Question Old system requires replacement GPU

[NeilV]

HI All,
I have a really old system comprising of;
ASUS P8Z68- V Pro
I5-3570K
16 Gb DDR3 RAM
XFX HD 7870XT
Intel 285Gb SSD Boot (Win 7)
Crucial 180Gb SSD Games
Seagate 1Tb HDD storage
WD Black 250Gb HDD backup
1080P 16:9 Monitor running 1920x1080

I've been playing modded minecraft exclusively for the last year or so but recently bought Diablo IIR which exhibiting some very odd behaviour. I wanted to revisit freelancer re-installed it then added the HD upgrade and finally the Crossfire 2.0 expansion and my graphics card just can't cope but it works for a while.

I'm trying to add screen shots but having problems

I think I need to replace the GPU, I cannot afford to replace everything else I would need to replace in order to go newer (e.g. MOBO, processor, RAM)

So I need some advice, I was thinking of buying an R9 285 OC (£40) or something similar, 2nd hand from CEX as they offer a 2 year warranty. I don't see much point in spending lots of money on a GPU which is too powerful for the system. Am I better off buying an HD 7990 with 6GB of RAM or an R9 380X for a new architecture and 4Gb of RAM but this does stretch my budget (£70). If a nvidia card is a better alternative please advise as I'm not as familiar with those any more.

I did have a considerable over clock on the 3570K but I've dialled it down as it got a bit hot in the summer. I'm not afraid to buy something which has overclocking headroom rather than a factory OC'd card

Thanks in advance
NeilV

 

[Eximo]

i7-3770k are around £30, that might be worth it.

AMD RX570 8GB are £70, the very similar RX480 should also be well under £50.

That would put you well ahead of the class of cards you are looking at.

People are still asking quite a lot for GTX1060 6GB.

But you could always just low-ball some bids and see what happens.

 

[NeilV]

i7-3770k are around £30, that might be worth it.

AMD RX570 8GB are £70, the very similar RX480 should also be well under £50.

That would put you well ahead of the class of cards you are looking at.

People are still asking quite a lot for GTX1060 6GB.

But you could always just low-ball some bids and see what happens.

I might be able to get the RX570 on ebay for £70 but the cheapest on CEX (which I think comes with a 2 year warranty) is £92 and the cheapest RX480 is £82. What would those 2 offer over and above a bit more graphical speed? New Direct X version? Different outputs? I guess HDMI will be standard on any of those, I need to output sound through it!

 

[Eximo]

Greater power efficiency, something like 25-50% faster raw performance depending on what you get, and much newer architecture. Though the only standout is a higher version of Vulkan support with the 400 series and up.

7990 is a power hungry dual GPU crossfire card, that won't go so well, since crossfire support isn't exactly that good. (375W), R9-285/R9-380 (190W), RX470 ( 120W), RX480/RX570 (150W)

You can also look at the RX470 or RX560, but that 8GB of video memory will probably help you out in the long run.

HDMI is going to be available on all of the RX cards, can't think of a reason why it wouldn't be there. Along with Display Port.

 

[NeilV]

Greater power efficiency, something like 25-50% faster raw performance depending on what you get, and much newer architecture. Though the only standout is a higher version of Vulkan support with the 400 series and up.

Sounds good to me

7990 is a power hungry dual GPU crossfire card, that won't go so well, since crossfire support isn't exactly that good. (375W), R9-285/R9-380 (190W), RX470 ( 120W), RX480/RX570 (150W)

You can also look at the RX470 or RX560, but that 8GB of video memory will probably help you out in the long run.

One question, i notice that the RX570 I looked at appeared to be PCIe 4.0 and my MOBO only supports 3.0. having said that I believe it was an eBay listing so they may have got it wrong

 

[Eximo]

Doesn't matter. PCIe 3.0 x16 is plenty for any recent GPU, even the new RTX4090. I run my own PCIe 4.0 capable GPU on PCIe 3.0.