[SOLVED] How do graphics cards hold up over the years?

[carrottopmil]

Specifically the Radeon r7 360? I am trying to build my first PC but money is really tight right now, so a friend offered me his old card- an ASUS Radeon r7 360- and I just want to know if it would even be worth it. It would be running with a Ryzen 5 2600 and an ASUS B450M-PLUS Gaming

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

It's not the worst, but decent enough for some light 1080p gaming I would wager.

Especially if it's free, I would just try it out.
But for the latest AAA titles, don't expect to be turning up the graphics at all.

 

[Metal Messiah.]

It depends on what you plan to do with your PC. On what screen RES are you going to play Games, 1080p ? You have a good CPU, but the R7 360 is not a very powerful card. It's an entry level card.

Don't expect mind blowing performance though. I think the GT 1030 also falls under the same GPU hierarchy list as the R7 360.

 

[gn842a]

Specifically the Radeon r7 360? I am trying to build my first PC but money is really tight right now, so a friend offered me his old card- an ASUS Radeon r7 360- and I just want to know if it would even be worth it. It would be running with a Ryzen 5 2600 and an ASUS B450M-PLUS Gaming

That's one of those questions that has no answer. An older card will definitely weigh down your gaming. I have an R9-380 running on my Asus X470 and Ryzen 5 2600X and it is the weak link in the build. Yours is part of the same series as mine: Yours is "Midrange, on the bottom," mine is "midrange, next from the top of midrange." About four years old. Not so bad.

Mine is also a very reliable piece of hardware, and fancier cards have been a headache to get running. I'm still trying to find one that will do.

Generally speaking the poorly made units fail in the first three, maybe 6 months. And often in the first few weeks. The ones that make it through that period are likely to last for a number of years. Then as you get to five or six years you start getting old age fatalities.

Your friend's card is a good option "to get things going" but not a good option to optimize to the level of your cpu. This will be evident if you run some benchmarks. If you're feeling the pinch it's an OK thing to do but you are scrimping on one of the major performance components.

 

[carrottopmil]

It's not the worst, but decent enough for some light 1080p gaming I would wager.

Especially if it's free, I would just try it out.
But for the latest AAA titles, don't expect to be turning up the graphics at all.

I don't mind having to turn the graphics down a bit if it means I can get the games to run better, especially on games like PUBG and 7 Days to Die. I just want to make sure it will run modern games at all

 

[carrottopmil]

That's one of those questions that has no answer. An older card will definitely weigh down your gaming. I have an R9-380 running on my Asus X470 and Ryzen 5 2600X and it is the weak link in the build. Yours is part of the same series as mine: Yours is "Midrange, on the bottom," mine is "midrange, next from the top of midrange." About four years old. Not so bad.

Mine is also a very reliable piece of hardware, and fancier cards have been a headache to get running. I'm still trying to find one that will do.

Generally speaking the poorly made units fail in the first three, maybe 6 months. And often in the first few weeks. The ones that make it through that period are likely to last for a number of years. Then as you get to five or six years you start getting old age fatalities.

Your friend's card is a good option "to get things going" but not a good option to optimize to the level of your cpu. This will be evident if you run some benchmarks. If you're feeling the pinch it's an OK thing to do but you are scrimping on one of the major performance components.

I want to get an RTX 2060 at some point, I just don't have the money at the moment. Do you think this would be a good thing to start off with and then just upgrade as soon as I'm able to?

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

Well that GPU isn't gonna cut it for PUBG. It falls quite a bit below the minimum requirements for the game.

Honestly, it's such an old card and a budget one at that by this point it won't be worth it for most anything recent.

I would suggest a modern budget offering like an RX 570 or even an RX 470 even for more budget offering.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

you can get an RX 570 for about $150 new these days.

Or you can scour the local used market online with places like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace (and OfferUp if in the US) to find something good for a cheaper price.

 

[gn842a]

I think he has the chance to get the R7 for free, unless I'm misreading. Hard to beat the price. $150 is not an issue for me but I'm not everyone, so I think we need to keep the focus on whether OP can have fun for a month or two or three till he has the coin to get a better card. My kid has been gaming all summer on an R9-200 and he says it's better than the gaming laptop he got a couple years ago for $1500. He's an Overwatch fanatic. Mostly be bellyaches because I don't put a 1080/1920 monitor up there, which I haven't done because whatever is up there is good nuff considering he's not here nine months a year and I basically use that PC to figure out what to do when my regular PC is down.

Bottom line: no harm in sticking the free one in and checking it out. If the horror of using it makes him want to do overtime at work well then he'll know his limits.

Greg N