New Graphic Card & Monitor Recommendations

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Damonott
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New Graphic Card & Monitor Recommendations

Post by Damonott »

I'm in the need of a new card and monitor but I have been out of the hardware game for awhile. Looking for recommendations, looking for ATI and Widescreen. top of my list right now...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/NewProduc ... 0621192938

https://www.amazon.com/LG-UltraWide-Gam ... de+monitor

Thoughts?

Thanks,
-D
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Fields
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Re: New Graphic Card & Monitor Recommendations

Post by Fields »

The 480 cards released at the end of last month and are cheaper & provide better power (in benchmarks) compared to the 390 series.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.p ... 80&id=3533
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.p ... 90&id=3464

The only problem is they're out of stock basically everywhere.
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Re: New Graphic Card & Monitor Recommendations

Post by matsif »

if you're stuck on getting AMD then get a 400 series if you can find one as fields suggests. even at that rate an nvidia 970 is still a better card in most benchmarks I've seen and with the 1000 series of nvidia cards being released prices are down on the 900 series, so I'd look into those as well.

if you don't care about getting your system to run things above 120 fps consistently at your chosen resolution then there's no real reason to spend extra on a 144 hz monitor. that said, if your intention is to run everything you play at better than 120 fps, then you should get a 120 or 144 hz monitor as the difference will definitely be worth it in that case. I tend to prefer samsung just because I've never had back luck with them and they are always good quality, but so long as you find something with reasonable reviews, brand isn't as important.
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Damonott
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Re: New Graphic Card & Monitor Recommendations

Post by Damonott »

Ya, I used to always be AMD but with this current build i went nvidia and I have done 3 RMAs on it... sooo. :)
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Re: New Graphic Card & Monitor Recommendations

Post by RazY70 »

Other than availability I really don't think there's a reason to go with a 390 over the 480.

If you can I think it might be a good idea to wait for non reference RX 480 cards to come out (http://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-rx-480-custom-models).
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Ash2Dust
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Re: New Graphic Card & Monitor Recommendations

Post by Ash2Dust »

Damonott wrote:Ya, I used to always be AMD but with this current build i went nvidia and I have done 3 RMAs on it... sooo. :)
Who was the manufacturer of the Nvidia?

I'm look at either a Nvidia 1070 or a 1060. Probably EVGA I've had decent luck with them.
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Re: New Graphic Card & Monitor Recommendations

Post by Ash2Dust »

Fast forward almost 6 months.
Still Eyeballin the 1070 as I thought prices would drop after 6 months... Nope.

How are people in the AMD 460 camp feeling and the people in the Nvidia 1070?
Or should I wait another 6 months?
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Re: New Graphic Card & Monitor Recommendations

Post by Róka »

Ash2Dust wrote:Fast forward almost 6 months.
Still Eyeballin the 1070 as I thought prices would drop after 6 months... Nope.

How are people in the AMD 460 camp feeling and the people in the Nvidia 1070?
Or should I wait another 6 months?
I've heard nothing but good about the 1080 - don't know anyone with a 1070.
I'm still rockin' a single 770 :lol: Was debating between getting another 770 to just SLI or getting a 1080 this holiday but I'm in the same boat as you. I think a 1080 is a good buy this holiday if your wallet is willing. Another 6 months you probably could save for whatever is possibly coming next.
I'm mainly talking out of my ass for that very last part k:twisted:
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Re: New Graphic Card & Monitor Recommendations

Post by matsif »

Ash2Dust wrote:Fast forward almost 6 months.
Still Eyeballin the 1070 as I thought prices would drop after 6 months... Nope.

How are people in the AMD 460 camp feeling and the people in the Nvidia 1070?
Or should I wait another 6 months?
the entirety of the amd 400 series cards is aimed at budget builds. in terms of benchmarks nvidia 900 series cards are still beating them in many categories. they're cheap for a reason.

there's no reason to buy amd anything unless your wallet is tight.
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Re: New Graphic Card & Monitor Recommendations

Post by RazY70 »

matsif wrote: the entirety of the amd 400 series cards is aimed at budget builds. in terms of benchmarks nvidia 900 series cards are still beating them in many categories. they're cheap for a reason.

there's no reason to buy amd anything unless your wallet is tight.
That is totally inaccurate and I have no idea why you would suggest something like that.

The AMD RX 480 is certainly not considered a budget card but a mid-range one, similarly to the GTX 1060. It's on par or better than the 970 in performance (particularly in newer games and even more so DX12 ) and much better in price. Take for example the MSI Radeon RX 480 GAMING X which is $278.89 at Amazon, compared to the $399.00 MSI GAMING GeForce GTX 970 4GB. The AMD 390 and 390X are also considered great cards but are a little harder find and are less power efficient. The GTX 1060 is a great mid-range alternative but is a little bit more expansive. I'm not sure why anyone would go for the 970 at its current price range.

There plenty of reasons to buy AMD if you're in the market for a mid-range card. If you're looking for a high-end one then I think it makes sense to go with the GTX 1070 and above. That said, the new AMD high-end cards (Vega architecture) are rumored to be just around the corner and I think (at least hope) they are going to be worth the wait. Also... Zen preview in 2 weeks.
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Re: New Graphic Card & Monitor Recommendations

Post by Fields »

Just as a note, I just updated my Radeon HD 7800 to an RX 480 8gb, and everything is glamorously smooth and lovely. :thumbup: :thumbup:

Got it for 260 on newegg, and got a discount coupon for BF1, which I never actually used lol.
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Re: New Graphic Card & Monitor Recommendations

Post by Ash2Dust »

I'm looking past the Nvidia 9xx series.
Doesnt make sense for me to get a 970 when I can get a 1070 for $399 on Newegg.

AMD has great price points, but my experience with their drivers have me very wary of them.
The 480 is a comfortable price range, just asking what people on both sides of the fence are experiencing.
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Re: New Graphic Card & Monitor Recommendations

Post by Fields »

Ash2Dust wrote:I'm looking past the Nvidia 9xx series.
Doesnt make sense for me to get a 970 when I can get a 1070 for $399 on Newegg.

AMD has great price points, but my experience with their drivers have me very wary of them.
The 480 is a comfortable price range, just asking what people on both sides of the fence are experiencing.
That's interesting; I've only had crashes and driver issues with intel processors and the only nvidia card I ever bought crashed non stop. AMD has always been buttery smooth and stable for me.
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Re: New Graphic Card & Monitor Recommendations

Post by matsif »

Fields wrote:
Ash2Dust wrote:I'm looking past the Nvidia 9xx series.
Doesnt make sense for me to get a 970 when I can get a 1070 for $399 on Newegg.

AMD has great price points, but my experience with their drivers have me very wary of them.
The 480 is a comfortable price range, just asking what people on both sides of the fence are experiencing.
That's interesting; I've only had crashes and driver issues with intel processors and the only nvidia card I ever bought crashed non stop. AMD has always been buttery smooth and stable for me.
you can find people who have issues on both sides of the board. every AMD (and previous ati) video card I've owned started having major issues after about 6 months of use for one reason or another. every nvidia card I've owned has never had an issue until it became seriously outdated. maybe the rx480 is different, but as someone who used to generally prefer AMD because the price-performance ratio was generally a bit better, I cannot say that anymore with the current setting. you get what you pay for, and overall amd just hasn't put anything out in any category that has mattered for years.

if you don't want to spend over $300, then maybe an rx480 is the right card for you. even though multiple reviews and benchmarks all put a 1060 as at least on par, if not better than, the rx480, at a similar (gtx1060) price (rx 480) point. a 1070, if you are willing to spend the extra money, blows the rx480 out of the water in every category for about $100 to $150 more.

if you have the extra cash and/or are looking to future-proof yourself for a few years, AMD doesn't even have any offerings. the strongest card they currently produce in large numbers is the rx480, which is comparable to nvidia's weaker gaming offerings in the gtx1060. it's not a contest right now. if you can afford the extra cash, a 1070 or 1080 destroys everything AMD offers right now, and will continue to do so until AMD starts making high end cards again, which they won't until their Vega architecture comes out, which we still know basically nothing about (more on that later).
RazY70 wrote:
matsif wrote: the entirety of the amd 400 series cards is aimed at budget builds. in terms of benchmarks nvidia 900 series cards are still beating them in many categories. they're cheap for a reason.

there's no reason to buy amd anything unless your wallet is tight.
That is totally inaccurate and I have no idea why you would suggest something like that.

The AMD RX 480 is certainly not considered a budget card but a mid-range one, similarly to the GTX 1060. It's on par or better than the 970 in performance (particularly in newer games and even more so DX12 ) and much better in price. Take for example the MSI Radeon RX 480 GAMING X which is $278.89 at Amazon, compared to the $399.00 MSI GAMING GeForce GTX 970 4GB. The AMD 390 and 390X are also considered great cards but are a little harder find and are less power efficient. The GTX 1060 is a great mid-range alternative but is a little bit more expansive. I'm not sure why anyone would go for the 970 at its current price range.

There plenty of reasons to buy AMD if you're in the market for a mid-range card. If you're looking for a high-end one then I think it makes sense to go with the GTX 1070 and above. That said, the new AMD high-end cards (Vega architecture) are rumored to be just around the corner and I think (at least hope) they are going to be worth the wait. Also... Zen preview in 2 weeks.
as to the gtx970 vs rx480, they really aren't that much different in actual use testing. if those were my only choices I'd probably still get the rx480 because of newer transistor tech and price point, but in real-use testing and benchmark scores they really aren't that different. I wasn't looking at price point when I made the comparison, just actual use testing and benchmarks. the rx480 in most cases I saw only beat out a gtx970 in games where AMD had a hand in the development to support their architecture, which is still the case when compared against the gtx1060. outside of that, nvidia is at a minimum equivalent to, if not beating, the rx480 on an older architecture, even if only by a small amount. numbers don't lie.

Zen is an x86 CPU architecture, not a GPU architecture, and has little bearing in the discussion at hand. unless you're in the market for a new processor, it doesn't matter in the space of this discussion.

Vega isn't to be believed until we actually see numbers, which we won't realistically see until probably Q2 of next year at the earliest. we may see preliminary AMD numbers before then, but the cards aren't going to truly hit the market and get a good round of actual use testing into them until Q2 or maybe even Q3. on top of that, AMD has overhyped all of their things as being great for years, only to always be beaten by nvidia in game testing and benchmarks. when I see the numbers I'll believe it, until then I treat it as AMD's hype engine and don't believe it because they always overhype everything they produce. remember mantle? oh yeah, no one does because it was a major flop. they marketed it as something to end directx and it didn't even work, and now basically no one remembers it even existed. when AMD offers something that has the data to back up their claims outside of their own press conferences it'll be better for everyone, but until that time AMD cannot be believed whenever they claim anything, because they are almost unilaterally proven wrong.

I want AMD to be an actual competitor again, it'll be better for all of us, but until that time the data in just about every case supports the conclusion that nvidia and intel produce the better products. it sucks that this is how things work at the moment, but if you're in the GPU market there isn't really any reason to buy AMD unless your budget is limited to below gtx1060 levels of cash.
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Re: New Graphic Card & Monitor Recommendations

Post by RazY70 »

What I said was in reference to your statement regarding the AMD product line which was simply wrong.

Yes, the 480 and the 970 are pretty close in terms of performance (when it comes to DX11). You can say the same about the 1060 compared to the 970. So the conclusion from that comparison is that if you own a 970 there really is no point in getting either a 480 or a 1060, that's all. It has no bearing to the quality of the card whatsoever. And certainly doesn't make the 970 a viable current purchase.

While it's true and unfortunate AMD doesn't have an offering in the high-end segment yet, it will hopefully have one soon. I also don't understand the point of comparing the 1070 to the 480 when they're not even playing on the same field. Sure, if you have extra cash then obviously you have more options (hey, why not 1080 or Titan X), but $100-150 isn't exactly pocket change. The card to compare the 480 against is the 1060, and between those two most would agree the 480 is the better option as illustrated in the following charts: http://techreport.com/review/30812/nvid ... eviewed/16

As for Vega, I doubt it'll get released in Q3, more like Q1 in my somewhat biased opinion. According to AMD's GPU roadmap Vega is scheduled to the start of 2017 (or at least first half).
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For me this is right around the corner. So unless something which requires a powerful GPU right away comes along (and there isn't for me at least), I'd rather wait and make a more informed decision. If nothing else, at least prices could come down a bit. Oh, and AMD didn't over-hype Polaris, the fans did. AMD delivered what it said it would - a mid-range 1080p oriented power efficient card. Not as efficient as Nvidia, but much more than its predecessors. I also think Mantle was a great idea which matured into Vulkan, but unfortunately it can't get much traction competing against DX12 (yet).

Lastly, I am fully aware what Zen is. I was just sharing the information, which I think is pretty exciting, plus I also hope we'd get more information regarding AMD GPU's then.
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