Help me with my first GPU upgrade (380X vs 970)

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anthonycboetger

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Apr 9, 2014
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OK OK OK!!! So my first build was a little over a year ago. Since then I've been using a Radeon HD 6950 that is getting a little long in the tooth and showing its age by all the new next gen games. So I upgraded my PSU to a 650-watt EVGA power supply, knowing that would be the first step. Now here I am freezing with my hand on the trigger for which graphics card to buy. So... I'm torn between 3 different cards. I could be thrifty and get AMD's new R9 380X for around $240, or I could fork out the $300 (more or less) for the GTX 970 or R9 390 8GB. My question is this: what would a more experienced gamer/ builder suggest I do? Spend the extra cash or stay frugal? If i do spend the extra cash, which do I buy for better value, performance, and longevity? Any help is greatly appreciated and I will leave my build specs below:

CPU: AMD 760k 3.8GHz Quad core (Currently OC at 4.0 GHz)
MB: ASUS A78M-A FM2+ Micro-ATX
RAM: 8GB (4x2) G.Skill Sniper 2133
PSU: EVGA 650-watt G1 - Fully Modular 80+ Gold
GPU (current): XFX Radeon HD 6950 1GB
CPU cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 101i
Storage:
WD Green 1TB HDD
120GB Crucial SSD (boot drive)
 
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KKAW
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KKAW

KKAW

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Apr 29, 2015
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You should keep in mind that your CPU may bottleneck your new GPU.

Honestly i would get an upgrade to the R9 380X, performance is in the middle of R9 380 and GTX 970.

I would keep saving and get a CPU upgrade. Upgrading to an i5 6500 would be a huge leap.
 
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csm101

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Aug 8, 2007
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its time for you to move forward in terms of your entire platform. this means new CPU and mobo + new VGA. its also better if you can throw in a separate SSD for gaming(250gb will suffice). this means a big investment. but if done correctly you can stay there at least 2 years before jumping up. for example 3 years ago i moved up to i7 4770 with new a new mobo. i had gtx 670. this year i upgraded it to gtx 970 (witcher 3 is to blame). if you look at the power requirements it went down while the performance went up. i also have a SSD for system and another one specifically for gaming. this way there is no bottlenecks in either north bridge nor in south bridge. this is the kind of setup that you should move in. see even the new skylake have no impact on me because my cpu is more or less on par with them in terms of performance.

you needs to think ahead of the game and build accordingly so that you do not need to upgrade the system/parts every year.
 
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Ra_V_en

Ra_V_en

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Jan 17, 2014
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760k at stock speed has similar performance like my old Q8400@3.2 Ghz.
I'll just say you this... even my HD 7850 in various games was not properly utilized due to CPU performance. And it was not raw CPU performance but rather single threaded one.
Even now GTA V online, medium settings @ 1080p, despite RockStar finally made a good job and optimized this version for multhithreading, sometimes when i run that Quad at stock I have noticeable hiccups, when OC it to 3.2 it gets mostly fluent.
There are some games don't push CPU's that much like Shadow Of Mordor, but vast majority does. Despite many of them are multhithreaded, in most scenarios one of those threads is pushed to the limit and this certain thread is responsible for the performance drops, despite other are still way under limit.

The thing is... if you are not ready for platform upgrade there is hardly any GPU to be advised for upgrade. 6950 is really powerful card despite it's age, in many scenarios it will be scoring really close to HD 7850/ R7 270/ R9 370, the only noticeable differences will be the power used which for 6950 certainly is higher.

I'm not gonna say which CPU to upgrade, there is many options. From my perspective any CPU with 4 cores and single threaded performance above 2k in passmark should not be an issue with current GPU's and games. (for comparison my Q8400@OC and your 760k@stock are around 1400)

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html
 
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