Choosing right card

[deiks]

Hey guys,

I'm planning to buy some card but don't know which one to choose.
Currently, my PC is on motherboard ASUS H81M-K, with i5 processor, 8 GB RAM and SSD.

I have few options for selection.
First is Sapphire Radeon RX 550, second is ASUS PH-GTX1050 and third option is ASUS STRIX-GTX1050. Every card of those is with memory of 2GB.

My first plan is that I want to support 3 displays in same time. Maybe I will play games, and maybe not. But if in any case I try some game that will be something like World of Tanks, maybe PES, FIFA, or something similar, and maybe GTA 5. Not sure. My main focus is web development, movies, so not needed for some renderings etc.

Prices are different. First one is about 140 USD, second is about 205 USD, and third is about 270 USD, but there's some good discount for third, so maybe I could get it for price of second, so near 200 USD. But that's not biggest problem to pay less or more. Does those cards worth that price?

My question is what's best option to choose since I'm using motherboard which is few years old, and regarding to specifications it has 1 x PCIe x16 and 2 x PCIe 2.0 x1, but newer graphics are mainly PCIe 3rd version. What to expect, can that RX550 card fit my needs, will I see difference since using older PCIe port etc., will see difference among those cards since my motherboard is older?

And another thing, I can see that there are different manufacturers of cards like ASUS, Sapphire, Gigabyte, XFX etc. Is there some specific difference between two cards which using same chipset but from different manufacturer?

Every good advice is desirable.

Best regards.

 

[zyh1987]

in terms of monitor support, just make sure your monitor can work with 1 dp 1 hdmi and 1 dvi-d.

the motherboard should work with any of the three cards. rx550 should work.

the later pci-e version offers more bandwidth at the interface and they are backward compatible, i don't think it's going to impact your daily use.

as for the different manufacturers. there is some differences, mostly on the pcb side, the vram and chip is the same. graphics cards are usually come into 2 category (reference or non reference, reference card are uses pcb designs from AMD directly, non reference or aftermarket are made with modification (better cooler, better components) from the board maker. and it could go to the other way (cheaper parts, reduced pcb layout but costs cheaper), usually products with "GAMING" in them tends to be more expensive.

 

[zyh1987]

are you sure it's strix 1050 not strix 1050 ti,

strix has a better cooler, and slightly better components. if the price gap is small, then i would say go for the strix version.

 

[inzane4all]

From someone that has a H81M-E board, getting an expensive vid card on that board is a waste. Why? Because it runs at PCIE 2.0, like you mentioned. Your gonna bottleneck the card. But, if you want to absolutely run the card on the board, you can. Will you notice a difference? Only if you play games at highest settings, you'll see some fps drops.

I had my GTX 1060 6GB on my H81M-E and it ran good. I didn't realize how much performance loss I was getting with the H81M-E until I bought a better board with PCIE 3.0.

I still have the H81M-E for my kid's pc, but it only has a GTX660. Make sure you update the BIOS firmware on the board as ASUS has actually kept releasing new BIOS versions, which do help a little with performance. Good luck!

 

[deiks]

are you sure it's strix 1050 not strix 1050 ti,

strix has a better cooler, and slightly better components. if the price gap is small, then i would say go for the strix version.

Only stands for: ASUS STRIX-GTX1050-2G-GAMING

 

[Eximo]

PCIe bandwidth doesn't really become much of a factor until you hit the big boys like the 1080Ti, Titan XP, etc.

You might lose 5% performance running a GTX1060 over PCIe 2.0 x16, let alone a GTX1050 or RX550. The performance improvement you saw was because you had a faster CPU.

If you are doing this mostly for display outputs, the RX550 is the way to go.

 

[zyh1987]

$200 is not an expensive card, price is high because mining and vram prices. Op doesn’t game as much so, he is looking for a graphic card for productivity. Which any of the three cards will do fine. Reason that you are seeing the massive performance gain are likely from faster cpu and ram.

 

[deiks]

From someone that has a H81M-E board, getting an expensive vid card on that board is a waste. Why? Because it runs at PCIE 2.0, like you mentioned. Your gonna bottleneck the card. But, if you want to absolutely run the card on the board, you can. Will you notice a difference? Only if you play games at highest settings, you'll see some fps drops.

I had my GTX 1060 6GB on my H81M-E and it ran good. I didn't realize how much performance loss I was getting with the H81M-E until I bought a better board with PCIE 3.0.

I still have the H81M-E for my kid's pc, but it only has a GTX660. Make sure you update the BIOS firmware on the board as ASUS has actually kept releasing new BIOS versions, which do help a little with performance. Good luck!

Yeah, maybe I replace motherboard later. Who knows..

 

[deiks]

$200 is not an expensive card, price is high because mining and vram prices. Op doesn’t game as much so, he is looking for a graphic card for productivity. Which any of the three cards will do fine. Reason that you are seeing the massive performance gain are likely from faster cpu and ram.

Yes, sometimes to play games. But just asking will there be huge difference?

 

[zyh1987]

1050 From pcie2 to pcie3 is not much, for cards that’s in the $400 and up maybe.

 

[smorizio]

on your build check the power supply wattage make sure your power supply can take the upgrade. if you can wait a few weeks see what the new nvidia gpu are in a few weeks. it may make the older gpu cheaper. those gpu miners are still buying a lot of gpu and forcing price up.

 

[deiks]

on your build check the power supply wattage make sure your power supply can take the upgrade. if you can wait a few weeks see what the new nvidia gpu are in a few weeks. it may make the older gpu cheaper. those gpu miners are still buying a lot of gpu and forcing price up.

It's 530W, I guess it's ok

 

[deiks]

So conclusion is that maybe I will not see some huge difference until run games on highest resolutions, and all cards could fit in my needs. And since I'm using older Motherboard, maybe I could see some difference if I upgrade my MB, but would be nice to have that part of hardware.

 

[smorizio]

any gpu you buy is going to be a better gamer then the intel ipgpu. it also will let you move the gpu to the next build. if you can wait a few weeks for the gpu keep an eye out on the prices of the 1050ti and 1060/1060ti. there was a card vendor that just sent nvidia back a lot of gpu chips. it been all over the internet. it looks like nvidia is overstocked now on some gpu cards. you may see price cuts to clear out some of the gpu.