Old gamer needs advice on long-lasting graphics card/motherboard setup

[Prosequimur]

So I would probably classify myself as an old gamer - my big gaming days were about 15 years ago, when Team Fortress Classic and Counter-Strike were vying as top dog for multiplayer gaming...happy days

Anyway, as usual life happened so now I play hugely less than I once did. I really do still enjoy gaming however (as well as building my systems) and I've finally got to the stage where I need a new system to replace the one that I built in 2009. I'm pretty happy with my other choices for components (though will post for review by the Hexus hivemind) but I am really stuck on graphics cards.

There's a bafflingly (to me, anyway) huge range of cards to choose from and I'm a bit lost. My in-depth knowledge of GPUs ended with AGP 8x and 3dMark2000 so I'm looking for some guidance on the best setup for a long-lasting rig. For reference, my current system is running off dual ATI Radeon 5850 in CrossFire configuration.

I'm normally at least 3-4 years years behind the curve with games now - for example, I just played Far Cry 3 and Crysis (after having the disk on my shelf for a lot of years) so it's only just now that my system has started to struggle.

So I just wondered if you far more knowledgeable folk might give me some guidance on a good graphics card (and motherboard) setup which will last me for five years + without too much upgrading required. I would expect to need to buy a second card at some point in the future but I'd like to avoid replacing the GPU entirely and I would definitely want to avoid replacing the motherboard.

Any guidance on what to look for these days in terms of spec would be hugely appreciated!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Your Core i7 920 is still pretty fine TBH especially if overclocked. If I were you I would wait another six months since you don't play the latest games. AMD should have their latest Polaris cards out by then and AMD Zen is being released at the end of the year.

[dturtill]

what kind of budget are you looking at , do you have a preference between AMD and NVidea

[DanceswithUnix]

Difficult to find a direct comparison, but looking at the performance of a single 5870 vs an R9 290 you get over double the performance:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1062?vs=1068

I went for that comparison because it didn't list your 5850, but also the modern equivalent of the 290 is the 390 which is faster. So that is where I would be looking. But as Cat says, in the summer the next generation graphics cards should start coming out and they are expected to be a big improvement.

The CPU? Your problem there is down to clock speed, so I expect people to start suggesting an overclock. If you are expecting to replace the board anyway, you haven't got a lot to risk Clock for clock that old i7 was pretty good, but a modern 6700K will do 4GHz not 2.6GHz.

[Prosequimur]

Thanks everyone, this is really useful advice - I'd kind of assumed that my system was done! I've not overclocked the CPU because I've never done that before and TBH am a bit nervous, but I've got a good Noctua heatsink so probably should just bite the bullet and do it! I'll report back in if I managed to melt my processor and/or burn my house down.

But as Cat says, in the summer the next generation graphics cards should start coming out and they are expected to be a big improvement.

I wasn't aware that there was a big change coming - will this be a BUS change like AGp to PCI-E or is it more to do with the architecture of the cards themselves?

what kind of budget are you looking at , do you have a preference between AMD and NVidea

I'm happy to spend up to £500 on the right card and I'm prepared to wait a short while if that would be the best thing to do. I tend to prefer NVidia but don't really care too much!

Meantime I am going to learn about overclocking and see what I can do to my CPU. Again if anyone has any tips that would be great

[abaxas]

Buy a gtx 960. Cheap and should last the 2-4 years you need.

[Prosequimur]

Buy a gtx 960. Cheap and should last the 2-4 years you need.

Thanks for the advice. Does anyone have any further info on these next generation cards that people have referenced here?

[ik9000]

Don't bother waiting if you won't be playing brand new titles. You'll just pay over the odds. Of course you could use the immediate window before to snap-up current gen cards for discount as the retailers clear shelf-space for the new cards. That'll probably get you most bang for your buck - if you can wait. If not just get whatever. I'm still on a GTX460 and for what I play it is still perfectly fine.

[kalniel]

Thanks for the advice. Does anyone have any further info on these next generation cards that people have referenced here?

Nothing of note, we just know that it's the first node shrink for ages so there's a physical reason to expect an increase in performance.

[ik9000]

Surprised that your current rig struggled with Crysis - my 460 runs it fine with all settings maxed-out. Is the 5850 a worse card then I remember?

[abaxas]

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare...460/3165vs2167

All you need to know. Keep an eye on hotukdeals and 2gb ones pop up for ~£130 and 4gb ones for about £150.

Job done, then look to upgrade your whole 'rig' in 2-5 years time. Depending on the games you want to play.

[ik9000]

Oh sure, and if i could have spent £170 on a card now as opposed to £170 back then obviously I'd get the modern card. But I already have one that plays the games I want to play just fine. So I don't need to upgrade just for a faster card. The game won't play any quicker, more FPS perhaps, but there is a point at which FPS no longer matter. arguably 60FPS, definitely by 120 FPS. The titles I play run at over 60FPS on my current card, ergo no need to upgrade.

[abaxas]

Bsaically it's always better to buy mid range cards as they tend to be the best value.

Both high and low end tend to cost more per unit of performance. But obviously there are some exceptions to that rule. EG a 750ti is bad value but is pci-e powered, the gt 730 is £44 and the gt 980 isn't worth buying at all!

[Prosequimur]

Surprised that your current rig struggled with Crysis - my 460 runs it fine with all settings maxed-out. Is the 5850 a worse card then I remember?

Lol no, it beasted it on full settings (I remember when "Can it play Crysis?" was the benchmark for a top rig!). Sorry, I wasn't clear - it can handle games that are no less than 3 years old (which certainly includes Crysis) but can't handle anything more recent than that, and I'm starting to want to get into that range. For example, Far Cry 3 it managed, but it was a bit tough at times.

Don't bother waiting if you won't be playing brand new titles. You'll just pay over the odds. Of course you could use the immediate window before to snap-up current gen cards for discount as the retailers clear shelf-space for the new cards. That'll probably get you most bang for your buck - if you can wait. If not just get whatever. I'm still on a GTX460 and for what I play it is still perfectly fine.

Bsaically it's always better to buy mid range cards as they tend to be the best value.

Both high and low end tend to cost more per unit of performance. But obviously there are some exceptions to that rule. EG a 750ti is bad value but is pci-e powered, the gt 730 is £44 and the gt 980 isn't worth buying at all!

Both of these sound like excellent pieces of advice! There's no point me shelling out for a fully top of the range GPU when I'm not going to be really using it. Thank you for that.

SO! The big final question for me is, what would you guys recommend as the best bang for buck card if I were to purchase soon (i.e. within the next month or so)? I'm happy to spend properly into three figures if it's really worth it. The letters GT GTX etc currently don't mean much to me!

[snedger]

I'm in a similar situation - apart from, after getting pwned from my then 12 year old, 14 years ago, I decided to retreat to private, pedestrian RTS gaming - not multiplayer FPS - I want a capable gaming machine, but not state of the art priced - still happyish playing Supreme Commander 2 on an I7 laptop with Intel integrated HD440 graphics on medium setting.
Finding it really hard to get motivated to research stuff.
As soon as I learned about the Thunderbolt 3 interface and the possibility of having an easy setup external graphics card - that could also be ported to different PCs - I've decided to hold off until TB3 is proven and widely available - by then there will a significant improvement in CPUs and GPUs.
Now is a very good time to get set up with mid-range gaming PC and I could be just about tempted by a mega-bargain, but really for me, my next PC/laptop has to be TB3 capable.

[ik9000]

SO! The big final question for me is, what would you guys recommend as the best bang for buck card if I were to purchase soon (i.e. within the next month or so)? I'm happy to spend properly into three figures if it's really worth it. The letters GT GTX etc currently don't mean much to me!

Nvidia use GTX123 for their top end cards. GTX = top end (GT, GTS etc sit below these and pretty basic)

The numbers equal 1 series (currently series 9)
23 are the model eg 60, 70 etc. The higher the number the more powerful.

So the current mid-range darling from Nvidia is the GTX960.

AMD use a similar system of late, with the old 5850 naming switched to R1-234.
The R1 is the model class, R9 most powerful then R7 (don't think there's an R8) etc It's the number of processing RoPs/chips etc that gets reduced.
Off the R9-the 234 states the power grouping. So the R9-390 is their top end (or was the last time I looked, there's been a few R9-fury things recently that might sit above those)
The R9-380 will have lower clock speeds.
The R7-370 below that etc

Not sure which card is their current mid-range. From the price possibly the R9-380 but I'd check that. Tom's Hardware and Anandtech Bench do good GPU comparison charts and summaries which are a useful steer.

Remember to work out what your priorities are - outright power, low noise, thermals/power limitation? Different cards even of the same class have different pros and cons and it helps to know exactly what aspects you are looking for. Cue many visits to manufacturer tech-spec websites.