again.

[Vash The Stampede]

Lol! ^^^This. Gtx 970 simply best price/performance hands down. Don't forget Nvidia DSR (super sampling) which gives richer colors with a few keystrokes (10 seconds).

And hence the problem with choosing between AMD vs Nvidia. Even before the $50 price drop, AMD was the best buy. After the price drop, AMD is the clear winner. DSR doesn't compare to things like ReShade+SweetFX, which are still the best methods to improve game visuals with very little impact on performance. That or replace the in game textures like I did with Fallout 4. I imagine that DSR is great for games with little options to increase texture quality, or very little support from the gaming community. Otherwise SweetFX and texture packs.

But the impression most people have of AMD is that it's a company run by idiots for idiots. Therefore Nvidia > AMD, despite 3.5GB of memory for the 970.

As far as AA goes, never ever use FXAA. Always use SMAA.

[Deleted]

I should add that the AMD crimson software has VSR for all GCN cards at the least (AMDs own version of DSR), works just fine on a AMD 7970, the DSR argument is now bust however all games should really come with render sample that BF4 and WoW yes WoW actually have, works hell of a lot better then forcing high resolution since it effects every thing like the UI and some games dislike it, works but dislikes it.

Personally speaking all but the Fury X from AMD are much better value then every Nvidia card right now. AMD pretty much holds all of the performance crowns for every price point bar the 980 ti, really not sure why some people still recommend the 970 for like the past 2 months or so.

The only thing better is a old stock for the nvidia 780 or AMD 290, the 780 can hold its ground against the 970 at higher resolution thanks to its bigger memory bus.

[phitness]

I've been looking at a building a new PC and passing my current PC onto my nephew and I was basically looking at the 970 vs 390 debates. For me the main thing I like is modding games like skyrim so having a lots of vram is what pushed me to side with the 390. I got a 680 2gb back when I built this PC because everyone was saying skyrim would be fine with 2gb... well once I started adding all kinds of texture packs and ENBs the card really left a lot to be desired and I wished I had gone for the 4GB version.

So if you are planning on modding the shit out of games like FO4 or even just like using the Hi-Res textures that some games release like Shadow of Mordor then personally I think the 390 with 8gb vram blows the 970 with 3.5gb vram away not to mention that in the next couple years you can expect the textures and vram requirements to just keep rising. I feel the 390 is way more future proof because of the 8gb vram and outside of the huge vram edge the 390 has it is pretty much the same performance wise as the 970 and even better in some games. And who knows if AMD releases some new drivers like they did for the 7xxx series cards which booted the fuck out of their performance then the 970 wont even be in the same performance bracket anymore.

[Remilia]

Lol! ^^^This. Gtx 970 simply best price/performance hands down. Don't forget Nvidia DSR (super sampling) which gives richer colors with a few keystrokes (10 seconds).

It applies a Gaussian blur and doesn't affect texture quality. Along with lossy color compression, Nvidia doesn't give any better colors. If anything it's worse.
If you have an 8bit+FRC or 10bit monitor, you can enable and use 10bit color channel for AMD cards for more noticeable gains. AMD's VSR (same thing) does not apply any blur techniques and has less impact on performance.

[Stonecloak]

Might be worth waiting if you can for the new pascal cards by nvidia next year, they have 16-32 gb ram i believe.

[Vash The Stampede]

Might be worth waiting if you can for the new pascal cards by nvidia next year, they have 16-32 gb ram i believe.

Those will probably be $3k.

[Deleted]

Might be worth waiting if you can for the new pascal cards by nvidia next year, they have 16-32 gb ram i believe.

Unless there is exact date set for release date of new component. If you are need of upgrade you upgrade, otherwise you will wait forever as there is always something new "right behind the corner"

@op personally I would go for r9 390