Upgrading from an AMD Radeon HD 5800 series to a ASUS GTX 960

watlulz

Commendable
May 23, 2016
9
0
1,510
Hi all,

I have an old-ish machine which has an AMD Radeon HD 5800 series card in it. I mostly play CS:GO, TF2 and similar games for which it is more than capable of handling @ 1920x1080. However, in more recent games, such as Tomb Raider, I get a fairly mediocre frame rate, poor textures and weird artifacts all over the place. Total War: Warhammer is out tomorrow, and while the 5800 does meet the minimum specs I get the feeling I'm going to want to upgrade.

Budget: 200 GBP
Primary usage: Gaming, usually at 1920x1080 resolution.
Main board: MSI X58 Pro-E (MSI-7522)
Power supply: 800W with 780 @ 12V (This is what's written on it anyway. The model number is SL-8850 EPS, if that is any more insightful. It seems to be a generic PSU used in IBP builds a few years back.)
RAM: 12GB DDR3 @ 1333 Mhz

I am currently considering the following:

ASUS STRIX-GTX 960-DC2OC-2GD5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 2 GB (168.59 GBP from Amazon).

It seems like it should handle the sorts of usage scenarios I've mentioned above, while also being compatible with my current setup. I have two questions/concerns:

1) The setup I currently have is fairly old. Is there a potential incompatibility between the existing HW and the 960 which I haven't considered?

2) I will likely build a new mid-to-high end gaming rig in the next 12 months. I considered purchasing something more powerful than the 2GB GTX 960, e.g. a 4GB 970, with the idea of reusing it in the new setup. This seems like it may be somewhat silly though given that I'm guessing for things like Tomb Raider/TW @ 1920x1080/'medium' settings the difference would not be significant, and in 12 months time the 970 wouldn't make sense in a mid-to-high end gaming setup. Ignoring the fact that the 970 is outside the stated budget of 200 GBP, is there any argument to be made for going with something other than the card I've mentioned, for my current requirements?

Cheers


 
Solution
If anything, wait until may 27th. There might be a price drop of the 970 and 980 due to the newer cards coming out. Aside from that I would suggest jumping on a 970 over 960, the 960's are a little too underpowered

Matt_86

Reputable
May 22, 2016
23
0
4,540
If anything, wait until may 27th. There might be a price drop of the 970 and 980 due to the newer cards coming out. Aside from that I would suggest jumping on a 970 over 960, the 960's are a little too underpowered
 
Solution

watlulz

Commendable
May 23, 2016
9
0
1,510
Hi Matt,

Thanks for the info on the upcoming release/potential price change. Regarding the 970, if there is a price drop it would definitely be something I'd consider. My only fear is some potential incompatibility between it and my existing hardware (which as I mentioned is several years old). Is there anything I could be forgetting to check here? In terms of my PSU, and having physical space within the case, I should be OK. My PCIe slot is PCIe 2 rather than 3, but this is seemingly not a problem. If there's something else I should be checking I'd appreciate the heads up =)