1. #1
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    Question Current GPU old & dying. I'm out of touch with the new stuff. Any help buying a new?

    Hello!

    So my pc is getting fairly dated now but it still runs pretty good. I built it around 4/5 years ago.

    My current GPU: "MSI Radeon HD 7870 Twin Frozr III OC" seems to be crashing now. This started about 6 months ago but lately it's getting more and more frequent and I feel it's time for a replacement.

    I'm completely out of touch with current hardware these days and I have no clue what to purchase as an upgrade and i'm looking for help and advice. The budget i'm willing to spend is £250 but I can stretch that a little more if the extra is really worth it.

    I mostly play WoW, Hearthstone, League of Legends. I can play these just fine however I work with the Unreal4 Engine quite a lot (studying games design) and time to time I play some more modern games that are far more GPU intensive. Also getting the future proof for modern games like overwatch and Paragon would be great too!

    I run 2 screen. Main monitor 1920x1080p, side monitor 1400x900

    If it help my specs are:
    Cpu: I5 3570k OC 4.2Ghz (Runs stable and under 65c under load for hours)
    Motherboard: Asus p8 z77-v LX
    Memory: 2x4GB 1600
    SSD 256 (Windows & Programs)
    HDD 2TB (Everything else)

    From some research I read that the GTX 970 and R9 290 are really good for the budget range. But I'm still unsure.

    Any advice you can give me will be a huge help. Thank you! :)
    Last edited by mmocf4c064afb0; 2016-04-30 at 01:53 AM. Reason: Spec mistake

  2. #2
    High Overlord Jestah's Avatar
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    GTX 970. I'm running two of them. After seeing how awesome one was.

  3. #3
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    It seems the GTX 970 is highly recommended by many. I'll add it to my list of GPUs to look at and consider.

  4. #4
    Now is the worst time to buy , and a 970 GTX is one of the worst ones to buy on top of that.

    New AMD and Nvidia cards should hit stores somewhere in June, and get announced a the end of May.
    970 is totally not futureproof compared to a R9 390 , AMD is better in DX12 by far and the 390 has twice the VRAM of a 970 which allows for a better time in the future with games hogging up more VRAM.
    There is no reason at this moment in time to buy Nvidia unless you are really tied up to the brand, new cards are too close and AMD ones are more futureproof.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by FluFF View Post
    There is no reason at this moment in time to buy Nvidia unless you are really tied up to the brand, new cards are too close and AMD ones are more futureproof.
    Ill nitpick this a bit. At the low end, AMD has no useful offering. The GTX 950 absolutely beats the snot out of anything AMD has in that price range.
    At the very high end, the GTX 980Ti is still handily handing the Fury X its ass.

    At every other price point, though... yes, AMD is the better buy currently. Driver updates have improved performance of AMD parts a decent amount and they have hardware support for DX12; however, if you can wait at all, wait for Pascal and Polaris.

    Theyre due out in... 5-8 weeks (well, "announced/released" - actual availability will likely be scarce at launch and may lag a week or three behind) and are massive performance jump from current cards (which are all basically 5 year old tech) and will likely slot into existing price points.

  6. #6
    The Lightbringer Artorius's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kagthul View Post
    At the very high end, the GTX 980Ti is still handily handing the Fury X its ass.













    Looks like the Nano will remain the ultimate purchase until Polaris/Pascal...

  7. #7
    Unless you have absolutely have to buy new hardware now, wait 6-8 weeks for Pascal.

    The GTX 1080 running the new Pascal GPU is about a 10x increase in performance.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Oftenwrongsoong View Post
    Unless you have absolutely have to buy new hardware now, wait 6-8 weeks for Pascal.

    The GTX 1080 running the new Pascal GPU is about a 10x increase in performance.
    Uh... Yeah no.

    Even nVidia (and AMD for Polaris) are only claiming a max of 40% for each price bracket.

  9. #9
    Deleted
    Regarding the crashing. Could you check temps? Have you cleaned the GPU recently?
    Have you installed the latest drivers?

    Like others said, now is not the best time to buy a new card, with new cards coming in 2-3 months. Unless your card is really dead, I would wait it out.

  10. #10
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Kagthul View Post
    Ill nitpick this a bit. At the low end, AMD has no useful offering. The GTX 950 absolutely beats the snot out of anything AMD has in that price range.
    At the very high end, the GTX 980Ti is still handily handing the Fury X its ass.

    At every other price point, though... yes, AMD is the better buy currently. Driver updates have improved performance of AMD parts a decent amount and they have hardware support for DX12; however, if you can wait at all, wait for Pascal and Polaris.

    Theyre due out in... 5-8 weeks (well, "announced/released" - actual availability will likely be scarce at launch and may lag a week or three behind) and are massive performance jump from current cards (which are all basically 5 year old tech) and will likely slot into existing price points.
    Quote Originally Posted by Oftenwrongsoong View Post
    Unless you have absolutely have to buy new hardware now, wait 6-8 weeks for Pascal.

    The GTX 1080 running the new Pascal GPU is about a 10x increase in performance.
    Quote Originally Posted by Zeara View Post
    Regarding the crashing. Could you check temps? Have you cleaned the GPU recently?
    Have you installed the latest drivers?

    Like others said, now is not the best time to buy a new card, with new cards coming in 2-3 months. Unless your card is really dead, I would wait it out.
    My Gpu isn't dead yet so I guess I could use it for a months longer. If it's worth waiting for the new GPU Dx12 optimized stuff.

    My Temps on GPU are normally fine. I Checked a few times and normally its around 60-70c. I always have the latest drivers. So i'm not sure what is causing my crashing except that my GPU is just dying on me. But I could be wrong i don't know.

  11. #11
    Brewmaster Skylarking's Avatar
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    Just curious, of these new cards coming out. Are the low tier budget types going to be faster than a 7870?

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Skylarking View Post
    Just curious, of these new cards coming out. Are the low tier budget types going to be faster than a 7870?
    Depends, really.

    They wont all lau nch at once - probably what you're going to see are the high-midrange and high-end cards first, with the budget cards coming later.

    But, the scuttlebutt from both camps is 30-40% faster than the current card in that price segment. So the GTX 950 replacement will be about 40% faster than a GTX 950, etc.

    Given that the current GTX 950 is as fast as, or a little faster than the 7870, i'd say the answer is "yes".

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