Which GPU should I get?

[fend_oblivion]

The RX 460 2GB/4GB or the GTX 1050?

The GTX 1050 might release in December, and there's no guarantee it'll be in the same price range as the RX 460.

My peasant rig is as follows :

CPU : AMD FX 4100 3.6 GHz Black Edition
Motherboard : ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3
GPU : Powercolor HD 7750 1 GB GDRR5 (dead)
RAM : G.Skill RipJawsX 8 GB DDR3 @ 1600 MHz
PSU : Seasonic S1211 520W

My monitor supports a maximum resolution of 1366x768. I typically game at either 1280x720 or 1366x768. AMD cards have better DX12 and Vulkan support while Nvidia has better power efficiency and supports Adaptive V-Sync. What would be the best choice for me in the long run?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TBH,any newish £100 card is going to be a decent enough upgrade over what you have now. However,if you intend to keep the card for a few years,the RX460 looks better than the current Nvidia cards in a similar price range.

What power supply do you have??

OcUK do free shipping on their RX460 cards.

This one is bus powered:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/power...x-18a-pc.html#

This one uses an additional power connector,but should be faster:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/his-r...gx-10d-hs.html

Of course you can also wait until the GTX1050 is released but I don't know the ETA on it.

[scaryjim]

... My monitor supports a maximum resolution of 1366x768. I typically game at either 1280x720 or 1366x768. AMD cards have better DX12 and Vulkan support while Nvidia has better power efficiency and supports Adaptive V-Sync. What would be the best choice for me in the long run?

That's a pretty low res monitor (cheap 19"? HD TV?) - any plans to replace it in the near future? If so that should have an impact on your thinking. Adaptive v-sync is pretty much irrelevant at lower resolutions - it only comes into play when your GPU will struggle to drive your monitor at it's refresh rate (probably 60Hz for a cheap 13656x768 panel), and the RX 460 shouldn't struggle at that resolution. Variable refresh rate technologies are much more important, and there AMD has the advantage because its Freesync technology is non-proprietary (it uses a VESA standard) and adds virtually no cost to the monitor, while nvidia's G-sync technology requires additional hardweare, is proprietary, and adds around £100 to the cost of the monitor.

tl;dr? I'd go with a 2GB RX 460 now and consider upgrading your monitor to a 1080p freesync-capable one in a year or two's time.

[Bagnaj97]

OCUK have a b-grade 270x for £59.99, which should be faster than an RX460.
If you don't mind a 90 day warranty then it seems a bit of a bargain! https://www.overclockers.co.uk/b-gra...bg-406-gi.html

[EndlessWaves]

The RX 460 2GB/4GB or the GTX 1050?

The GTX 1050 might release in December, and there's no guarantee it'll be in the same price range as the RX 460.

It's unlikely to be, all of the previous 5 cards were competing with AMD 7/8 cards. The 750ti went against the 7790/7850, the 950 against the 270X/370. Expect any GTX 1050 to be targeted towards the 470.

Whether nVidia will choose to compete with the RX 460 on the desktop remains to be seen. nVidia did produce a full range of mobile chips last time around so if they planned the same thing for Pascal then they will have a suitable chip to use if the RX 460 proves popular.

Or they may keep producing the GTX 950. It's a bigger chip than the RX 460 so the manufacturing costs are higher, but all the development costs will have been paid for by now. It's sufficiently fast and efficient and has all the user-focused features like HDMI 2.0.

You don't say what your case is but power input/output is not likely to be a practical issue with a Micro ATX system.

Adaptive v-sync is pretty much irrelevant at lower resolutions - it only comes into play when your GPU will struggle to drive your monitor at it's refresh rate (probably 60Hz for a cheap 13656x768 panel), and the RX 460 shouldn't struggle at that resolution. Variable refresh rate technologies are much more important, and there AMD has the advantage because its Freesync technology is non-proprietary (it uses a VESA standard) and adds virtually no cost to the monitor, while nvidia's G-sync technology requires additional hardweare, is proprietary, and adds around £100 to the cost of the monitor.

Yeah, adaptive sync/freesync/g-sync is the big one. nVidia's various anti-tearing technologies like adaptive v-sync and fastsync are interesting but somewhat specialised, and minor compared with variable refresh rate. Despite the rather suspicious similarity in names.

[watercooled]

What Nvidia would typically release as a 1050 seems to be getting called the 1060 3GB this time around, which despite the name is cut-down from the actual 1060, but is likely to be more of a 470 competitor than 460.

G-sync is proprietary Nvidia but AMD introduced Freesync which is essentially based on the open VESA adaptive sync standard, which Intel have also adopted for future GPUs. G-sync monitors also carry a significant price premium whereas Freesync adds barely anything and seems to be just included as standard on lots of gaming monitors now.

Basically if you want to use some variation of adaptive sync then you must factor in the higher price of a G-Sync monitor when looking at Nvidia GPUs, the price premium likely coming close to the cost of your actual GPU; hence I don't think it makes a lot of sense for this price range.

[scaryjim]

... Expect any GTX 1050 to be targeted towards the 470. ...

What Nvidia would typically release as a 1050 seems to be getting called the 1060 3GB this time around, which despite the name is cut-down from the actual 1060, but is likely to be more of a 470 competitor than 460. ....

To be fair, the GTX 1060 3GB is a much smaller cut down from the 6GB 1060 than would be usual for a x50 part: the 950 lost 25% of the 960's shaders, while the 3GB 1060 is losing only 10% of the shaders. It's more of a GTX 1060 SE. OTOH, comparing the performance of the 1060 to the RX 480 and RX 470, a 10% snip in shaders is still going to leave the 3GB 1060 competing with the faster 470s and slower 480s.

I'm pretty sure we'll see a GTX 1050 in due course and it will be targeted at the same $99 section of the market as the RX 460 (AMD have played around with their naming conventions again this generation, serving two major card divisions (470 and 480) with a single die). I suspect that it will use a smaller die (probably GP107?) in the same way that the 750/750 Ti used GM107. I kind of hope they do, since the current nvidia line up has 3 generations plying the mainstream space (750 Ti, 950/960, and 1060)...

[WhitherMoon]

How about an RX 480 ? They aren't overly expensive, maybe already mentioned, I didn't read every word

[scaryjim]

How about an RX 480 ? They aren't overly expensive, maybe already mentioned, I didn't read every word

They're twice as expensive as the card the OP is thinking about! Even the RX 470 is slipping up past £180 (which kind of supports my theory that the 4GB RX 480 was a marketing fudge so they could claim VR @ $199, and the RX 470 is the card that's actually meant to serve that market... ). There's a big hole in AMD's product line up that's begging for something top be dropped in there...

[fend_oblivion]

I have a Seasonic S1211 520 W PSU and my monitor is a 14" Acer P166HQL. I don't think I will get a new monitor.

Yeah, I have a feeling the GTX 1050 will be an RX 470 competitor. There's the GT 1040 but no telling how that one will fare.

Would a 2GB RX 460 be okay or should I get the 4GB version? Won't VRAM be an issue for newer games?

[scaryjim]

... I don't think I will get a new monitor.

... Would a 2GB RX 460 be okay ...

On that monitor? Hell yes. Don't even think about spending any more than that. Cheapest 2GB RX 460 you can find, and it'll still be a bit overkill, tbh. Your PSU should be more than good enough to choose one that needs a 6-pin power cable, and that will help boost the performance a bit (the purely bus-powered cards are power-limited in how high they can clock).

... Yeah, I have a feeling the GTX 1050 will be an RX 470 competitor. There's the GT 1040 but no telling how that one will fare. ...

The GTX 1050 will compete with the RX 460 (the GTX 1060 3GB is the card that competes with the RX 470), but we don't have a release schedule, or even (afaik) confirmation that it exists yet. I imagine the GT 1040, if it exists, will be a cut down GTX 1050. Going by the way the cards have been positioned so far this generation, I'd expect the GTX 1050 to be slightly faster and slightly more expensive than the RX 460, and the 1040 to be slightly slower and slightly cheaper.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

http://forums.hexus.net/pc-hardware-...d-october.html

[scaryjim]

Yeah, I knew there was a rumour around - don't think there's been anything official or confirmed yet though?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Yeah, I knew there was a rumour around - don't think there's been anything official or confirmed yet though?

Its pretty much a given it will be a faster than a RX460 and probably consume less power. AMD again have given Nvidia a nice and easy target to surpass.

[fend_oblivion]

If that's the case, do you guys think it would be best for me in the long run to wait for the GTX 1050?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It is still like two months away TBH,and AMD might be competitive in Vulkan/DX12 titles(probably be beaten in DX11) and there is the fact FreeSync monitors are much cheaper too. The GTX1050 probably will be quicker in DX11 though.

My main worry is the RX460 does not use a full Polaris 11 chip,and that has 14% more shaders.

OTH, a £100 RX460 2GB be a big upgrade over what you had?? Yep.

Will it be worth waiting to see what the GTX1050 brings to the table - maybe.

I suppose it depends if you can wait two months without a card TBH!!

Also,it might be useful to see if there are older cards on offer too.