Upgrade GPU or CPU?

[Janny1993UK]

CPU: I5-3570K
GPU: AMD 7870xt
Monitor: Benq xl2420t

Won't upgrade monitor as I recently got it and slowly seeing fps drops but I guess thats because of resolution as I used to play on 1280x768. I was thinking of upgrading GPU. If so what ones can you guys recommend. Also Nvidia or AMD? And price of about £200

 

[Grimwinder]

I'd personally upgrade the GPU if I had to choose. That CPU is still a very solid chip, especially OC'd. AS for which GPU, that depends on your budget.

 

[Janny1993UK]

I'd personally upgrade the GPU if I had to choose. That CPU is still a very solid chip, especially OC'd. AS for which GPU, that depends on your budget.

Okay. Well budget might be around £200 or something. But not sure. Just want to know what would be good to buy?

Also changed the above post.

 

[Wayfall]

I know you said your budget was £200 but I just have to recommend the GTX 970
http://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-GTX-970-Graphics-Express/dp/B00NOP536Y/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1446742477&sr=1-3&keywords=nvidia+gtx+770

The power for the price is awesome, I own one and I love it with my i5 4460.

 

[Grimwinder]

At that price point I'd suggest either the 4gb GTX 960 or the R9 380. With the 380 make certain you have a strong enough PSU though, the newer AMD cards are almost all power piggies.

Edit: Also, if you are playing a lot of older games that still use DX9 you may want to just stick with what you have as it will do better on older games.

 

[madmatt30]

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ocuk-geforce-gtx-780-tri-fan-edition-3072mb-gddr5-pci-express-graphics-card-m-ngtx780v-5rchddp-gx-217-ok.html


Best option for £200 by miles.

 

[Epsilon_0EVP]

I know you said your budget was £200 but I just have to recommend the GTX 970
http://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-GTX-970-Graphics-Express/dp/B00NOP536Y/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1446742477&sr=1-3&keywords=nvidia+gtx+770

The power for the price is awesome, I own one and I love it with my i5 4460.

If you're going to recommend the 970 for value, you might as well recommend the 390 instead. Similar price or cheaper, and it generally has similar or better performance, plus much more VRAM. Just need to check the PSU is not absolute garbage, and it should work fine.

 

[madmatt30]

970 is cheaper in the UK than the 390 at the minute.
To be fair I'm assuming his PSU is good enough , the 7870xt was one of the hottest , most demanding power wise cards produced - it draws more than a 380 does.

 

[Wayfall]

Epsilon_0EVP what sort of PSU would you rate as trash? As I have Corsair CX 500w and I have been using it for over a year and its dandy. In about half a year I will get a gold rated 550w PSU.

 

[Epsilon_0EVP]

Epsilon_0EVP what sort of PSU would you rate as trash? As I have Corsair CX 500w and I have been using it for over a year and its dandy. In about half a year I will get a gold rated 550w PSU.

That's probably good enough for any mid-range card. The CX series isn't the best, but it should handle itself, specially if you're not trying to run dual cards on it or anything crazy. The 380 is probably your best option if you want to buy new, while a 970 seems to be better if you're willing to spend a bit more according to what others tell me of UK pricing. That £200 780 looks pretty interesting, though, but I'd like to check why exactly it is so cheap before I buy.

 

[madmatt30]

Cheap because its superseded by the maxwell cards - that's all really.

Make no bones about it though , the over clockers branded cards are real top tier quality cards with money back coil whine guarantee.

 

[Epsilon_0EVP]

Cheap because its superseded by the maxwell cards - that's all really.

Make no bones about it though , the over clockers branded cards are real top tier quality cards with money back coil whine guarantee.

That's a pretty sweet deal, then. Too bad it's in the UK; I'd maybe get some myself otherwise 😛

 

[madmatt30]

The MSI 780 was only £170 a couple of weeks back too - that was a real bargain

 

[Janny1993UK]

Thanks guys so I guess it's between AMD 380 390? or NVIDIA 780 960 970? Hard choices. What would you guys rate from best to worst out of the 5 GPUs and maybe rate the pricing? I will probably buy one near Christmas or maybe January as prices may go down more.

 

[Epsilon_0EVP]

It really depends on what you want to do, how much you want to spend, and what the local pricing is like. Since you say about 200 pounds, the 380, 960, and 780 are your only options (unless you do want to stretch your budget). Of those, the 780 is definitely the most powerful, followed by the 380 and the 960 trading blows, with the 380 usually slightly stronger.

You do lose out on some fancy features for newer Nvidia cards if you go with the 780, but I don't personally find any of them compelling enough to get a weaker card. It seems like the best option for your money.

 

[Wayfall]

Amd cards I have found have been rather power hungry but not all of them, you should be able to go into the catalyst control panel of an AMD GPU and change its power settings so it doesn't eat up freely. I have only just found out that in my NVidia control panel of the MSI GTX 970 I own that I can make be more careful with power which is the power saving mode then I can put it to max performance setting, I've seen improvements in gameplay. Pc power is on maximum performance in power settings.

Depends what games your going to play. If its games like tf2, hearthstone, CSGO, skyrim and such get the 780, if you want next gen such as mad max, fallout 4 , witcher 3 (even current gen cards struggle with this game) get a GTX 900 series card or one of the equivalent AMD series cards.

 

[Epsilon_0EVP]

Amd cards I have found have been rather power hungry but not all of them, you should be able to go into the catalyst control panel of an AMD GPU and change its power settings so it doesn't eat up freely. I have only just found out that in my NVidia control panel of the MSI GTX 970 I own that I can make be more careful with power which is the power saving mode then I can put it to max performance setting, I've seen improvements in gameplay. Pc power is on maximum performance in power settings.

Depends what games your going to play. If its games like tf2, hearthstone, CSGO, skyrim and such get the 780, if you want next gen such as mad max, fallout 4 , witcher 3 (even current gen cards struggle with this game) get a GTX 900 series card or one of the equivalent AMD series cards.

Power consumption is rarely worth considering for most users. The components are designed to handle the power consumption, so durability isn't an issue, and in most places the cost difference of running the high-power card amounts to only a few dollars per year, and that's only with heavy use. Hardly worth considering as a purchasing factor when thermals or airflow won't be constrained. It's much better to look for better performance per dollar.