upgrading from HD 6850 - best card?

[vaatur]

I'd built my computer (i5-3450, Asus HD 6850 1GB) about five years ago and am looking into replacing some components to update it. I'm not looking to spend much more than 400 CAD$ (before taxes). I mainly play RTS games but some (like Planet Coaster) need a much better card than I have. I'm not looking to manually overclock the card.

I can pick up a Sapphire RX 580 for $400 with some of the other companies having slightly cheaper ones. The non-refreshed versions of the GTX 1060 are on sale right now; eVGA's GTX 1060 FTW is $355. I'm guessing the refreshed version would probably be around $420 but it doesn't seem that much better. The RX580's power consumption (I have a 620w power supply -- I'm just not a fan of the watt to performance ratio) and the GTX 1060's lower price for pretty much the same performance are my main reasons for leaning towards the 1060.

I could also pick up a GTX 1050 TI for around $200 and save some money to upgrade a bit in a couple of years.

I'd appreciate any advice you have to offer!

 

[Chugalug_]

I assume you have a Seasonic S12II or M12II, nice pickup.
Get the 1060 FTW, EVGA are a fantastic company with top notch service, and you can step up to a 1070 FTW if you want within 90 days of buying.
The ICX coolers are a waste of money for the lower end cards, I believe that range is only for the 1070s and 1080s.

 

[WildCard999]

Price to performance and considering your current parts I think the RX 570 4gb would be a good match and a good upgrade over your current card.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: MSI Radeon RX 570 4GB ARMOR OC Video Card ($239.99 @ Memory Express)
Total: $239.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-04-30 19:41 EDT-0400

 

[dontlistentome]

You have a decent CPU, so you can get good use out of all those cards. It's just this, you have been living with this 6850 all this time. I have to believe you don't NEED that much videocard power to be happy or you'd have replaced the 6850 long ago. So if this is true, an RX 470/570 whichever is less expensive, would be all you need.

You could certainly use a 580 or 1060 but would you really benefit from the extra performance? I doubt it. So you'd be paying more for no real reason.

 

[Chugalug_]

Easily, the 6850 falls far behind in terms of performance nowadays. 😛

 

[vaatur]

I assume you have a Seasonic S12II or M12II, nice pickup.
Get the 1060 FTW, EVGA are a fantastic company with top notch service, and you can step up to a 1070 FTW if you want within 90 days of buying.
The ICX coolers are a waste of money for the lower end cards, I believe that range is only for the 1070s and 1080s.

I don't think I'd upgrade to the 1070 -- probably overkill for what I'd be playing. 😛

But yeah, the cooler and slight memory speed improvement just don't seem that worth it to me for the money I can save now if I'm going for the 1060.

 

[Chugalug_]

List all the stuff you're playing, you'd be surprised, after you max stuff out the 1060 hits about 60-65fps in most titles.
The 1070 is a nice little bit of horsepower to have for in the future when games inevitably get more demanding.

 

[vaatur]

You have a decent CPU, so you can get good use out of all those cards. It's just this, you have been living with this 6850 all this time. I have to believe you don't NEED that much videocard power to be happy or you'd have replaced the 6850 long ago. So if this is true, an RX 470/570 whichever is less expensive, would be all you need.

You could certainly use a 580 or 1060 but would you really benefit from the extra performance? I doubt it. So you'd be paying more for no real reason.

I definitely don't need to upgrade right away, but I'm starting to find games that I can't play/play well, which is what's driving me to upgrade. The 470 and 570 are pretty close in price but it is much easier to find the 570 in stores. Do you think the 4G or 8Gb would be better?

I don't think that I'd normally be using the extra performance of the rx 580/gtx 1060, and I can live with some games not playing on as high settings, but I was thinking that if I put a bit more money in now I wouldn't have to upgrade for longer.

 

[vaatur]

List all the stuff you're playing, you'd be surprised, after you max stuff out the 1060 hits about 60-65fps in most titles.
The 1070 is a nice little bit of horsepower to have for in the future when games inevitably get more demanding.

It's more the games that I can't really play right now which I'm looking to upgrade for like Planet Coaster, Obduction, Rust, Outlast 2, and Fallout 4. And the 1070 is around $550, which is a lot more than I'd want to spend.

 

[Chugalug_]

I'm saying that you can get the 1060 6GB SC or FTW and then pay the difference to get the 1070 within 90 days if you so desire.
I think in those titles you'd definitely benefit from the extra speed, but that's up to you.

 

[dontlistentome]

I definitely don't need to upgrade right away, but I'm starting to find games that I can't play/play well, which is what's driving me to upgrade. The 470 and 570 are pretty close in price but it is much easier to find the 570 in stores. Do you think the 4G or 8Gb would be better?

I don't think that I'd normally be using the extra performance of the rx 580/gtx 1060, and I can live with some games not playing on as high settings, but I was thinking that if I put a bit more money in now I wouldn't have to upgrade for longer.

Memory is a big part of what determines which settings you can use. So for example, all other things being equal, a 4gb card would start losing framerate at high settings that an 8gb would be able to maintain framerate at. So with the 4gb card you'd need to reduce settings to equal the 8gb framerate.

Performance is a separate thing. You could have a card with less memory give you better framerate than a card with more memory. Slow videocards with lots of memory like this are sold all the time, like 2gb GT 730s.

So if this is meant as a long term investment, and you don't mind sacrificing on the settings a bit when necessary, a faster card is preferable to a card with more memory. A 4gb 580 would be better than an 8gb 470. The 470 will start feeling slow long before that 8gb shows its future value, while the 580 will still be providing the framerate as long you keep settings low enough to fit in 4gb of vram.

 

[Chugalug_]

VRAM isn't a massive thing with the RX 480, 4GB is heaps.

 

[vaatur]

Memory is a big part of what determines which settings you can use. So for example, all other things being equal, a 4gb card would start losing framerate at high settings that an 8gb would be able to maintain framerate at. So with the 4gb card you'd need to reduce settings to equal the 8gb framerate.

Performance is a separate thing. You could have a card with less memory give you better framerate than a card with more memory. Slow videocards with lots of memory like this are sold all the time, like 2gb GT 730s.

So if this is meant as a long term investment, and you don't mind sacrificing on the settings a bit when necessary, a faster card is preferable to a card with more memory. A 4gb 580 would be better than an 8gb 470. The 470 will start feeling slow long before that 8gb shows its future value, while the 580 will still be providing the framerate as long you keep settings low enough to fit in 4gb of vram.

Thanks for the detailed answer! I checked out a couple of stores quickly and the 580 4GB and 580 8GB are only $20/$30 apart, so if I decide to go for it I'd probably stick with the 8GB. Which is around the same price as the 1060 6GBs.

I'll probably either go with the 570 4GB or whichever of the 580 8GB/1060 6GB seems more recommended. The 570 is about $100 cheaper and it should meet my needs for a while but the others are still in my budget range and if they're more futureproof then I'd be comfortable with them too.