Help me spend £500 (ish) GFX + CPU

[HoldenBurn1000]

Hi Guys,

So looking for a bit of an upgrade and thinking of the below. Would love to hear some advice!

Current
GFX Card - GTX 680 mildly OC'd
CPU - i5 2500K 1155 OC'd @ 4.7
PSU - OCZ ZT 750W

This combo is still doing pretty well but started to notice me having to drop settings now in new games (which upsets me)

So the question is.. Spend the £500 (ish) on a 980ti OR spend it on a 970 and some sort of CPU upgrade that's around £200 (would need help here as not sure what a good upgrade would be, needs to be a "K"!)

I am only gaming at 1080p on my current monitor.

Any suggestions on how to spend the cash would be great! I need stable frames!

P.S. Already have SSD and enough storage etc, although my PSU is loud as hell so if I could work one of them in somewhere, that would be great. Wishful thinking.

[shaithis]

Just get a new card, maybe even go with a 970 as it won't lose as much value when the new cards release and you could potentially upgrade again...

I'd hate to spend £450 on a new GPU at the moment with the tech changes that are happening.

Upgrading the CPU will not give any better games performance (and if it does it will probably be 1-2fps) and second-hand 1155 CPUs are getting scarce, leaving you with a near-£300 upgrade of CPU and mobo (and maybe DDR4 depending on what you choose) for 1-2fps.

[MrJim]

I agree, just add a new graphics card & keep the CPU.

Dropping £500 on a 980ti doesn't make much sense though, given the jump in performance that the next generation of GPUs will offer. At 1080p, a 960 or 970 would be plenty, if you really can't wait until the Summer / Autumn for the new GPUs.

I've never really liked OCZ PSUs...I had one once but RMA'd it due to excessive noise. I'd be inclined to change it for something like this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/EVGA-GOLD-Mo...ernova+g2+650w

[HoldenBurn1000]

Thanks Both.

You may be right. Maybe just the card and psu.

Psu has an issue where the fan goes to full speed when under load and never drops back down again. Shame to replace as works fine otherwise. But it would be nice not to have the fan at 100%

I would wait for the next cards but God knows how long those will be and will probably be serious cash (and may not have it then!)

[EndlessWaves]

Anandtech reckoned Skylake was about 25% faster than Sandy bridge at the same clockspeeds. If the sort of games you play are CPU dependant (strategy etc.) then it may be worth considering.

The 980ti is only about eight months old so I wouldn't expect a replacement until the very end of the year (November+) or early next year. The 980 replacement earlier in this year is likely to offer similar performance to the Ti for less power consumption and potentially less price (discounting on the 980ti too) but you're not going to see something offer 30-40% more performance than the 980ti unless either AMD or nVidia jump the gun and release a new top end chip much sooner than usual.

So while it might be worth waiting if you're considering a lower end chip it's likely to be a long time before the high end budges.

Although a dual GPU Maxwell card may happen.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I probably won't bother to upgrade until at least Polaris is released during the summer. Also it appears the Kepler cards seem to be suffering more and more in games against the equivalent GCN cards(especially the range under the GTX780),so if Maxwell is going to follow the same path it would be prudent to wait anyway until the newer generation cards drop.

[shaithis]

I probably won't bother to upgrade until at least Polaris is released during the summer. Also it appears the Kepler cards seem to be suffering more and more in games against the equivalent GCN cards(especially the range under the GTX780),so if Maxwell is going to follow the same path it would be prudent to wait anyway until the newer generation cards drop.

That depends on how you cherry-pick your benchmarks...

Looking at RoTTR benchmarks, 780Ti cards are hanging with the 390x and the GTX770 is doing about the same as a 280x....like it always has.

Witcher 3 and Project Cars do not represent the entire spectrum of games performance.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

That depends on how you cherry-pick your benchmarks...

Looking at RoTTR benchmarks, 780Ti cards are hanging with the 390x and the GTX770 is doing about the same as a 280x....like it always has.

Witcher 3 and Project Cars do not represent the entire spectrum of games performance.

I don't need to cherry pick anything. My GTX660 collapsed in performance against my mates HD7870 in many games. My GTX660 was generally only slightly behind an HD7870. Look where it is now. The GTX660 was a very popular card.

The only reason I got a GTX960 now is because it was £50 cheaper than an equivalent R9 380.





































I just listed the last few pages of that websites gaming results.

That's a whole spectrum of titles and more of them are NV sponsored too. Its also at 1920X1080 too which is not a VRAM heavy resolution. Yet,in most of the titles the R9 280X is now faster than a GTX770,even though they were trading blows. The HD7870 was a bit faster than my GTX660. Now my GTX660 is getting destroyed in many titles.and only a few games its holding its own against the HD7870.

Edit!!

Over 16 games,many of them NV sponsored,the HD7870 is now a whopping 21% faster than a GTX660. According to TPU at launch,on average a GTX660 and HD7870 were trading blows and even the Hexus reviews showed the same.

The R9 280X is around 15% faster than a GTX770 now and at launch both cards were trading blows too.

Second Edit!!

The GTX770 has gone from being 10% to 15% on average faster than a GTX960 to reaching a similar speed in around a year.

You can even see the same with the TPU graphs for the GTX970 launch. The GTX970 was around 10% faster than an R9 290X and the GTX980 around 20% to 25% at 1080P.

If you look at their newer reviews,the R9 290X is now parity with an R9 290X and the GTX980 is only 12% faster and this is all at 1080P which tends to favour the Nvidia cards,as at higher resolutions the R9 290 series seems to claw back even more performance and these are reference R9 290 and R9 290X cards with their average stock cooler.

The GTX980TI is probably the only Maxwell based card I can see really see being OK once Pascal drops - not really sure about the others IMHO.

This is why I would tell the OP to wait until Polaris and Pascal drop.

[DanceswithUnix]

Over 16 games,many of them NV sponsored,the HD7870 is now a whopping 21% faster than a GTX660. According to TPU at launch,on average a GTX660 and HD7870 were trading blows and even the Hexus reviews showed the same.

I once bought (no sniggering at the back) an 8600GT to tide me over while my graphics card was sent back under warranty. Reviews slated it, it was no faster than the 7600GT it replaced at the same price. Then, as games of that era went from fill rate to shader limited the card started looking better and better than both the 7600 and the ATI equivalents of the time. I think that is because at that price point Nvidia guessed very well what the future was going to look like and they made the perfect card for 1 year down the road. Did it help sales? Well, no, because people at release time thought the 8600GT was a joke and that image stuck.

So, you buy a card based on release time benchmarks and you take a punt on how relevant it will be a year or three down the line. If Nvidia/AMD try and build you a long lasting card then they get blasted for it because it isn't the best silicon possible on day of release.

I suspect the opposite has happened here: the 680 was a really nice bit of kit on release day, the 7870 was a bit more forward looking. Applaud AMD, Nvidia probably doesn't require a public flogging over this. Other things perhaps, just not this

As an aside: My son's 2GB GTX460 just went sparkly and died. The only spare graphics card in the garage, that old 8600GT. I said it might be laggy but playable in Minecraft, but once Windows 10 had plug and played some drivers in it is surprisingly smooth.

[DanceswithUnix]

A 970 might help, just how much depending on the game: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1494?vs=1595

Or you could go for an R9 390, put the rest of your budget towards a 144Hz Freesync monitor.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1494?vs=1594

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I once bought (no sniggering at the back) an 8600GT to tide me over while my graphics card was sent back under warranty. Reviews slated it, it was no faster than the 7600GT it replaced at the same price. Then, as games of that era went from fill rate to shader limited the card started looking better and better than both the 7600 and the ATI equivalents of the time. I think that is because at that price point Nvidia guessed very well what the future was going to look like and they made the perfect card for 1 year down the road. Did it help sales? Well, no, because people at release time thought the 8600GT was a joke and that image stuck.

So, you buy a card based on release time benchmarks and you take a punt on how relevant it will be a year or three down the line. If Nvidia/AMD try and build you a long lasting card then they get blasted for it because it isn't the best silicon possible on day of release.

I suspect the opposite has happened here: the 680 was a really nice bit of kit on release day, the 7870 was a bit more forward looking. Applaud AMD, Nvidia probably doesn't require a public flogging over this. Other things perhaps, just not this

As an aside: My son's 2GB GTX460 just went sparkly and died. The only spare graphics card in the garage, that old 8600GT. I said it might be laggy but playable in Minecraft, but once Windows 10 had plug and played some drivers in it is surprisingly smooth.

It was the same with the 7900GS and X1900GT - the X1900GT was more shader heavy so actually lost less performance as time progressed(I had both). The HD2000 and HD3000 did their AA using shaders IIRC,which meant they did poorly - DX10.1 actually helped in this regard,so there was a lot of noise about what happened to the original DX10 spec,etc.

Regarding Kepler and GCN, I think its more the case as indicated by Anandtech and a few others way back when Kepler launched that Nvidia would be moving more to software scheduling,which meant more software optimisation work might need to be done with games,but it lead to reductions in die size and power consumption. AMD went the other way and incorporated more hardware into their GPUs.

However,it also had the effect of Nvidia actually improving the CPU performance of their drivers,as there was more load on the CPU for graphics tasks.

So I personally think as the older cards from AMD and Nvidia get moved to second rung driver status,with more dev effort being spent on new cards,the older cards will no doubt get slower.

It will be interesting to see if Polaris still has hardware scheduling or not.

Considering the OP is probably going to keep their card for a few years - they still have a GTX680,I am not sure I would be wanting to buy a GTX970 now especially if we have a Pascal card launching this.

Its better for them to buy a Pascal or Polaris card as until they get replaced they will be the primary targets for driver optimisations.

It could be another 5 to 9 months until the GTX970 gets replaced and if you intend to keep a graphics card for two to three years,I am not so sure TBH.

Its why instead of getting a GTX970 ro R9 390 I went for a stop gap £100 GTX960 4GB.

[DanceswithUnix]

Its why instead of getting a GTX970 ro R9 390 I went for a stop gap £100 GTX960 4GB.

Same boat here, although my son's replacement R9 380 has just arrived, this time I went for 4GB so I'm keeping it and he can have my old 2GB R9 285

Still, unless the OP has s a 2GB problem I expect a 960/380 would be money wasted: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1494?vs=1592

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Same boat here, although my son's replacement R9 380 has just arrived, this time I went for 4GB so I'm keeping it and he can have my old 2GB R9 285

Still, unless the OP has s a 2GB problem I expect a 960/380 would be money wasted: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1494?vs=1592

Thats why IMHO they should stay put,or upgrade with the caviat that by the end of the year,the new cards are going to make the old ones start to look meh,and next year they will just be faster overall in DX12 titles.