GPU Buying Guide - (Read first post)

Honestly, I still think this Nvidia card is the best one out there.😁

Just go ahead and Google a few benchmarks so you don't have to waste any more brainpower on this. 😁

What you're being told right now might be totally irrelevant in two or three weeks. Just consolidate your thoughts into a single thread once a few weeks have passed; there's really no need to start a whole new topic for every single "what if" question. Just some friendly advice 🙂

Adam Moore3 said:What you're hearing now might be outdated in two or three weeks. Just wait a few weeks and post everything in one single thread instead of starting a whole new topic for every little "what if" question. Just some friendly advice 🙂

I'm pretty sure the GTX 960 is going to outperform the R7 370 both two weeks from now and two years from now.😬

Greetings to all you good people,

Here is my current PC build:

Motherboard:
- ASUS B75 Motherboard (MS-7758)
- QuadCore Intel Core i5-4590, 3100 MHz
- Intel B75 Chipset, Intel Haswell
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 750
- SSD OCZ-ARC100 240GB
- Power Supply: EVGA 550W

My rig is about three and a half, maybe four years old now. It’s been rock solid until recently, but now my graphics card has started acting up. My main game is Call of Duty: Battlefield; until just a few weeks ago, I was running it on Ultra settings without a single hiccup. However, lately, I've been hitting stuttering issues on Ultra, forcing me to drop down to High settings. It works for now, but is it really ideal? Not quite.

To make matters more interesting, I went out yesterday and picked up an incredible new monitor. I definitely overpaid for it, but it looks amazing! Now I'm worried that my visual performance might be even further limited by my current hardware.

So, why am I listing these specs? I'm looking for some compatibility advice. I'm planning to buy a new graphics card and I'm ready to spend up to $833, but I'm genuinely unsure if a new card will be too powerful for this specific setup. Is it actually worth upgrading just the GPU, or am I eventually going to have to bite the bullet and buy an entirely new computer? I would dearly love to avoid the latter option if possible.

Thank you all in advance for any help you can provide.

You just need to list the exact power supply model, I guess.

I've gone ahead and updated my previous post regarding the power supply, which is an EVGA 550W.

crimsonstag84 said:http://www.newegg.com/p/product_info.php?c...ducts_id=16777

You still need to list the power supply—give me the exact model.

👍

Since you're running a 660ti, anything else would be more of a sidegrade than an actual upgrade... just check your temps first to see if the GPU is dying or if something else is screwing you over...

Speccy or CPU-Z or whatever other software

analogtiger19 said:I'm pretty much certain the GTX 960 will be a better pick than the r7 370 both two or three weeks from now and two or three years down the road. 😬

Look, I'm just speaking in general terms here. Maybe something drops in price during that window, or maybe an R9 280X goes on sale like it did recently, making the 960 a bad call or something like that. 🙂 People really shouldn't start a whole new thread every single time they're just thinking about buying a PC or some parts. 🤣

My current setup
CPU: i5 4690k OC at 4.3 Ghz, cooled by a COOLERMASTER Seidon 120V Ver.2 liquid cooler,
MBO: ASRock Z97M Pro4
RAM: 16GB (2x8GB) Kingston DDR3 HyperX Fury running at 1866MHz
HDD: Dell XPS 250GB 850 EVO Basic, plus a 640 GB WD and a 320 GB WD
VGA: SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2 GB
PSU: 600 W OCZ
Monitor: DELL P-series P2214H, 22 inch
OS: Windows 8.1

So, I’m stuck in a bit of a dilemma myself regarding which graphics card would be the better move here.

Should I go with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX gaming card with 8GB, specifically an MSI AMD RADEON R9 390 gaming, or maybe stick with something like an EVGA or MSI GeForce GTX 970?

Most of my time is spent on 3D modeling in AutoCAD and running Keyshot renders, since I pick up freelance gigs on Fiverr alongside my full-time job.

Of course, when I actually find a spare moment, I love to game—there's really nothing better.

Since NVIDIA has that CUDA advantage and all that, I'd love to hear any recommendations you might have.

If you're looking to run SolidWorks, you'd actually get better performance out of an AMD graphics card. By the way, what kind of power supply are you running exactly?

Timothy Kim60 said:If you're running SolidWorks, you might actually find an AMD card performs a bit better, but I'm wondering what kind of power supply you're working with right now.

An OCZ 600W

I saw that, but I'm specifically referring to the exact model (though it's likely fine)

Timothy Kim60 said:That’s what I caught, though I’m really trying to pin down the specific model—even if it’ll probably work fine regardless.

I'll have to double-check once I'm off the clock at work,😁 so I'll get back to you later, but my gut tells me it should be good to go.

Here is a quick question regarding the GTX 950.

I was wondering if my Corsair 400 w might actually be sufficient to power this card without causing my entire system to fail to boot up? My current processor is an AMD Athlon 955.
If I suppose that the power supply is perhaps a bit too weak for such a setup, what kind of upgrade would you suggest that might also allow for the possibility of adding a more modern CPU down the road?

It isn't underpowered at all (Corsair 400 w)

It is indeed the Corsair 400 w series. Given that I have now installed the XFX HD5850, which I suppose might draw a bit more power, yet seems to be functioning perfectly fine, I am inclined to believe it will probably hold up for another year or two.
Thank you so much for getting back to me so quickly.

Help!

Which new PCI Express graphics card should I pick up for this old setup:
(*just a heads-up—I’m not really a gamer, so I don't need the absolute best thing on the market for this rig)

Motherboard: Asus M2N-E (NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI chipset)
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000 (Socket AM2, Core Speed 3114.26MHz)
RAM: currently 2x 1 GB dual channel, but I'm actually thinking about grabbing some PC-6400, 4 GB, G.SKILL Standard Series, F2-6400CL5D-4GBNT, DDR2 800 MHz, KIT 2x2 GB
Power Supply: Microsoft platinum 550 v4.

Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate

Thanks in advance, everyone

From the newcomer:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search/q/graphics-card

Oh, right—totally blanked on mentioning the drive, it's actually a Samsung 840 Pro 256.
What’s the deal with this "new" thing you mentioned? Are we talking DDR5 memory or what? If I go that route, am I actually going to see a noticeable jump in performance?
And honestly, does it make sense to shell out more for the high-end stuff just to future-proof things? I'm trying to buy something that won't be obsolete by next year since I don't plan on upgrading my rig anytime soon.