New GPU required, suggestions please.

[jimborae]

Hi all, so my eldest boy has asked for a desktop PC for his upcoming birthday so me & him will be building him one, mainly out of my old rig and spares that I have. He'll get my old AMD R9 290 card which means I need a new card but I'm not sure what to get.

Requirements:
I dont game above 1900x1200 and cant see me getting a 4K monitor any time soon.
Project Cars or Battlefield series are probably the most taxing games I play.
The card will have to be integrated into my watercooling loop so a full cover waterblock has to be available.
I have an Nvidia Shield TV so an Nvidia card that supports streaming to the Shield TV would be preferred.
Budget - lower the better but I'm not averse to splashing out to meet my requirements.

So any help in creating a shortlist of possible candidates would be appreciated.

Cheers

Jim

[Biscuit]

I would have thought the 1070 (£~360) would be the obvious choice to ensure you really notice the performance boost in the upgrade, but even the 1060 6GB (£~230) would probably give you a noticeable boost.

[Phage]

Agree with Biscuit - although a second hand 980ti would be a good shout if you don't mind second hand.

[shaithis]

Both the 980 and 1060 are a smidge faster than a 290x, so that's probably the minimum you'd want to look at....

[AETAaAS]

I'd be looking at either a RX 480 (preferably in 8GB) or a GTX 1060 for 1080 gaming. But Project Cars from what I understand used nVidia Game works, so the 1060 pulls ahead in that game. However the AMD parts do well in DX12 games like BF1.

To cover the bases including your waterloop, I'd plump for this, ensuring you got the right fittings;
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-g...gx-32i-ms.html

It is around the price, if not cheaper than a decent 1070, waterblock and backplate.

edit: Guess it depends also if you are one of those "need muh ultruh settings with shoft shados and full reflexions" people or are not terribly fussed about the 5% of settings that seem to take 75% of rendering power these days.

[jimborae]

I'd be looking at either a RX 480 (preferably in 8GB) or a GTX 1060 for 1080 gaming. But Project Cars from what I understand used nVidia Game works, so the 1060 pulls ahead in that game. However the AMD parts do well in DX12 games like BF1.

To cover the bases including your waterloop, I'd plump for this, ensuring you got the right fittings;
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-g...gx-32i-ms.html

It is around the price, if not cheaper than a decent 1070, waterblock and backplate.

edit: Guess it depends also if you are one of those "need muh ultruh settings with shoft shados and full reflexions" people or are not terribly fussed about the 5% of settings that seem to take 75% of rendering power these days.

That card looks like a good shout, is there a huge performance difference between a GTX 1070 & 1080, becuase at that money I'm starting to venture into 1080 territory ignoring the fact that I'd need to spend an extra £120 to get a 1080 waterblock and backplate? I'm not averse to overclocking the 1070 card to get extra performance if required/needed.

[Biscuit]

for 1920 x 1200 at 60Hz, I would say the 1080 might be a bit of a waste of the extra cash, but if you got the cash to spend then why not?

[shaithis]

If I were gaming at 1080p, I'd see the 1080 as being excessive for the money.

The 1080 is about 22-25% faster, so at £360 for a 1070 that makes it better value than £470 for a 1080.....

[Ttaskmaster]

Seems to be a fair few people selling their 980Ti cards with waterblocks included, for around the £250 mark at the minute.

[jimborae]

Seems to be a fair few people selling their 980Ti cards with waterblocks included, for around the £250 mark at the minute.

Not so keen on 2nd hand nvidia GPUs as i had a Titan that lasted all of a week. Thankfully it didn't cost me anything.

[scaryjim]

Have to say I don't see the RX 480 or GTX 1060 as being a worthwhile upgrade over a 290. Don't get me wrong - they're good cards and good value in their own right, but IMO they're in the same performance bracket, so you'll only see a small incremental improvement, rather than a generational one.

Unless you've got time to hold off for Vega (which could appear any time between now and June, afaik) the GTX 1070 looks to be the only sensible option. It gives you a decent performance upgrade on the 290 and should handle pretty much anything you can throw at it at 1920x1200.

[jimborae]

Thanks all, and AETAaAS in particular, went for the MSI GTX 1070 Seahawk. Got if from Amazon for the same price as i get free next-day delivery, good returns process and i wont use Overclockers on principle.

Cheers for all the advice this looks like it should fit the bill nicely and hopefully a nice upgrade from my R9 290.