[SOLVED] What is best GPU for 1080p , that can run games on High in 2021?

Od86x

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Jan 5, 2020
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Hi guys .. i need your help..
I planing to play games only in 1080p monitors..
I have a question..what Is best GPU today you suggest that can handle modern games in 2021?
I mean now Rtx 3080 is overkill for 1080p...it's waist of money...
Beginning from GTX1080 till now.. what you suggest..?
I have z97 mother board with i7 4790k and gtx 980.. 16 gig ram.. my PC cannot run Red Dead Redemption 2 on high.. only on 1600x1200 and some settings off ..
Want to build I new PC .. my budget is under 2k..
BUT there's is question.. can I save money and buy just GTX 1080 Ti shaped instead Gtx 980 on my board ???? Will it handle games in 1080p ..in next 4-5 years ?
Or shuld I go to RTX cards ???
 
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Solution
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Want to build I new PC .. my budget is under 2k..
...
GPU's are very hard to find, and good ones at the price range you need to meet a $2K/1080p build is going to be one of those unless hitting the used market and taking a chance on a former mining re-sell. One way, though, is with a pre-built. A serious suggestion: go check out GN's video series on pre-builts. There are good and bad ones, some of the good ones can be turned into great with a little attention and a couple fans and/or CPU cooler upgrade.

He's just getting into the $2000 price range though, so you'll have to hold on for some reviews of good ones. The first in that range (an $1800 Dell/Alienware) was so terrible it's funny. Worth the watch to learn what...
Can I ask .. Why do I need CPU upgrade ? I thought that i7 4790k is still OK !? 🤔
Games are becoming more CPU intensive, which will limit the maximum frame rate you can run games at.

For example, here's a comparison of the i7-4790K and the Ryzen 5600X running 3DMark Fire Strike test. Note that even though the i7-4790K test scored better in graphics, it scored worse in the combined test (which is more realistic with respect to what games will do) because the CPU wasn't strong enough.
 

RacAtat007

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Hi guys .. i need your help..
I planing to play games only in 1080p monitors..
I have a question..what Is best GPU today you suggest that can handle modern games in 2021?
I mean now Rtx 3080 is overkill for 1080p...it's waist of money...
Beginning from GTX1080 till now.. what you suggest..?
I have z97 mother board with i7 4790k and gtx 980.. 16 gig ram.. my PC cannot run Red Dead Redemption 2 on high.. only on 1600x1200 and some settings off ..
Want to build I new PC .. my budget is under 2k..
BUT there's is question.. can I save money and buy just GTX 1080 Ti shaped instead Gtx 980 on my board ???? Will it handle games in 1080p ..in next 4-5 years ?
Or shuld I go to RTX cards ???
At the moment any GPU is hard to find. There's no way to know how demanding games will be in 5 years but if you want longevity and are only looking to upgrade the GPU I would look at a RTX 2060 or better. I ran a Gigabyte 2060 for a few years and it would handle 1080 max settings with ease but again in a few years that might not be the case. If you plan on building a whole new PC for around 2k the Ryzen 5600x with a decent budget board and a RTX 3060 is hard to beat. That's the setup I'm currently running and I game at 1440p/165hz and it handles everything I play on high settings (no RT) pretty easily. I keep hearing GPU availability is going to get better in the near future (lets hope) so you might be able to get stuff at MSRP if you hold out a little longer.
 
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Well, this is a how much do you want to spend situation.. 4790k still awesome as long as you aren't trying to go beyond 60fps. a 6600xt and some faster ram would help. I'd suggest faster ram as the first step.
The 980 as far as I know can not run the game on high.
Still not a bad card, I woulnd't upgrade it if I were you.
The market is bad, 5600xt 6600/xt 5700/xt or 3060 /ti would be fine, a 1080/ti would be great as well.

Again i am sure the 4790k could keep the fps at 60 on high with the right ram and gpu. A better gpu and ram vs a better cpu and ram is the way I would go. As getting the new cpu and mobo won't give more frames, it just won't. The 980 can't give more than the 4790k can take, even with 1600Mhz ram I had a 1070ti running with a similar xeon with 1866Mhz DDR3, but with more cores and it gave me 20% or more fps on average on at least 6 newer games.

16 GB of ddr3 2400 https://www.amazon.com/G-Skill-PC3-...1&keywords=ddr3+2400Mhz&qid=1626995170&sr=8-4 112 bucks isn't bad when you can sell what you have for more than half of that.

Well I seem to be wrong!
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxU1UPGSqNc

even with a 2070 it won't hit 60 fps on max settings, on high you would make 60fps but thats kinda end of the line. You could always move forward with your gpu though. Overclocking and faster ram would get you there if only just barely....
 
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Bazzy 505

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Jul 17, 2021
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Hi guys .. i need your help..
I planing to play games only in 1080p monitors..
I have a question..what Is best GPU today you suggest that can handle modern games in 2021?
I mean now Rtx 3080 is overkill for 1080p...it's waist of money...
Beginning from GTX1080 till now.. what you suggest..?
I have z97 mother board with i7 4790k and gtx 980.. 16 gig ram.. my PC cannot run Red Dead Redemption 2 on high.. only on 1600x1200 and some settings off ..
Want to build I new PC .. my budget is under 2k..
BUT there's is question.. can I save money and buy just GTX 1080 Ti shaped instead Gtx 980 on my board ???? Will it handle games in 1080p ..in next 4-5 years ?
Or shuld I go to RTX cards ???

My wife's machine is being a rougly the same spec, (Z97 motherboard, Xeon E3 1275 with 32GB ram) "enjoys" having to inherit all my older GPU's.
My experience, those old hashwells tend to have their sweetspot, depending on particular cpu somewhere between 1060-6GB and 1070 Ti. Where it you can get reasonably 50-60fps on just about anything from RDR to CP2077 ( without raytracing) on high details at 1080p.
Slotting anything more powerful results in single digit gains with low percentile remaining the same. Slotting 2070 super, only marginally better than 1060-6G in RDR2. and literally couldn't tell difference 2080 and and 3070 in cyberpunk.
With same cards and rocket lake 11700K the the difference between 2080 and 3070 was amost the double.

I would say if you can get anything between 1060-6G to 1080 under 300 it'll be worth it. Anything more will be waste of money.
Now one thing to consider is that by selling the mobo, ram and cpu separetelly you could get a fair bit toward buying into 11400 with a cheap B560 mobo, which will get you immesurably faster platform to start with. Until about a year ago those Hashwells and Broadwells were pretty fine for just about any game, but 2021 is really the year when they run out of breath and collapsed.
 
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My wife's machine is being a rougly the same spec, (Z97 motherboard, Xeon E3 1275 with 32GB ram) "enjoys" having to inherit all my older GPU's.
My experience, those old hashwells tend to have their sweetspot, depending on particular cpu somewhere between 1060-6GB and 1070 Ti. Where it you can get reasonably 50-60fps on just about anything from RDR to CP2077 ( without raytracing) on high details at 1080p.
Slotting anything more powerful results in single digit gains with low percentile remaining the same. Slotting 2070 super, only marginally better than 1060-6G in RDR2. and literally couldn't tell difference 2080 and and 3070 in cyberpunk.
With same cards and rocket lake 11700K the the difference between 2080 and 3070 was amost the double.

I would say if you can get anything between 1060-6G to 1080 under 300 it'll be worth it. Anything more will be waste of money.
Now one thing to consider is that by selling the mobo, ram and cpu separetelly you could get a fair bit toward buying into 11400 with a cheap B560 mobo, which will get you immesurably faster platform to start with. Until about a year ago those Hashwells and Broadwells were pretty fine for just about any game, but 2021 is really the year when they run out of breath and collapsed.
I fully agree, but also have to state the ram speed can make a big difference when gaming if you have a sizeable overclock in place on the cpu. DDR3 1600 vs 2400Mhz is a 50% faster ram speed. It makes a difference, there are a few people still using that on this forum with an older e5 v2 on a proper 2011 motherboard
 

Jacob 51

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Dec 31, 2020
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Hi guys .. i need your help..
I planing to play games only in 1080p monitors..
I have a question..what Is best GPU today you suggest that can handle modern games in 2021?
I mean now Rtx 3080 is overkill for 1080p...it's waist of money...
Beginning from GTX1080 till now.. what you suggest..?
I have z97 mother board with i7 4790k and gtx 980.. 16 gig ram.. my PC cannot run Red Dead Redemption 2 on high.. only on 1600x1200 and some settings off ..
Want to build I new PC .. my budget is under 2k..
BUT there's is question.. can I save money and buy just GTX 1080 Ti shaped instead Gtx 980 on my board ???? Will it handle games in 1080p ..in next 4-5 years ?
Or shuld I go to RTX cards ???
An RTX 2060 will do the trick. Since RDR 2 got a DLSS update, the game will run much better now.
 

Howardohyea

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May 13, 2021
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I think you you can get by with an i3 10100F, a B560 motherboard, and a RTX 2060. If possible buy the 3060.

I'm fairly sure you can overclock your RAM on the i3 10100F with a B560 motherboard so that's a very nice bonus you're getting.

Alternatively there's also the i5 11400F which can also work on a B560 motherboard. It should cost around $170 (depending on tome/location) and it's an absolute beast given the price.
 

Bazzy 505

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I fully agree, but also have to state the ram speed can make a big difference when gaming if you have a sizeable overclock in place on the cpu. DDR3 1600 vs 2400Mhz is a 50% faster ram speed. It makes a difference, there are a few people still using that on this forum with an older e5 v2 on a proper 2011 motherboard

that is true but, gains on lga1150 based haswells are very modest. On 2011 v3 platform the performance gain is much more significant due to slightly different memory controller with 4 memory channels instead of two and much larger L3 cache.

2011 v3 platform is still quite viable to own, but unfortunatelly not particularly enticing to buy into second hand, not only due to cost but, also availability of decent motherboards in acceptable condition second hand. But than again that's pretty much true for any server legacy platform.
 
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Bazzy 505

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USA , budget is around 1500-1700$
And I will reuse my PC case , CPU cooler , Storage SSD, Optical drive ...
I need: CPU, Motherboard, Ram Memory, PSU, and GPU!

GIGABYTE Vision GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 8GB GDDR6X PCI Express 4.0 x16 ATX Video Card GV-N307TVISION OC-8GD
ASUS PRIME Z590M-PLUS LGA 1200 Intel Z590 SATA 6Gb/s Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i5-11600KF Rocket Lake 6-Core 3.9 GHz LGA 1200 125W BX8070811600KF Desktop Processor
HyperX Fury RGB HX436C17FB3AK2/16 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 3600Mhz Non ECC Memory RAM DIMM
CORSAIR RMx Series RM850x CP-9020180-NA 850W ATX12V / EPS12V 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Power Supply

Yoou should be able to get all this about 1700 mark.
With patience to look for just the right deal, you can shave off at least another 50.
You can save a bit by going to 750w PSU at least 30 bucks
If you don't care for disco rgb, you can save as much of 20-40 bucks by not going to RGB DDR4 modules, even with budget Kingston you'll get same SK-Hynix chips for much less, sans the shiny flashing strip of leds. I actually find it quite funny that there's so much fuss about which brand modules are the best, quite franky all those chips are made in same 4 factories regardless of brand, just need to follow the specs, and ignore those silly menancing looking heatspreaders the design of which is often looks over function.
 
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A Gamer

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I played with i7 4790k and GTX 1070 for long time, they don't bottleneck each other.

If you want better GPU it might bottleneck the CPU and you won't get the full performance depending on the titles.
 
USA , budget is around 1500-1700$
And I will reuse my PC case , CPU cooler , Storage SSD, Optical drive ...
I need: CPU, Motherboard, Ram Memory, PSU, and GPU!
Something like this for next 4-5 yrs......

INTEL

PCPartPicker Part List

Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
CPU | Intel Core i7-11700K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor | $399.99 @ B&H
CPU Cooler | Noctua NH-D15 CHROMAX.BLACK 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler | $109.95 @ Amazon
Motherboard | Gigabyte Z590 AORUS ELITE AX ATX LGA1200 Motherboard | $219.99 @ Amazon
Memory | Crucial Ballistix RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory | $76.50 @ Newegg
Video Card | EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB XC GAMING Video Card | $799.99 @ Monoprice
Power Supply | SeaSonic FOCUS 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply | $109.92 @ Amazon
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | $1716.34
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-07-23 11:34 EDT-0400 |


AMD

PCPartPicker Part List

Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3.8 GHz 8-Core Processor | $394.99 @ Newegg
CPU Cooler | Noctua NH-D15 CHROMAX.BLACK 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler | $109.95 @ Amazon
Motherboard | Asus TUF GAMING X570-PRO (WI-FI) ATX AM4 Motherboard | $215.24 @ Amazon
Memory | Crucial Ballistix RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory | $76.50 @ Newegg
Video Card | EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB XC GAMING Video Card | $799.99 @ Monoprice
Power Supply | SeaSonic FOCUS 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply | $109.92 @ Amazon
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | $1706.59
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-07-23 11:36 EDT-0400 |

The Z590 and X570 chipsets have better VRMs and more PCIe lanes if you want to attach more add ins.
The card is in stock at the time of posting.
 
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revodo

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Jun 10, 2021
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Well, this is a how much do you want to spend situation.. 4790k still awesome as long as you aren't trying to go beyond 60fps. a 6600xt and some faster ram would help. I'd suggest faster ram as the first step.
The 980 as far as I know can not run the game on high.
Still not a bad card, I woulnd't upgrade it if I were you.
The market is bad, 5600xt 6600/xt 5700/xt or 3060 /ti would be fine, a 1080/ti would be great as well.

Again i am sure the 4790k could keep the fps at 60 on high with the right ram and gpu. A better gpu and ram vs a better cpu and ram is the way I would go. As getting the new cpu and mobo won't give more frames, it just won't. The 980 can't give more than the 4790k can take, even with 1600Mhz ram I had a 1070ti running with a similar xeon with 1866Mhz DDR3, but with more cores and it gave me 20% or more fps on average on at least 6 newer games.

16 GB of ddr3 2400 https://www.amazon.com/G-Skill-PC3-...1&keywords=ddr3+2400Mhz&qid=1626995170&sr=8-4 112 bucks isn't bad when you can sell what you have for more than half of that.

Well I seem to be wrong!
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxU1UPGSqNc

even with a 2070 it won't hit 60 fps on max settings, on high you would make 60fps but thats kinda end of the line. You could always move forward with your gpu though. Overclocking and faster ram would get you there if only just barely....

There's only a few settings that causes RDD2 / RDO to lag on a 2070, mainly reflections and water detail. I have everything else cranked up to ultra and it runs buttery smooth except for the occasion FPS drops that happen regardless of settings. Now with DLSS, it's even faster.
 

Od86x

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Jan 5, 2020
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Something like this for next 4-5 yrs......

INTEL

PCPartPicker Part List

Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
CPU | Intel Core i7-11700K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor | $399.99 @ B&H
CPU Cooler | Noctua NH-D15 CHROMAX.BLACK 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler | $109.95 @ Amazon
Motherboard | Gigabyte Z590 AORUS ELITE AX ATX LGA1200 Motherboard | $219.99 @ Amazon
Memory | Crucial Ballistix RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory | $76.50 @ Newegg
Video Card | EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB XC GAMING Video Card | $799.99 @ Monoprice
Power Supply | SeaSonic FOCUS 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply | $109.92 @ Amazon
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | $1716.34
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-07-23 11:34 EDT-0400 |


AMD

PCPartPicker Part List

Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3.8 GHz 8-Core Processor | $394.99 @ Newegg
CPU Cooler | Noctua NH-D15 CHROMAX.BLACK 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler | $109.95 @ Amazon
Motherboard | Asus TUF GAMING X570-PRO (WI-FI) ATX AM4 Motherboard | $215.24 @ Amazon
Memory | Crucial Ballistix RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory | $76.50 @ Newegg
Video Card | EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB XC GAMING Video Card | $799.99 @ Monoprice
Power Supply | SeaSonic FOCUS 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply | $109.92 @ Amazon
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | $1706.59
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-07-23 11:36 EDT-0400 |

The Z590 and X570 chipsets have better VRMs and more PCIe lanes if you want to attach more add ins.
The card is in stock at the time of posting.
Thank you very much .. yeah .. would be cheaper for me .. I have to sell my Gtx 980 , motherboard and cpu.. maybe will make some..
I gonna reuse Cpu Cooler , ssd storage ..optical drive.. and still wonder if I can use my PSU that being sit on shelf for 7 years ..sealed box never opened since I bought in 2014 ..or buy new one 🤔..