Question Replacement for an R9 290X ?

NeilV

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Oct 3, 2006
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I have a faulty R9 290X, which I bought from a 2nd hand store with a 2 year warranty. I will be getting cash/vouchers for £70 GBP and my choices are;
A direct replacement if they still have any in the company:

  • RX 480 8Gb
  • RX 580 4Gb
  • GTX 980 4Gb
  • GTX 1050 Ti
  • R9 390 8Gb
  • GTX Titan 6Gb (for £8 more)
  • GTX 1060 6Gb (for £18 more)
  • RX 590 8Gb (for £30 more !!)

The last one is really out of my budget. I have an overclocked i5-3570K and 16Gb of RAM. I play @ 1080P
I am a Modded Minecraft fan although I will be playing Diablo IV when I get the card replaced. I also play Civ VI, Bio shock, Mass effect and the Batman games but haven't bought the latest games for a while. I also play the Freelancer:Crossfire mode which is quite graphically intensive compared to other games I play.

So, as these are all used cards with a warranty, I cannot say what manufacturer they will be from. I don't know if 8Gb will be of any use to me with the games I am playing, I don't know if the RX 590 would be bottlenecked by the i5-3570K. I have read that the GTX 980 has a lot of overclocking headroom but as this is a used card, the one I get may not.

I would welcome any advice that does not involve me spending more than £30 :)
Thanks in advance
 
I have a faulty R9 290X, which I bought from a 2nd hand store with a 2 year warranty. I will be getting cash/vouchers for £70 GBP and my choices are;
A direct replacement if they still have any in the company:

  • RX 480 8Gb
  • RX 580 4Gb
  • GTX 980 4Gb
  • GTX 1050 Ti
  • R9 390 8Gb
  • GTX Titan 6Gb (for £8 more)
  • GTX 1060 6Gb (for £18 more)
  • RX 590 8Gb (for £30 more !!)

The last one is really out of my budget. I have an overclocked i5-3570K and 16Gb of RAM. I play @ 1080P
I am a Modded Minecraft fan although I will be playing Diablo IV when I get the card replaced. I also play Civ VI, Bio shock, Mass effect and the Batman games but haven't bought the latest games for a while. I also play the Freelancer:Crossfire mode which is quite graphically intensive compared to other games I play.

So, as these are all used cards with a warranty, I cannot say what manufacturer they will be from. I don't know if 8Gb will be of any use to me with the games I am playing, I don't know if the RX 590 would be bottlenecked by the i5-3570K. I have read that the GTX 980 has a lot of overclocking headroom but as this is a used card, the one I get may not.

I would welcome any advice that does not involve me spending more than £30 :)
Thanks in advance
Your RX290 likely failed because you had a bad power supply. I think the minimum for that was like a 750 watt supply. And that had to be a good power supply too.

Regrettably all of these are bad choices.
AMD has relegated anything with vega/Polaris architecture as obsolete and is now on legacy support.

Anything less than 4gb is also bad choice. And Nvidia has really given up supporting the 10xx series as well.

If you only play games that are 3 or more years older, you might be okay. In that case the rx 480 8GB is just a down clocked rx580. You can overclock it a bit to rx 580 speeds in most cases.

Saving up for an Intel Arc 750 for $220 USD would more than double your frame rates of anything listed here. And it would give you modern game support.

All of these GPUs should run on a 550W PSU
 
would get the GTX1060, should be a reliable one, with low wattage
Thanks for the advice. I'm curious as to your reasoning, I know it's a mine field because each new generation surpasses the previous but looking at specification, the GTX 980 is better than the 1060 in everything apart from Pixel Rate (and TDP obviously) and pixel rate is very close. As far as TDP goes, they are both better than my broken R9 290X

Hi digitalgrifin
Thanks for taking an interest. Apart from the odd title, I don't play new games, I can't afford the price or the hardware. I'm not fussed about legacy support, or support in general, I've been a long way behind the curve for the last 18 years as I always buy 2nd hand normally by trading in something else like an old phone or old games. My R9 290X would have played Diablo IV just about before it died, I'd like medium settings but they quote "GTX 970 or AMD Radeon™ RX 470" for that. I will look in to the Arc range though.