GPU Buying Guide - (Read first post)

Hmm, I was weighing up the Hyper 212X—what’s your take on that one?

One more thing: the whole build should run me about $350. That sounds like a solid deal, right?

Didn't you say it was $300 for the CPU, motherboard, and RAM? 😛 Or maybe even everything 😲

The coolers are around here somewhere—the 212X isn't exactly huge, so I guess that might matter if you're looking at space.

The whole build for this price point 🙂

Just needs an SSD and a CPU cooler, but I'll deal with that later. 🙂

Hey everyone!

Got another quick question for you guys

Is there actually any difference between these two RX480s listed at Futura, or is their website just glitching out and doubling the price by mistake?

My current build is what I posted over on this Reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/showthread.php?t=978127

I just came into some unexpected cash, so I’m thinking about grabbing one of these. Is it a solid choice? I’ve been looking around and can't seem to find anything cheaper, at least not from where I'm looking...

I'm mostly viewing this as a "future-proofing" move. I see everyone mentioning that a new generation of processors is dropping this spring/summer, so I might just grab something from the current lineup—like an i5 6500 or 6600—if those prices tank later on.
btw, if anyone's curious about that R9 270X I picked up less than a month ago, it's honestly been running flawlessly. Shoot me a DM if you want more info.

Other suppliers have solid pricing. That GPU is a bit overkill considering your current CPU, but like you mentioned, once you upgrade the processor, you'll finally see its full potential.

Timothy Kim60 said:Other vendors have decent prices too. Honestly, that GPU is a bit overkill considering the CPU you're running, but like you mentioned, once you upgrade the processor, you'll finally see what that card can actually do.

Look, I'm fully aware I've got a massive bottleneck with my current CPU, but it's not like I'm trying to run high-end titles on ultra settings. I'll play whatever works until I hit a wall...

Someone on that thread was suggesting an RX 470, and I honestly would’ve grabbed it if it were closer to $133 bucks, but for me, the 480 just makes more sense value-wise.

Haha, just seeing this now—solid build, Smartica. 👍 😁

Just wanted to drop a quick note to say my RX 480 is absolutely crushing it. I just gave the new Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare a spin, and it’s running on Ultra settings without breaking a sweat. The only hiccup is when the game hits an autosave—my whole rig starts chugging for a second

Roger Gonzalez41 said:I just wanted to mention that my RX 480 is performing like an absolute beast.

My new GeForce GTX 1060 gaming x 6 g is running flawlessly. Why would anyone ever go back to those cheap, overheating AMD cards? I’ve officially decided that sticking with Team Green was the smartest move I could have made.

As long as you both feel good about what you spent 😉

Brian Campbell36 said:My new MSI GeForce RTX 4060 works perfectly. No more cheap, overheating AMD cards for me. I made the right call sticking with Team Green.

It’s funny how everyone sees things differently. Honestly, looking back, I’d probably take the RX 480 over this 1060. The 480 is just a better card; it used to lag behind the 1060 in DX11 titles, but with the latest drivers, they're almost neck-and-neck, and it actually pulls ahead in DX12.

And the 480 was definitely $67 cheaper than this Nvidia card when I picked it up. Interestingly, the first Nvidia card I ever owned after my GTX 1050 forced me to swap out my entire motherboard because of some damn chipset issue—it wouldn't work on a board just two generations old. I had an Abit board with a 975x chipset, and it was a no-go, so I had to grab a newer one with the P45 chip. I went with an Asus, and that worked fine.

Since then, I've stuck strictly to AMD cards and been happy. I can't even remember the last time I bothered updating drivers once they stabilized. Everything just ran smooth.

Now, with this setup, games just freeze on me. Fallout 4 runs like a mess; it doesn't even fully utilize the GPU. My FPS drops to 40 while GPU usage sits at 50%, and since I'm running an i7-4790K, there's no bottlenecking happening. It’s totally random, too. One minute it's fine, the next it's dying in the exact same spots.
Don't even get me started on the freezes where the drivers just hang.

I've installed every single driver version released so far, and every time, something breaks in a game. One might run great, but then I update and a different game that worked fine starts acting up.
Lately, with these newest drivers, The Witcher 3 has been crashing constantly—three crashes in three days already. And it used to run just fine.

I never had these issues with AMD cards. They were rock solid.

I really regret not grabbing that 480. It was cheaper and faster. With these recent updates, it's basically caught up to the 1060 in DX11 and is beating it in DX12.

I told myself "no Nvidia" for ten years, and look where that got me...

Hopefully, they stabilize these drivers soon.

It’s all the same crap, just wrapped in different packaging...
Look, I wasn't trying to suck up to ATI or Nvidia. I was just saying I picked up a card and everything seems fine so far. Honestly, I had my doubts about how it would actually perform on the specific platform I installed it on.
I wouldn't say no to having another rig with a GTX 1060 6GB inside it, though. 🙂
Back when I bought my PC 2009 HD5850, it absolutely screwed me over when I tried using HDMI; I never had a single issue using DVI on the monitor. Now, after reinstalling everything on that old machine, the HDMI connection is working fine, but it only lasted about a month before acting up again.
Every setup has its own set of flaws. It's obvious that one person gets stuck with one headache while someone else deals with another...

Greetings
I reached out last week regarding my GPU situation, and the MSI RX 480 finally arrived. My power supply is a Thermaltake 675W modular unit. This new card requires an 8-pin power connector, whereas my old GTX 660Ti used a 12-pin setup. It strikes me as somewhat odd that the card didn't come with its own dedicated power cable, so I'm wondering if there's a way to go out and order that specific 8-pin cable for a modular PSU separately.

Gary Anderson38, if you're dealing with constant freezing like that, you might want to look into a warranty claim. Some GTX cards using Micron memory have been notorious for issues like flickering or total system freezes, which led vendors to release BIOS updates—though even those don't always cut it. I know some guys over on the PC forums found that even after updating, the problems persisted at stock settings, so they just ended up RMAing the cards for replacements...

Thomas Wells5

Does the power supply lack a 6+2 pin connector? And let's be clear, I'm not talking about the EPS connector for the CPU; don't mix those two up. If that's the case, just head down to a local computer shop and grab an adapter.

I don't even know how I'd pitch this; I'd just tell them it doesn't work.

I’d say it’s likely a driver issue. I mean, I haven't seen these memory problems pop up during synthetic benchmarks. I tested it by leaving Heaven Benchmark running overnight—started it at 7 AM, headed to work, came home around 3:30 PM, and it was still chugging along. No crashes.

The trouble depends on the game, and it usually hits right after a driver update. Every time a new version drops, I install it, and every single time, something breaks. The only game that runs flawlessly is Doom. Everything else eventually starts acting up after an update.
Fallout 4 has been basically unplayable since the last three driver versions, even though it worked fine when I first bought it. The Witcher 3 started glitching out after the most recent update, and Far Cry 4 has been a mess from the start; I dealt with several freezes while replaying it.

I updated the motherboard BIOS and stress-tested all my other components. I even wiped Windows and swapped back to my old AMD Radeon HD 280x, and everything ran perfectly with that.
I've wasted so much time messing around with this, losing entire weekends. Now I've got a fresh Windows install—everything is clean, I only backed up my game saves—but nope, it just keeps acting up.

Synthetic benchmarks pass without a hitch, but games are where the issues start, and it's pretty random. It might run The Witcher 3 fine for two days, then on the third day, I'll hit a freeze.
Sometimes I can just go back into Windows and kill the game, other times I have to hard reboot the whole PC.

Don't even get me started on how Fallout 4 behaves. Between the freezing and the performance drops—dropping to 30 FPS on low settings... it even changes my resolution to 1024x768 after loading screens. It's a nightmare.

So, what now? A warranty claim? I could try, but I don't see how they're just going to take it back and hand me a new one.
I'm going to head over to HGspot where I bought it and see what they say. They'll probably just tell me I didn't install something correctly.

You’ve got nothing to lose—just tell them exactly what you told me here. It is simply not normal for that GPU to be dropping down to 30fps on low settings, especially since you're running an i7. If I were you, I'd try rolling back to some drivers from July or September; Nvidia has been pushing out a ton of updates lately to patch various bugs. If it still isn't performing correctly after that, take it back to the shop. I highly doubt you're the first person to run into these kinds of issues.

I'm pretty sure it's just a driver issue, honestly. It’s too sporadic. Most of these problems tend to pop up or disappear whenever a new driver update rolls out.

Doesn't feel like the card is actually dying. Some games run perfectly fine—Doom is working just fine right now. Even The Witcher 3 was running without a single hiccup until these latest drivers arrived.

I don't have the energy or the patience to keep wasting my time on this. I’ll be switching back to AMD cards during my next upgrade, which is clearly happening much sooner than I planned—unless they actually get their act together and fix these drivers in the meantime.

Gary Anderson38 said:Regardless, I remain convinced that we are looking at a driver issue, given how sporadic this behavior is. Most of these headaches tend to surface or vanish entirely with every single driver update.

It doesn't strike me that the card itself is defective. Certain games run perfectly fine, such as Doom at the moment. The Witcher 3 was running without a single glitch until these most recent drivers were installed.

I simply have neither the desire nor the patience to waste any more time on this. I will be switching back to AMD cards during my next upgrade—which, quite clearly, is arriving much sooner than I had anticipated—unless they manage to fix these drivers in the interim.

I am also playing Fallout 4, and I haven't encountered a single issue with my MSI GeForce RTX 4060.

Everything runs at maximum settings, with the frame rate staying at a very comfortable and stable 60 fps.

I am thoroughly satisfied with the GTX 1060; if I were buying one again right now, I would stick with the GTX 1060 6GB rather than turning to AMD and those half-baked products of theirs.

Brian Campbell36 said:My new MSI GeForce RTX 4060 is running flawlessly. I'm definitely done with those cheap, overheating AMD cards. I guess I've officially joined Team Green.

Brian Campbell36 said:I'm honestly thrilled with the performance from this GTX 1060. If I had to buy another card right now, I’d just pick up another GTX 1060 6GB rather than deal with AMD and their half-baked products again.

🙂

Timothy Kim60 said:Gary Anderson38, if you're dealing with constant freezing, you might actually be looking at a warranty claim here. Some GTX cards equipped with Micron memory have been notorious for issues like flickering or total system freezes, which forced vendors to push out BIOS updates—though even those don't always cut it. I've seen guys on US tech forums mention that even after updating, the problems persisted on stock settings, eventually forcing them to just RMA the card for a replacement...

Thomas Wells5

Wait, the PSU doesn't have a 6+2 pin connector? And please, let's not confuse that with the EPS CPU connector; we shouldn't mix those up. If that's really the case, just head down to a local computer shop and pick up an adapter.

The power supply is modular; I noticed it has an 8-pin input slot, but the actual cable isn't included in the box. Since I'm working on a friend's PC, I assumed I could just tuck away any extra cables to keep things tidy. The PSU doesn't have any Molex connectors available, so trying to adapt two Molex leads into an 8-pin is completely out of the question. Honestly, I'm at a total loss right now. When I got my GTX 1060, it came with an 8-pin cable specifically designed for modular PSUs, but nothing like that came with this one (and I can't quite remember if the GTX 1060 uses an 8-pin or not, I'm writing this from memory).