Getting the best GPU without bottleneck

Vulmaro

Distinguished
May 12, 2014
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Greetings,

Since the PC gaming industry is getting better by each year with 4k resolutions, streamings, 3Ds and VRs; I guess gamers like me with lower standards have advantage when it comes to hardware for full HD gaming.

I'm thinking about replacing my old GPU, with the most decent one I could get with no bottleneck and also, without upgrading any other components unless I have to. If there's going to be much more benefit with a small upgrade, I'll consider it.

I can't say anything about my budget though, so I'm open to all suggestions from low to high-end. Since I haven't taken a look for hardware industry for years, I can wait for new GPUs to come to have lower prices for my range if that's the case.

I only use my PC for gaming at 1080@60hz and I won't go beyond that. I always got satisfied whenever I had stable 60fps (Maybe I'll think about VR in future but I don't know so much about that yet)

My case does have internal soundproof isolation so it easily gets hot when I'm gaming and ironically makes a lot of noise because of my bad GPU stock cooler

I might go for Nvidia if it's going to be beneficial for me with better cooling and lesser noise or I may look for AMD to compare the price/performance ratio. ( I hate coil buzzing btw) I'm not gonna overclock anything after all. And I'm not a fan of any brand. I'm not into SLI/Crossfire.

Here's my system:

FX 8350 @4.0 GHZ (HYPER EVO 212 COOLER)

CORSAIR 4X4GB 1600MHZ CL9 LP RAMs

SAPPHIRE DUAL-X OC R9 280X

GIGABYTE 970A-UD3P

AOPEN NAGAS AO650-12AB5 650W 12V 80+ BRONZE 624W 52A PSU

SAMSUNG EVO 840 250GB SSD (OS INSTALLED)

SAMSUNG HD753LJ HDD

WINDOWS 10 64x 

COOLER MASTER SILENCIO 650 PURE MidT ATX 

Thank you.
 
Solution
You have a relatively well balanced cpu/gpu combination for gaming at 1080P.
It is not clear to me how much you would benefit by a stronger graphics card unless your games are fast action shooters.
You might benefit more from a cpu change.
Here is my stock approach to that:
Some games are graphics limited like fast action shooters.
Others are cpu core speed limited like strategy, sims, and mmo.
Multiplayer with many participants tend to like many threads.

You need to find out which.
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To help clarify your CPU/GPU options, run these two tests:

a) Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough...
Playing at 1080p your biggest bottleneck will not be your GPU, it will be your CPU. You don't have a great CPU, so that makes matters even worse. But upgrading your CPU will be expensive because you need a CPU/RAM/Motherboard.

Your best options for a video card would be a gtx 1060 6gb or a RX 580. But the mining craze has made those cards prices not really worth their value.

I would probably wait to buy a new card until the prices go down and strongly consider getting a new CPU/RAM/Mobo. The Ryzen 1600 is an excellent value and is a very good CPU. It will a big performance boost to your current CPU.

 
You have a relatively well balanced cpu/gpu combination for gaming at 1080P.
It is not clear to me how much you would benefit by a stronger graphics card unless your games are fast action shooters.
You might benefit more from a cpu change.
Here is my stock approach to that:
Some games are graphics limited like fast action shooters.
Others are cpu core speed limited like strategy, sims, and mmo.
Multiplayer with many participants tend to like many threads.

You need to find out which.
------------------------------------------------------------
To help clarify your CPU/GPU options, run these two tests:

a) Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

b) Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 70%.
Go to control panel/power options/change plan settings/change advanced power settings/processor power management/maximum processor state/
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.
Conversely what a 30% improvement in core speed might do.

You should also experiment with removing one or more cores/threads. You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option.
You will need to reboot for the change to take effect. Set the number of threads to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many threads.
If you see little difference, your game does not need all the threads you have.



It is possible that both tests are positive, indicating that you have a well balanced system,
and both cpu and gpu need to be upgraded to get better gaming FPS.
-------------------------------------------------------------

If you decide a graphics card upgrade should come first, then make it a three tier jump or you might be disappointed.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html
That would be to a GTX1070. Current amd cards tend to be overclocked and require more power and consequent noise.
To reduce the chance for coil whine, buy a stock card that does not need to work hard.
Also, your psu may not be the most stable, and that can contribute to coil whine.
A graphics card upgrade is simplest, and can be carried forward to a new cpu upgrade.

FX cores are slow, so a cpu upgrade may well be what you need first.
If you decide on a cpu upgrade, look to more modern kaby lake or ryzen processors.
If you heed fast single thread performance, look at kaby lake.
If you need more threads, ryzen is hard to beat.
In either case, you are also looking at a new motherboard and DDR4 ram.

If you de
 
Solution
If you are doing anything like video editing/rendering, photoshop, 3d modeling, or any other content creation then NVIDIA will likely bennefit you due to the software being able to use the CUDA cores in NVIDIA cards for better performance.

I would suggest either a NVIDIA 1060 6GB or an AMD RX 580.
Both of these cards will be slightly bottlenecked by your CPU, but still perform better than their lower versions. Then when you can upgrade your system platform you can tap into that last few percent.

Now the other thing though is that you need to replace that no-name brand PSU with something of higher quality. At this point it is just luck that it has not damaged any parts. That 80 PLUS rating is no test of quality, only of efficiency. No to mention this test is easy to pass (even more if you send them extra money) and companies can cherry pick the best PSU to send them; and then some companies just don't have it tested and flat out lie about the certification.