New Vid Card

[DragonD]

Soo..

I've been out of gaming for awhile... like 4+ years.

I want to replace my vid card. It's a GeForce GTX 970.

There was a time when I was on "top" of what was "out there".. not anymore.

Sticking with Nvidia, what is the best bang for the buck? What card is hitting that "sweet spot"?

 

[TomSL]

Soo..

I've been out of gaming for awhile... like 4+ years.

I want to replace my vid card. It's a GeForce GTX 970.

There was a time when I was on "top" of what was "out there".. not anymore.

Sticking with Nvidia, what is the best bang for the buck? What card is hitting that "sweet spot"?

GTX 1050Ti is what I have, ~100ish bucks when I bought it, great performance, great everything, really, and it plays VR, have been able to ultra every game I play at 60FPS 1080p

1660 and 1060 are also really good cards, but I don't know if they're as 'bang for your buck' as the 1050Ti is.

 

[DragonD]

GTX 1050Ti is what I have, ~100ish bucks when I bought it, great performance, great everything, really, and it plays VR, have been able to ultra every game I play at 60FPS 1080p

1660 and 1060 are also really good cards, but I don't know if they're as 'bang for your buck' as the 1050Ti is.

Thanks! I'll look into them!

I don't mind spending the money, if it's worth it.. but I don't want to spend it, just to spend it.

 

[ChocolateVillain]

With the mess that is Nvidia product stack at the moment. The best bang for the buck at 1080p is the 1660 Super if you are looking at the newer architect Turing.

1660 GDDR5 memory

1660 TI GDDR6 memory but slower then the Super variant at a higher cost but has more Cuda cores (GPU cores).

1660 Super GDDR6 memory, fastest memory out of the 3 versions of the 1660 for sale right now.

1660 Super Go around the $240 range while the TI version goes around the $290 range. The $50 difference does not make up for the the 5fps you might gain with the TI, hell at the $340 you could pick up a 2060 which would be a step up from the 1660 Super or TI but at that price point I would really recommend AMD's RX 5700 which is at the fps levels of the 2060 Super but at the cheaper price point of the 2060.

A bit confusing but the product stack for Nvidia and AMD look like this from low to high.
(Newest Turing architect)
Nvidia
1650, 1650 Super, 1660, 1660 Super, 1660 TI, 2060, 2060 Super, 2070, 2070 Super, 2080, 2080 Super, 2080 TI, Titan
AMD
RX 570, RX580, RX590, RX 5700, RX 5700 XT

 

[DragonD]

Soo... I went with a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Super 8GB GDDR6

And.. OMG.. what a difference.

I was getting (on new CoD), about a 1:3 death ratio (closer to 1:4).. just dying left and right.

I played a few games, and every game I had a positive KD ratio.

Huge difference

 

[Simon]

Soo... I went with a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Super 8GB GDDR6

And.. OMG.. what a difference.

I was getting (on new CoD), about a 1:3 death ratio (closer to 1:4).. just dying left and right.

I played a few games, and every game I had a positive KD ratio.

Huge difference

Wicked choice! you'll be set for a long time. Enjoy it

 

[killroylll]

like ddragon got,rtx 2070 super, is the best bang for your buck but still 500 bucks ):

 

[Architect of Life]

D DragonD what is your CPU, by the way?

 

[Twisty]

I have an RTX 2060 and i like it, affordable but still higher quality, and not overkill

 

[DragonD]

D DragonD what is your CPU, by the way?

It's all old.

I built it back around this time in 2014.. so 5 years old. Which in gaming world, is old.

I use to do a total rebuild every 4 years. And when that build was 2 years old, I would replace the vid card and add more RAM.

But.. for those few who remember me, I walked away from gaming back in 2015. Took a few years off to get my life and marriage back on track.. which happy to say it is. We actually renewed our vows back in 2017..

Anyways.. my current rig is:

The motherboard is GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-UD5H

The CPU is an i5-4690K.

The MB can handle an i7. I remember a lot of debate about the i5's vs i7's, which had just came out. So, I COULD put in an i7, with minimum cost/hassle. But would it be worth it??

Id rather not do a complete build.. but if I have to.. I have to.

At least my case looks good

It's a one of a kind, which I did myself

 

[Snipeye]

Don't bother with an i7 upgrade, unless you find it stupid cheap. With Intel production aimed towards the newer chips, older ones become scarce and rise in price.

I would actually suggest looking at putting a new build together for a new CPU, motherboard, and RAM. Maybe even an SSD or M2 drive even. Not to upgrade immediately, but future planning when you do decide to upgrade.

 

[DragonD]

I would actually suggest looking at putting a new build together for a new CPU, motherboard, and RAM. Maybe even an SSD or M2 drive even. Not to upgrade immediately, but future planning when you do decide to upgrade.

My boot/gaming drive is a 500gb SSD card.

yea... maybe it's time to replace the mb/cpu/ram.

 

[DragonD]

Don't bother with an i7 upgrade, unless you find it stupid cheap. With Intel production aimed towards the newer chips, older ones become scarce and rise in price.

I would actually suggest looking at putting a new build together for a new CPU, motherboard, and RAM. Maybe even an SSD or M2 drive even. Not to upgrade immediately, but future planning when you do decide to upgrade.

S Snipeye , another question...

I have an older core i5. I found the Core i7-9700 on amazon prime for $340.

Would that show a significant jump in performance?

Or should I just break down and do a rebuild?

 

[Simon]

S Snipeye , another question...

I have an older core i5. I found the Core i7-9700 on amazon prime for $340.

Would that show a significant jump in performance?

Or should I just break down and do a rebuild?

i7-9700 is actually still a very new CPU. It would be a pretty significant performance bump - 5 generations ahead of your current one. Your issue here is that it would not be compatible at all with your motherboard. Unfortunately if you want to upgrade the CPU, you're into a board and RAM at this point. I was at the same point with my machine as well.

 

[DragonD]

i7-9700 is actually still a very new CPU. It would be a pretty significant performance bump - 5 generations ahead of your current one. Your issue here is that it would not be compatible at all with your motherboard. Unfortunately if you want to upgrade the CPU, you're into a board and RAM at this point. I was at the same point with my machine as well.

Well, poo bunnies!

Your absolutely correct. That shows how long it's been since I kept up on stuff.. I was thinking all i7's were the "same".. didn't realize now they have "generations".

So.. guess I'll need to rebuild.

And looking at the i7-9700, that looks like the "sweet" spot? How does it compare to the newer i9's? Which are several hundred dollars more.

 

[TomSL]

Well, poo bunnies!

Your absolutely correct. That shows how long it's been since I kept up on stuff.. I was thinking all i7's were the "same".. didn't realize now they have "generations".

So.. guess I'll need to rebuild.

And looking at the i7-9700, that looks like the "sweet" spot? How does it compare to the newer i9's? Which are several hundred dollars more.

These days Intel is kind of falling behind in the CPU market.

AMD has been producing better and better CPU's and in the enterprise department, has begun to even outshine Intel.

 

[osmosis]

These days Intel is kind of falling behind in the CPU market.

AMD has been producing better and better CPU's and in the enterprise department, has begun to even outshine Intel.

EPYC is insane TomSL

 

[Simon]

Well, poo bunnies!

Your absolutely correct. That shows how long it's been since I kept up on stuff.. I was thinking all i7's were the "same".. didn't realize now they have "generations".

So.. guess I'll need to rebuild.

And looking at the i7-9700, that looks like the "sweet" spot? How does it compare to the newer i9's? Which are several hundred dollars more.

What you actually want to look at is the "chipset" - while intel has often kept the same socket around for a while, the chipset changes and sometimes they shift around what pins correspond to what on the socket. So sometimes you can get away with a generation up or down, but not this far unfortunately.

I would say the i9 is VERY overkill for many users. In fact, the new i5's are actually in a really good spot often for the majority of gamers.

As some said above, it is worth looking into AMD builds as well now. Their price point for very effective processors is really nice right now and for gamers who want to hit the latest games for a while, it will be great. The 3rd generation Ryzen processors are really, really good for it.

I've been team Intel / Nvidia for a long time, but could be swayed on the processor side for budgets right now.

 

[DragonD]

maybe I should make a new thread, about a new build..

anyways, I was reading about the i9-9900K.. it seems those are running hot, is that true?

If I went with the i7-9700K, I could probably replace the cup/mb/memory for mid 600's...

 

[Simon]

maybe I should make a new thread, about a new build..

anyways, I was reading about the i9-9900K.. it seems those are running hot, is that true?

If I went with the i7-9700K, I could probably replace the cup/mb/memory for mid 600's...

Hey, we're in the tech section so no worries

Here's a quick 9700 build option: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/6tBz29

Obviously can pick a different cooler if you'd like.

And here's a potential Ryzen build for similar pricing: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/PfMhWD

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-9700K-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-3700X/4030vs4043

^ Interestingly enough, looks like the 9700 does seem to outperform it a bit...

I can't say much about the i9's - I think they're a product that's too far out of any gamers needs and is for very different applications, and feel you'd be tossing some money to the wind going that route.