Need help making a choice for a new Graphics Card

[snowdawn]

Good day everyone,

I want to ask our community about upgrading to a new GPU. I've built my PC 3 years ago and I feel that I need to upgrade my current graphics card. I currently have the EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti with the AMD FX 6300 CPU (not overclock). I want to buy the new SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 470 100407-4GOCL 4GB 256-Bit or any brand of AMD RX 470 (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202230&ignorebbr=1&_ga=1.17457791.776998094.1475290196). I just want to know if the RX 470 is compatible to my motherboard and is it gonna work well with my current set-up. I'm not really a very tech savvy in PC building and I also want a good performance gaming system without spending a lot of money My main usage of my PC is gaming and everyday usage.

The games that I play and will play are: Dota 2, Starcraft 2, Civilization 6, Civilization 5, some RPG games.

Thank you in advance. I apologize if I make any grammar mistakes. English is not my first language.

Here's a complete list of my PC specs:

OS: Windows 10 PC Home 64-bit

Monitor: LG Flatron E2251 / 1080p

Motherboard: ASUS M5A97 R2.0 AM3+ AMD 970 + SB 950 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti DirectX 12 (feature level 11_0) 01G-P4-3650-KR 1GB 128-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video

PSU: Rosewill CAPSTONE-550-M 550W Continuous @ 50°C, Intel Haswell Ready, 80 PLUS Gold, ATX12V v2.31 & EPS12V v2.92, SLI/CrossFire

CPU: AMD FX-6300 Vishera 6-Core 3.5 GHz (4.1 GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory

Hard Disk: WD Blue 1TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120 mm PWM Fan

Case:Rosewill Computer Case - CHALLENGER - ATX Mid Tower

 

[James Mason]

Yes, a 470 is fine for your system, it's appropriate strength wise so nothing should hold it back to much.

the rest of your computer is gonna need to be changed for your next upgrade after the 470 though, as it's on it's last legs for usefulness.

 

[snowdawn]

That is really good to hear. I find that the RX 470 price wise is good. If I go for RX 480 would it bottleneck? I think I saw on newegg.ca a RX 480 that's only a few dollars extra to RX 470. Thank you so much for your reply.

Yes, a 470 is fine for your system, it's appropriate strength wise so nothing should hold it back to much.

the rest of your computer is gonna need to be changed for your next upgrade after the 470 though, as it's on it's last legs for usefulness.

 

[James Mason]

An rx-480 would probably be held back by your CPU, you'd want at least a fx-8300 if you went with a 480, but that's still fairly limiting on the 480, so like a I said, anything higher than a 470 would be better off in an entirely new build.

 

[snowdawn]

I actually end up purchasing the Sapphire RX 470 and I'm waiting for it to be ship hopefully tomorrow.

I do have one more question, since I currently have my EVGA GTX 650 Ti installed when my RX 470 arrives do I need to uninstall my Nvidia GeForce Drivers first and then remove the GTX 650 Ti and put my new RX 470? I'm just really not sure and I never actually switch GPU cards ever. Sorry for asking another question but I just wanna be sure.

Thank you again James. I really appreciate your help.

 

[amtseung]

I nearly flipped when I read the initial post and thought we were discussing the GTX470 here.

Don't overclock your CPU on that motherboard (I've lit one on fire).

When you get the RX470, put it where the GTX650ti was, or wherever on the motherboard corresponds with the longest slot, closest to the CPU. You can download the AMD drivers now, or after you install the new card. The order doesn't really matter. I'd recommend changing the physical graphics card first, and then downloading Guru DDU to fully wipe all previous graphics drivers, and then downloading/installing the latest AMD GPU drivers. Or you can do all the downloading first, so all you have to do is install the things later.

 

[snowdawn]

Hey amtseung. Oh sorry to hear that. I don't really have any plans on Overclocking my AMD FX 6300 even though I have a customer CPU Cooler. The RX 470 it should have a CD on it that contains AMD Drivers but ok I will follow your recommendation to change GPU first. Is Guru DDU really safe? Can I just you Windows 10 Control Panel to uninstall the Nvidia Drivers?
Thank you amtseung for your reply.

I nearly flipped when I read the initial post and thought we were discussing the GTX470 here.

Don't overclock your CPU on that motherboard (I've lit one on fire).

When you get the RX470, put it where the GTX650ti was, or wherever on the motherboard corresponds with the longest slot, closest to the CPU. You can download the AMD drivers now, or after you install the new card. The order doesn't really matter. I'd recommend changing the physical graphics card first, and then downloading Guru DDU to fully wipe all previous graphics drivers, and then downloading/installing the latest AMD GPU drivers. Or you can do all the downloading first, so all you have to do is install the things later.

 

[amtseung]

When you uninstall something through Windows, it'll generally only deal with whatever's currently in use, not the whole deal. DDU is very thorough, and will wipe all of it. The hope here is to create a completely clean slate to eliminate the chance of driver conflict/error/corruption.

There's also no point in using the CD for drivers. Go to the AMD website for the latest drivers, and work from there. The CD ones are always outdated, and they'll just prompt you to update it afterwards anyway.

 

[James Mason]

Before installing your new GPU, do the following:

If you have graphics or driver issues, one of the most common fixes is a clean uninstall and removal of your graphics drivers.

To uninstall your drivers, first download and run Display Driver Uninstaller, and follow it's recommendations of booting into safe mode and ect.
(This is a direct download link so you don't grab the wrong version)
http://www.guru3d.com/files-get/display-driver-uninstaller-download,20.html

You'll download a compressed file called "[Guru3D.com]-DDU.zip"
Right click and choose extract.
Go into the folder and run the DDU v##.##.exe
This will extract more files to this folder.
Run Display Driver Uninstaller.exe
Choose Yes when it asks you to boot into SafeMode.
After you've rebooted into safe mode.
When DDU comes up, if it hasn't selected your GPU manufacturer (Nvidia/AMD/Intel) then choose it from the drop down list
Press the Clean and Restart option You'll actually want the Clean and Shutdown Option because you're installing a new GPU
If a window comes up asking to disable the Windows automatic installation of display drivers click yes.

After (or before removing the old drivers, just put the new ones on the desktop or somewhere handy) rebooting back into Windows, manually download the latest drivers from Nvidia or AMD, don't use auto detect, choose you GPU model and OS from the drop down lists.
Nvidia: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
AMD: http://support.amd.com/en-us/download

 

[snowdawn]

I actually only uninstalled all nvidia geforce drivers. I have the current AMD Drivers from the AMD site. So far my games work well. Do I still need to run DDU to be sure?
Thank you again James you have been very helpful

Before installing your new GPU, do the following:

If you have graphics or driver issues, one of the most common fixes is a clean uninstall and removal of your graphics drivers.

To uninstall your drivers, first download and run Display Driver Uninstaller, and follow it's recommendations of booting into safe mode and ect.
(This is a direct download link so you don't grab the wrong version)
http://www.guru3d.com/files-get/display-driver-uninstaller-download,20.html

You'll download a compressed file called "[Guru3D.com]-DDU.zip"
Right click and choose extract.
Go into the folder and run the DDU v##.##.exe
This will extract more files to this folder.
Run Display Driver Uninstaller.exe
Choose Yes when it asks you to boot into SafeMode.
After you've rebooted into safe mode.
When DDU comes up, if it hasn't selected your GPU manufacturer (Nvidia/AMD/Intel) then choose it from the drop down list
Press the Clean and Restart option You'll actually want the Clean and Shutdown Option because you're installing a new GPU
If a window comes up asking to disable the Windows automatic installation of display drivers click yes.

After (or before removing the old drivers, just put the new ones on the desktop or somewhere handy) rebooting back into Windows, manually download the latest drivers from Nvidia or AMD, don't use auto detect, choose you GPU model and OS from the drop down lists.
Nvidia: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
AMD: http://support.amd.com/en-us/download

 

[snowdawn]

I downloaded the latest AMD Driver and then installed it once my GPU was installed.
Yah I did not end up using the CD since it is outdated I checked the version number.
I will do more testing on my other games and see if it affects or causes them to crash.
Thank you amtseung for all the help.

When you uninstall something through Windows, it'll generally only deal with whatever's currently in use, not the whole deal. DDU is very thorough, and will wipe all of it. The hope here is to create a completely clean slate to eliminate the chance of driver conflict/error/corruption.

There's also no point in using the CD for drivers. Go to the AMD website for the latest drivers, and work from there. The CD ones are always outdated, and they'll just prompt you to update it afterwards anyway.