Graphics card for (mostly) casual gaming with an AMD Athlon X4 860k

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Edir

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I'm building a new PC based off the AMD Athlon X4 860k CPU, and I need a fitting graphics card that won't significantly bottleneck. At the moment the game I play most is KSP, but through the next 5 years, I have no clue what I'll be playing. So I want a graphics card that is suitable for my needs, and is good value for money (on a smallish budget). I'd like an AMD card over an Nvidia one.

P.S. the OS I’ll be using is Linux Ubuntu, this shouldn't affect it too much, right?
 
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geofelt

No, the reason Intel is better for gaming is because the individual cores are more effective per clock.
For example, your E2200 @2.20 has a passmark rating of 1196.
By comparison, the G3258 @3.2 has a passmark rating of 3995.
A 45% increase in clock speed results in a 345% increase in performance.
And, that is before...
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turbopixel

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If you use any sort of Linux, in example Ubuntu (like me, since 2008), then I recommend you to use binary drivers. And I recommend Nvidia, as AMD drivers are not good under Linux. For lightweight gaming, but powerful graphics card I recommend you the Gigabyte GTX 750 Ti. Its also small enough to fit in any case and keeps cool temperatures, but powerful enough to play any game on the market at 1080p. I don't know about which would bottleneck.

I highly discourage you to buy an AMD videocard for any Linux system. Even benchmarks show how slow they are or in my case, how buggy it was. I don't know why you don't like Nvidia. You must have your reason, like I have mine. But if it is just sympathy, then please rethink about that. Its for you, not for me. So I don't care. I just report what I experienced and read. So good luck.

I have switched last year 2014 from AMD to Nvidia, for the reason of bad AMD drivers (and it was time for something stronger). I had the ATI Radeon 5770 since 2008 and switched to GTX 750 Ti. But this year I went over to GTX 970...
 
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StarChief

StarChief

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Doesn't matter who makes your GPU, that CPU will not be good in anywhere near 5 years. It's already old and outdated, and that socket line is dead. If you insist on AMD over Intel, then you need to go at least an AM3+ socket and something like an FX 6300 or an FX 8xxx series chips, they can be found for fairly reasonable price these days.

If you insist on an AMD GPU on a budget then go for their new R9 line, like the r9 370/380

OS will absolutely affect your rig, especially the video card. The drivers from both Nvidia and AMD for GPUs are nowhere near as good for Linux as they are for Windows.

Hope that covers everything.
 
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turbopixel

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I am using Nvidia card with Windows 7 and with Ubuntu 14.04. The drivers for Linux are not worse than for Windows. In some games Windows drivers wins, and in others Linux drivers wins. The binary drivers are from Nvidia. The difference is negligible, besides in extreme situations. That is seen as performance wise. The Windows driver have some exclusive features like Shadow Play.

Whatever. It doesn't matter.
 
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Edir

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My current CPU is an Intel Pentium dual core E2200 (2.2Ghz). That thing can just about run the sorts of games I play, but it's not great. I can't really afford a more modern CPU than the Athlon X4 860k, I don't mind having an outdated one. I've had this PC 7 years and it's kept up with my changing demands on it.

As for why I don't like Nvidia, I get lots and lots of graphical bugs in Minecraft with my current card, the 9400GT using the Noveau driver, and selecting the propriety drivers causes X to crash on startup every single time. However, upon plugging in my friend's AMD card, everything worked as it should.
 
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turbopixel

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Ok. Noveau driver isn't good too. They are miles away from binary drivers of Nvidia. Every system is different, and an AMD card does work better for you, then just use it. Forget my recommendation then. Or, go to the Linux community and find out why X is crashing. This is the hard way and you also want replace your card too with new one.

On AMD side, I don't know much and can't say any recommendation for it. So, someone else may help you.
 
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StarChief

StarChief

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E2200 to an Athlon X4 860k is hardly an upgrade. Plus you would have to buy a new motherboard anyway.

You can find an FX 6300 for about $10 more than an Athlon X4 860k

https://pcpartpicker.com/part/amd-cpu-fd6300wmhkbox

See if you have a Microcenter store in your area, even if it is a drive away. They have killer deals on CPU+mobo bundles

http://www.microcenter.com/site/products/amd_bundles.aspx

 
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Edir

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Because it's not powerful enough for my needs; hence why I'm looking for a suitable AMD card.
 
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Edir

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The E2200 doesn't support hyper threading, so the X4 860k has twice as many logical cores, and much higher clock. And yes, I am planning on getting a new motherboard (If I were to stick with LGA 775 then the most I could get is a core 2 quad).
 
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StarChief

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X4 860k doesn't have any logical cores, it has 4 physical cores. Per core, Intel is much much better than AMD.

The 6300 however has 6 physical cores and a nice 3.5 clock.

Not sure why you're so dead set on the 860k. It's old and weak. Spend the extra $10~, it would be so worth it.
 
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geofelt

geofelt

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Since you are going to build a new pc based on the X4-860K, you might want to read this comparison:
http://www.techspot.com/review/1017-best-budget-gaming-cpu/

The nice thing about a G3258 is that the motherboard that it uses can support a future processor upgrade to i3,i5, or i7.
With the FM2+ motherboard there is NO reasonable cpu upgrade.



 
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Edir

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The FX-6300 is £20 ($31) more expensive, and I thought the whole reason Intel is better per core is hyper threading. Plus, KSP does not make good use of extra cores.
 
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Edir

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That's a reasonable point, I first considered the FX-4300 but a friend who built a PC with the Athlon X4 860k persuaded me to get that instead.
 
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geofelt

geofelt

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No, the reason Intel is better for gaming is because the individual cores are more effective per clock.
For example, your E2200 @2.20 has a passmark rating of 1196.
By comparison, the G3258 @3.2 has a passmark rating of 3995.
A 45% increase in clock speed results in a 345% increase in performance.
And, that is before overclocking which can be expected to be 4.0-4.2 conservatively.
Most games depend on the performance if the single master core.
The individual cores of the X4-860K are about 40% slower than the G3258.

On the graphics side, the G3258 integrated graphics is about the same capability as your 9400GT.
You will likely want a stronger discrete graphics card, but I would try out integrated graphics first.
You will get a better idea of what you actually need.

My guess is that you would find something like a R7-260 or GTX750 to be sufficient.

 
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Edir

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Accorging to this website:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Athlon+X4+860K+Quad+Core

the Athlon X4 860k beats both of those with a passmark rating of 5645.

Right now on Amazon, I can get that CPU for £54.79 (approx $86).
 
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geofelt

geofelt

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The passmark numbers are benchmarks using all available cores.
It is not really valid for gaming where the primary and secondary cores are most used, and the third and fourth cores are not.
Look at the gaming performance comparison:

http://www.techspot.com/review/1017-best-budget-gaming-cpu/
 
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Edir

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The motherboards with that socket seem to be more expensive, raising the total by about £20 (approx $31) which isn't much, but for what the article you linked describes as around 4FPS difference, it doesn't matter to me enough to pay the extra, so I will likely still go for the AMD Athlon X4 860k.
 
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StarChief

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Yeah but that motherboard socket has future potential, there is a huge line up of I3/I5/I7 processors that utilize that socket. meanwhile the fm2 socket is dead and no longer supported. It's simply not worth buying that Athlon in 2015. Save up or do whatever to get that extra money and get something modern, it will be much less of a headache in the long run, since you said you will be using this rig for the next 5 years.
 
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Edir

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Having done a little more research, I have changed my mind and will buy the Intel G3258 - mainly for being able to upgrade to an I3/5/7 at a later date, and I will use it's integrated graphics for a while until I can afford a graphics card
 
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