Graphics Card upgrade

[Tesla]

You can get it on prime, go via the 26 new from link, its £159.98. Its out of stock at amazon though.

 

Gah it's back in stock. Do I buy or do I wait???

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Gah it's back in stock. Do I buy or do I wait???

 

It's only a day isn't it? I would wait till tomorrow and see what happens

[Tesla]

Aye but I'm worried they're price matching scan/whoever it was and that it'll go up in price again. I forgot to bring my Amazon gift card in with me anyway

[LeMarchand]

Aye but I'm worried they're price matching scan/whoever it was and that it'll go up in price again. I forgot to bring my Amazon gift card in with me anyway

 

According to camelcamelcamel it's been that price (or lower) since September:

 

[Tesla]

Ahh, beautiful, I was wondering if there was a site like that (i dont actually do much buying online generally, no have never really wondered). Don't understand why people wouldn't buy this 4GB one then...

[Patrick]

My current rig:

 

i5 2500k

8GB RAM

SSD + HDD

radeon 5770

 

My PSU is only at 400w so not really sure what to do for a new card. The rig is aging but as far as i'm concerned the CPU isn't a bottleneck. Has anyone used the GTX 750ti cards? Low power consumption and decent performance. I haven't played anything in months but might start again soon.

[GuyJD]

Cards that have additional memory bolted on very rarely fully utilize the extra memory, I remember having a similar quandary many years ago when looking at buying a GTX 460 there was the standard 1Gb version and then there were 2Gb 3rd party versions, I looked at reviews and the 2Gb cards performed better but not by much. I think it was put down to the OEM driver being written for the 1Gb card.

 

I don't know if things have changed since but I'd do some digging and maybe find some comparison bench tests to see if the extra memory is worth it.

[ataylor]

I picked mine up in a black friday sale, was marked down to £195. Bit above your budget, but worth it IMO.

 

What re-seller?

 

Looking to get my hands on a second one for SLI

[featured_spectre]

Amazon

[localzuk]

Some games need the memory to be able to use the more advanced features. GTA V demonstrates this quite well when you're tweaking the graphics settings and it tells you how much memory it will use.

[ataylor]

Its a pain as i'm after a Palit 4GB version to match my current one,

 

£350 on amazon

Palit Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 Jetstream 4GB GDDR5 Graphics Card (PCI Express 3.0, HDMI, Display Port, DVI-I, DVI-D, 256 Bit, Kepler GPU Architecture, 3D Vision Surround): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

 

Or I can get a seccond hand one for £200

Palit nvidia GTX770 PCI-e 4GB GDDR5 Memory / DVI / 1 GPU | eBay

[JoHimself]

My current rig:

 

i5 2500k

8GB RAM

SSD + HDD

radeon 5770

 

My PSU is only at 400w so not really sure what to do for a new card. The rig is aging but as far as i'm concerned the CPU isn't a bottleneck. Has anyone used the GTX 750ti cards? Low power consumption and decent performance. I haven't played anything in months but might start again soon.

 

I have an i7 2600K, the CPU is definitely not the bottleneck, really good CPUs.

 

If I were you I'd get a nice 500/600W 80+ PSU and a GTX 960/970

[Patrick]

Yeah i'm looking at the benchmarks for my i5 2500k vs some of the modern i5's, and to say my CPU around 4 years old, it really holds it's own against the newer chips. So much so that i don't think i'd even notice a difference.

[Tesla]

Yeah i'm looking at the benchmarks for my i5 2500k vs some of the modern i5's, and to say my CPU around 4 years old, it really holds it's own against the newer chips. So much so that i don't think i'd even notice a difference.

 

my 1090t Phenom is starting to show it's age, but still has plenty of oomph.

[JoHimself]

I don't think I'd notice either, even though I play DayZ (the ArmA engine is very CPU intensive). Sandybridge chips were really good.

[ataylor]

I recently got my hands on a new board for free :-

 

Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 5 Skylake LED ATX Motherboard - GA-Z170X-Gaming5-EU - Scan.co.uk

Of which supports Skylake

 

So I'm very tempted to upgrade my current rig from :-

 

DDR3 16GB

GTX 770 4GB

I5 3750k

 

to

 

DDR4 16GB

GTX770 4GB x2

I5 6600k

 

Although it is not a HUGE upgrade considering the cost involved (Aside from the GPU), which is putting me of.

[abillybob]

I recently got my hands on a new board for free :-

 

Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 5 Skylake LED ATX Motherboard - GA-Z170X-Gaming5-EU - Scan.co.uk

Of which supports Skylake

 

So I'm very tempted to upgrade my current rig from :-

 

DDR3 16GB

GTX 770 4GB

I5 3750k

 

to

 

DDR4 16GB

GTX770 4GB x2

I5 6600k

 

Although it is not a HUGE upgrade considering the cost involved (Aside from the GPU), which is putting me of.

 

You're not going to see any real world difference as of yet when moving from DDR3 to DDR4 so I personally wouldn't bother. I wouldn't use an SLI setup, replace your GPU with another and sell the one you already have got to claim some cash back. Unless you're running on integrated graphics of which you're not their really isn't much reason to upgrade to skylake.

 

The cost would completely outweigh the performance benefits IMO. :/

[ataylor]

That is what is holding me back at the moment, although I was thinking that SLI would a significant boost.

 

There is also a few things that bug me about my current board such as my USB 3 ports not working with windows 10 (no drivers available) If I had not got that mobo for free I wouldn't even be considering upgrading.

 

Edit:- Plus I will throw all of my old parts into my server at home.

Edited November 26, 2015 by ataylor

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Value of skylake upgrade depends on what you're currently running

 

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=804&cmp[]=828&cmp[]=2570

 

It might be worth the upgrade if you're using a Sandy Bridge i5, it probably isn't worth it if you're on Ivy Bridge, and the Haswell Refresh i5 scores basically the same as the Skylake.

 

 

I don't see any value in adding a second GTX 770 to your setup though.

 

PassMark - Video Card Performance Comparison[]=2531&cmp[]=2954&cmp[]=2953

 

The GTX 970 is a significant performance bump and you could get it cheap by selling your existing 770. Likewise if you wanted a bigger bump but were still willing to fork out a bit you could sell the 770 and get a 980. Both options are imo better than adding a second 770 to the mix.

 

DDR4 or not doesn't really matter too much right now. Next year and further in the future it'll become more relevant but for now it's probably an expense you can do without.

[ataylor]

Might be worth selling my 770 + the Mobo and treat my self to a 980

[Tesla]

That gtx 960 card is out of stock again, and doesn't appear to be in an offer today, will order it probably as soon as it's back in stock. (worth noting for anyone else that the card is slightly cheaper on overclockers.co.uk) but as i have a £50 voucher for amazon, i'm going with them.