Upgrade, would it be wort it?

[apprentajs]

Greetings.

Due to some technical issues, I need to start thinking about new graphics card. First I was thinking that some GTX 980 would fit my system alright, but it seems that they are not selling them anymore. I've found for example GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Windforce OC 4G, for a ok price.
Would that be worth it for my system ?

My currect specs are -
Asus P9X79
Intel i7 3820 (3.60GHz)
Geforce GTX 690 4GB
2x8GB HyperX Predator 2400MHz DDR3
TX850W PSU
Using Windows 7 64-bit.

If I forgot anything, let me know.
If you can recommend different graphics card, do so.
Also if you think that some cards might be bottlenecked by my other specs, I understand, but I need card that's at least the same or better performance as the one I already have.

Thank you.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Well, the GTX 1050 Ti is a pretty good card, but it is nowhere near the performance of a GTX 980. It would be a sizable downgrade from a GTX 690 as well.

You should really be looking closer to the GTX 1060 6 GB. That would be a good upgrade for you from the 690 and a good modern card going forward. Your Red Team alternatives are the RX 570 and RX 580, which are not quite as good as the 1060 on performance, but offer 8 GB VRAM versions that will keep the card more relevant for longer. If you can scrape up the funds a GTX 1070, 1070 Ti, or 1080 would be outstanding for your system, but those are getting into the "pricey" category, so if I were you the 1060/RX 580 would be what I'd be looking at.

 

[SgtScream]

To add on to Justin:
If you're gaming at 1080p, going anything higher than a gtx 1060 will result in the card not being fully utilized. The gtx 1070 at 1080p will give you better longevity, but in my experiences the card just isn't fully utilized at 1080p resolution.
If you have a 1440p monitor, definitely invest in a gtx 1080 at the very least.

 

[King_V]

Using the hierarchy chart as a reference, and given that your starting point is a 690.

A 1050Ti is definitely a downgrade
A 980 performs roughly the same as the 690
Even a 1060 would be something of an equivalent (6GB version, I suspect going with the 3GB version, you'd probably take a slight performance hit)

Any of those, however, would consume less electricity than the 690 (which is rated at a 300W TDP).

That said, I agree with SgtScream, it's really about what your monitor resolution and refresh rate are, or if there's an intended upgrade to your monitor coming soon.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Using the hierarchy chart as a reference, and given that your starting point is a 690.

A 1050Ti is definitely a downgrade
A 980 performs roughly the same as the 690
Even a 1060 would be something of an equivalent (6GB version, I suspect going with the 3GB version, you'd probably take a slight performance hit)

Any of those, however, would consume less electricity than the 690 (which is rated at a 300W TDP).

That said, I agree with SgtScream, it's really about what your monitor resolution and refresh rate are, or if there's an intended upgrade to your monitor coming soon.

The chart is kind of... really off in some cases. I don't see how the 690 is comparable with the 1060 6 GB or even the 980. Both the 980 and 1060 are over 50% faster than the 690. All of this is assuming that SLI is disabled because most games just don't support it. Single GPU solutions are the way to go because you have all the power, all the time. Normally I pay no heed to SLI configurations because they exist almost exclusively for benchmarkers nowadays. "Look how much power I have" and then they have like... 7 games out of 100 in their Steam library that can even use it.

 

[King_V]

Using the hierarchy chart as a reference, and given that your starting point is a 690.

A 1050Ti is definitely a downgrade
A 980 performs roughly the same as the 690
Even a 1060 would be something of an equivalent (6GB version, I suspect going with the 3GB version, you'd probably take a slight performance hit)

Any of those, however, would consume less electricity than the 690 (which is rated at a 300W TDP).

That said, I agree with SgtScream, it's really about what your monitor resolution and refresh rate are, or if there's an intended upgrade to your monitor coming soon.

The chart is kind of... really off in some cases. I don't see how the 690 is comparable with the 1060 6 GB or even the 980. Both the 980 and 1060 are over 50% faster than the 690. All of this is assuming that SLI is disabled because most games just don't support it. Single GPU solutions are the way to go because you have all the power, all the time. Normally I pay no heed to SLI configurations because they exist almost exclusively for benchmarkers nowadays. "Look how much power I have" and then they have like... 7 games out of 100 in their Steam library that can even use it.

I wondered a little about that, too, but when I saw the power requirements on the 690, I figured they likely went with the "clock higher, faster fans, more electricity" method of increased performance. Wasn't sure if that was enough, but I sort of assumed that maybe the 300W vs the 980's 165W was the reason it could keep up.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Using the hierarchy chart as a reference, and given that your starting point is a 690.

A 1050Ti is definitely a downgrade
A 980 performs roughly the same as the 690
Even a 1060 would be something of an equivalent (6GB version, I suspect going with the 3GB version, you'd probably take a slight performance hit)

Any of those, however, would consume less electricity than the 690 (which is rated at a 300W TDP).

That said, I agree with SgtScream, it's really about what your monitor resolution and refresh rate are, or if there's an intended upgrade to your monitor coming soon.

The chart is kind of... really off in some cases. I don't see how the 690 is comparable with the 1060 6 GB or even the 980. Both the 980 and 1060 are over 50% faster than the 690. All of this is assuming that SLI is disabled because most games just don't support it. Single GPU solutions are the way to go because you have all the power, all the time. Normally I pay no heed to SLI configurations because they exist almost exclusively for benchmarkers nowadays. "Look how much power I have" and then they have like... 7 games out of 100 in their Steam library that can even use it.

I wondered a little about that, too, but when I saw the power requirements on the 690, I figured they likely went with the "clock higher, faster fans, more electricity" method of increased performance. Wasn't sure if that was enough, but I sort of assumed that maybe the 300W vs the 980's 165W was the reason it could keep up.

Nah, the 690 was an SLI rig on a card. I'm pretty sure it was two 680's glued together. It was a novel idea, but impractical because it still relied on SLI to get all the performance. So, it is going to run like a single 680 in most games.

 

[Eximo]

Correct. In SLI optimized titles the GTX690 is still actually a decent card which is why it gets its ranking, but many games don't support that. (Though most of Tom's testing suite is SLI capable) GTX1060 6GB is about 95% the performance of a GTX980.

It really depends on what you want to spend. GTX1060 6GB are currently overpriced, but they are a decent middle ground of performance per dollar.

GTX1070 is a good entry level choice for 2560x1440, but I agree it would run 1080p for many years to come as new game titles are released. It will probably start slipping below 60FPS at 1440p in a year or two.

Then the GTX1070Ti is an island of cost/performance since it is so close to a GTX1080, though if you can get a reasonably priced GTX1080 then it is aslo good. 2560x1440 @ 60hz+ is then an option.

All that depends on the game you want to play. If it is mostly older titles at 1080p, then a GTX1050Ti can certainly do that.

 

[cryoburner]

Yeah, the fact that the GTX 690 runs two GPUs on a single card makes it a little difficult to compare directly with another single card option. And since it's operating in an SLI configuration, its 4GB of VRAM is actually split between the two GPUs, effectively providing games access to only 2GB of VRAM, which won't be great for things like high screen resolutions and ultra-high quality textures. There are still a lot of games that can benefit from SLI, and it can still compete with today's upper mid-range cards in those cases, but there are also some games that won't utilize the second GPU, in which cases you may be looking at levels of performance more comparable to an underclocked 680, not much faster than a 1050 Ti, or perhaps more closely a 960, given the 2GB of usable VRAM. So, while a GTX 690 can still be considered a decent card, it does have some notable limitations.

Overall, a 1050 Ti would be a clear downgrade though. Aside from the extra accessible VRAM, which will help in many recent games, it will likely be a bit slower in games that lack SLI support, and a lot slower in games that do support it. A GTX 1060 6GB or RX 580 would likely offer more comparable levels of performance to a 690, and should work better in cases were more VRAM is needed, or in games that lack support for SLI. For notably better performance, you would probably need to move up to something like a GTX 1070 or higher.

Unfortunately, there was a shortage that caused graphics card prices to spike in recent months, and while they have been getting better, cards are still priced significantly higher than they were a year ago. It's also worth noting that Nvidia will likely be launching a new generation of graphics cards within the next few months or so, and the current generation of cards is nearly two years old at this point, so if your 690 is still functional, it might be worth holding on to it for a little while longer.

 

[King_V]

I wondered a little about that, too, but when I saw the power requirements on the 690, I figured they likely went with the "clock higher, faster fans, more electricity" method of increased performance. Wasn't sure if that was enough, but I sort of assumed that maybe the 300W vs the 980's 165W was the reason it could keep up.

Nah, the 690 was an SLI rig on a card. I'm pretty sure it was two 680's glued together. It was a novel idea, but impractical because it still relied on SLI to get all the performance. So, it is going to run like a single 680 in most games.

Oooh, ok, I get it now. I wasn't aware of that about the 690. Well, maybe back then, I'd come across it and had since forgotten. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[apprentajs]

Thank you all for replying.

justin.m.beauvais
Okay, didn't realize 1050's are that weaker. From what you said about Red team alternatives (thats a good nickname btw) I would prefer 1060 more, because if red team offers longer relevancy thats not what I need, because sometime in future I would go for completly new PC, and probably go overkill as well. So since I need this as a replacement more than upgrading, from what you said, 1060 sounds better.

SgtScream
Im using 1080p 60Hz, so yet, im not really aiming for something bigger then that. Maybe some day in the future though. So that seems like another vote for 1060.

King_V
I would say that 980 is better in some aspects then 690. Mainly because of new games, for example Ubisoft, tends to not support SLI's, so from 4GB their and many other newer games they are able to use only 2GB and you can see a big hit in performance there, even with lower settings. But with games that have better optimalization, for example GTAV, a friend with 980 runs the game pretty much the same as I do. So I would say that I dont know really wich one is better theoreticaly but practicaly, especialy with new games, 980 should run much better, as it is used to its full potencial.

And to both of your arguments, I can confirm that games that dont support SLI are very difficult to run with 690. Another example could be new NFS Payback, where I barely was able to get 60fps on almost everything set to low. And it was even crashing. But for my suprise, even though AC:Origins didnt support SLI, it ran well, on important settings set to high, and effects set to medium or so, it ran 60-80 FPS, but city's were a problem, but that I was able to try even on 1070 8GB with i7 6700K, and in cities it ran badly even with setting everything to low. So I guess people really need to start optimalizing their games better, or start supporting SLI again otherwise this card is dead.

Eximo
Yea, I agree. For 1080p 60Hz, 1060 should be worthy replacement for 690. For me, going with 1070 would be little too much, since I plan to upgrade monitor later with completely new pc, wich I kinda want to go overkill with. But thats someday in the future, maybe new cards will come.

Cryoburner
I believe that in some games and some cases, even 1050 would perform better then 690. Another example would be AC:unity, wich was completly unplayable, and 1050 might be able to run it well. But then again, there are games that dont support SLI but still are decently optimized. If Im not mistaken, Far Cry4 didnt support SLI as well, but it ran soo good. Even with everything set to near max, it was happily above 60FPS. And Obviously FC4 if has MUCH better graphics than AC:Unity. And really, is the new generation coming so soon? I'm looking forward to see that. Though I dont see the point in new generations, I feel like current generation is still way ahead of todays gaming needs, and still will be for a while. I mean, how many games actually use 8GB of VRAM? And then again, we can have even 11GB. So yea. And my card is still functional.. kinda, I mean, I had to run a stability test for few hours, and I passed, but there are games that have been crashing on me, and game supports dont know how to fix it, neither does internet, and neither do I. Even though, it gotten little better after some diging into it. Maybe still salvageable.

Once again, thank you everyone for commenting. Didn't expect this big responce, I'm supprised. This actually seems like best pc forum I've ever seen.

 

[Eximo]

AC:Unity is a poorly optimized game as I recall. FarCry runs on a derivative of CryEngine, which does support SLI in a lot of cases. They've recently switched to DX12 and multi-GPU, so technically the 690 should do fairly well on newer CryEngine titles (that doesn't mean individual games support it though)

I believe Nvidia did keep their promise, so some DX12 features are supported all the way back to the high end 500 series cards. Though with Windows 7 you can't take advantage of that. There are more and more games that are becoming Windows 10 only due to DX12, so you might consider an upgrade. DX12 whole goal was a closer to hardware programming layer, so it really helps out in terms of efficiency.

There should be some GPU releases this year. Nvidia will usually drop an 80 series card first, so quite high end. Expect more news in a month during Computex. You can expect $600-700 MSRP or more, likely. AMD has promised GTX1080 levels of performance with their next mid-range product ~$300 supposedly in August. Recent AMD releases have been a mess with little to no availability to even the video card manufacturers. Expect more of the same.

 

[apprentajs]

Yea, Unity was very poorly optimized, but not only low framerates were a problem, for me it was mostly huge stutter, wich at the time Ubisoft support just told me that they do not support SLI's and didn't care anymore. So that game was a waste of money, but I was suprised with Origins optimalizations. And you are probably right, Far Cry might have supported it, because of cryengine, wish more games did. Yea, newest thing I played on cryengine was Kingdom Come Deliverance, and even though I had to lower some settings (its pretty demanding game after all) it ran decent, but not sure if it supports SLI's as well.
Yea I'm considering Windows 10 already, even though I dont trust it much (from technical, design and personal pov) but I will need it sooner or later.
Oh ok, I'll definitly keep my eye on that Computex. And AMD, I dont have much experience with it, dont know much about it either, but I've seen that they didn't do such a great job on proccesors, but they might have saved it with the newest ryzens no? Performance wise at least, not sure about other qualities.

 

[Eximo]

AMD's Ryzen architecture is once again the true value leader. Cheaper motherboards and more cores/dollar make for some appealing potential builds.

Intel is firing back with 8-core consumer grade processors here shortly. I imagine they will have a price premium of Ryzen 8 cores. But Intel still has a decisive per-core performance advantage. I suspect this gap will close with AMD's next iteration on Ryzen, but by then Intel should have their next process node working.

The Radeon group has been dealing with this crypto currency thing, given their lower market share and lower production they've been struggling to keep cards in stock. Nvidia has similar problems, but nowhere near as severe. Hopefully all this turns around in the next few months as GPU mining dies down again in favor of ASICs.

 

[maxalge]

AMD's Ryzen architecture is once again the true value leader. Cheaper motherboards and more cores/dollar make for some appealing potential builds.

Intel is firing back with 8-core consumer grade processors here shortly. I imagine they will have a price premium of Ryzen 8 cores. But Intel still has a decisive per-core performance advantage. I suspect this gap will close with AMD's next iteration on Ryzen, but by then Intel should have their next process node working.

The Radeon group has been dealing with this crypto currency thing, given their lower market share and lower production they've been struggling to keep cards in stock. Nvidia has similar problems, but nowhere near as severe. Hopefully all this turns around in the next few months as GPU mining dies down again in favor of ASICs.

nothing amd has can match an i5 8400 plus a b360 mobo in terms of price/performance

 

[cryoburner]

nothing amd has can match an i5 8400 plus a b360 mobo in terms of price/performance

For today's games, maybe. Provided one is using a high-end graphics card with a high refresh rate display at 1080p so as to avoid being GPU-limited, and are not live-streaming or doing any other CPU-intensive multitasking in the background, the i5-8400 might allow for around 5% higher frame rates than a Ryzen 2600 on average. The 8400's lack of Hyperthreading/SMT gives the Ryzen 2600 the performance lead in most scenarios making heavy use of more than six threads though. Looking to the future, I expect we'll see more games utilizing more threads in the years to come, now that AMD's processors are once again competitive and Intel has finally started increasing their core counts as well. It's difficult to say exactly how much of an impact that might have a few years down the line. Both CPUs arguably have their merits, even if the 2600 might currently cost a bit more.

 

[SgtScream]

nothing amd has can match an i5 8400 plus a b360 mobo in terms of price/performance

For today's games, maybe. Provided one is using a high-end graphics card with a high refresh rate display at 1080p so as to avoid being GPU-limited, and are not live-streaming or doing any other CPU-intensive multitasking in the background, the i5-8400 might allow for around 5% higher frame rates than a Ryzen 2600 on average. The 8400's lack of Hyperthreading/SMT gives the Ryzen 2600 the performance lead in most scenarios making heavy use of more than six threads though. Looking to the future, I expect we'll see more games utilizing more threads in the years to come, now that AMD's processors are once again competitive and Intel has finally started increasing their core counts as well. It's difficult to say exactly how much of an impact that might have a few years down the line. Both CPUs arguably have their merits, even if the 2600 might currently cost a bit more.

I agree. Ryzen's 2600x has 36% more multicore performance over Intel's 8400. This will give you a smoother, stable, sustained FPS as future titles are released regarding multithreaded optimizations. Choosing Intel's 8400 only to get a 7% increase in single core performance won't yield performance gains that can be physically seen. Other than that, both CPU's really are a good choice, and choosing Intel over AMD isn't a bad idea. However it's truly amazing how close Ryzen's 2nd gen chips came to intel, regarding single core performance.

 

[maxalge]

Choosing Intel's 8400 only to get a 7% increase in single core performance won't yield performance gains that can be physically seen.

wrong, the difference is big enough to be measurable

10 - 20 fps better on average


the 2600 is only 10% better than a 1600 and may allow you to reach ~4,3ghz on a golden chip

in terms of IPC ryzen barely beats devil's canyon

 

[apprentajs]

I'm sorry to interupt the CPU conversation here, but I got some additional info about the GPU's.
I was able to swap the cards for the test, so I replaced my 690 with 1070 8GB, and tried it on 3 games. First was GTAV, where there was just a slight difference since it ran really well on my card as well, performance wise both of them are able to run it easily above 60FPS, difference was that I was able to have slightly higher settings with 1070 thanks to more VRAM.
Second was Friday the 13th game, where there was almost no difference. No matter the settings, it ran with the same FPS, with same settings, and that game doesn't run that good. Maybe it's more CPU heavy ? I dont know, unfortunately I wasn't able to have MSI Afterburner at the moment to see the details.
Third was Batman Arkham Knight, where difference was huge. I remember with vanilla version 690 wasn't able to run it at all, with huge stutter and low FPS, no matter what. I mean it was a technical disaster when it came out. Some other version I was able to try at later date was on 690 playable, where there was some sttutering from time to time, and FPS jumping arround 45-60 FPS, and no PhysX turned on ofcourse. Now the 1070 on same version performed much better, with no stutter, with PhysX turned on, and FPS on average was 60-70, with few times where it droped below 60, but still looked decently smooth even while droping.
So I guess that confirmes that 1060 6GB should be very good replacement, and definitly upgrade in games without SLI support. 1070 felt like a little to much power unused. And since I'm looking for temporary replacement until I'll build completly new PC, 1060 should be way to go.
Now do any of you have some manufacturer to recommend? I heard the EVGA's littelest, cheaperest models tend to overheat. But i dont want to spend much more money then I already have to.
Thank you everyone!

 

[Karadjgne]

Ryzen 1st gen IPC was slightly better than DC. With fast ram and OC it could reach just over skylake levels. Ryzen 2nd Gen is a solid 10% better IPC than 1st gen, and with fast ram and OC puts it just about, if not ahead of CoffeeLake locked cpu IPC. It takes OC on an intel to beat OC on a Pinnacle Ridge.

 

[maxalge]

Ryzen 1st gen IPC was slightly better than DC. With fast ram and OC it could reach just over skylake levels. Ryzen 2nd Gen is a solid 10% better IPC than 1st gen, and with fast ram and OC puts it just about, if not ahead of CoffeeLake locked cpu IPC. It takes OC on an intel to beat OC on a Pinnacle Ridge.

at 4,4ghz a 4690k reaches ~172 single core

the 2700x at 4.3ghz reaches 179 on that chart



the 8700k reaches ~230 single core

 

[SgtScream]

Choosing Intel's 8400 only to get a 7% increase in single core performance won't yield performance gains that can be physically seen.

wrong, the difference is big enough to be measurable

10 - 20 fps better on average


the 2600 is only 10% better than a 1600 and may allow you to reach ~4,3ghz on a golden chip

in terms of IPC ryzen barely beats devil's canyon

I can't take this post seriously because you didn't specify what resolutions and the game you got your results from. Plus FPS isn't only determined by single core performance.

 

[maxalge]

Choosing Intel's 8400 only to get a 7% increase in single core performance won't yield performance gains that can be physically seen.

wrong, the difference is big enough to be measurable

10 - 20 fps better on average


the 2600 is only 10% better than a 1600 and may allow you to reach ~4,3ghz on a golden chip

in terms of IPC ryzen barely beats devil's canyon

I can't take this post seriously because you didn't specify what resolutions and the game you got your results from.

well known. I am surprised you did not know this

do you understand what on average means?

 

[cryoburner]

I'm sorry to interupt the CPU conversation here, but I got some additional info about the GPU's.

It was interesting to hear back about your results, even if this thread has devolved into mostly unrelated rants about CPUs at this point. : P

I can't take this post seriously because you didn't specify what resolutions and the game you got your results from.

well known. I am surprised you did not know this
do you understand what on average means?

The resolution and capabilities of the graphics card are obviously relevant details. At 1440p or higher, all these CPUs will perform extremely close to one another in most games, even when paired with a high-end card like a 1080 Ti. See these benchmarks at TechPowerUp, for example...
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Ryzen_5_2600/14.html

On average, they showed a less than 3fps difference at 1440p between an i5-8400 and a Ryzen 2600, when paired with a 1080 Ti. With a less powerful card, those differences would be even smaller.

Even at 1080p, where a 1080 Ti is clearly overpowered, they only showed a less than 8fps difference on average for their test suite, and that's at frame rates well in excess of 100fps in most titles, where differences in frame rates should be much less noticeable, and that's assuming one even has a high refresh rate screen to display them...
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Ryzen_5_2600/13.html

Again, with a less overpowered graphics card for that resolution, you would be looking at much smaller differences. And in future titles making use of more cores, or with tasks running in the background, the Ryzen processor may have an advantage due to its additional threads. They already show it taking the lead in a few of the games they tested.

 

[maxalge]

The resolution and capabilities of the graphics card are obviously relevant details. At 1440p or higher, all these CPUs will perform extremely close to one another in most games, even when paired with a high-end card like a 1080 Ti. See these benchmarks at TechPowerUp, for example...
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Ryzen_5_2600/14.html

On average, they showed a less than 3fps difference at 1440p between an i5-8400 and a Ryzen 2600, when paired with a 1080 Ti. With a less powerful card, those differences would be even smaller.

Even at 1080p, where a 1080 Ti is clearly overpowered, they only showed a less than 8fps difference on average for their test suite, and that's at frame rates well in excess of 100fps in most titles, where differences in frame rates should be much less noticeable, and that's assuming one even has a high refresh rate screen to display them...
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Ryzen_5_2600/13.html

Again, with a less overpowered graphics card for that resolution, you would be looking at much smaller differences. And in future titles making use of more cores, or with tasks running in the background, the Ryzen processor may have an advantage due to its additional threads. They already show it taking the lead in a few of the games they tested.

when comparing CPU's the capabilities of the gpu are irrelevant


pumping up the resolution and pairing it with a too weak gpu for that resolution is absolutely a underhanded and disingenuous move

WHEN YOU ARE TRYING TO COMPARE CPU'S

Once gpu power catches up the difference is all too obvious once more, all you did was hide the ugly under the rug momentarily



XD