Picking out a GPU

Ridelynn

So I'm in the process of rebuilding a computer for my wife. She's been using the same Core i5 Ivy Bridge since.. a really long while. The second GPU in the system, an AMD 470, is finally starting to show signs of aging with occasional artifacting, and the entire system is just due to be rebuilt.

There were some Amazon Prime Day deals on a few bits of hardware, so I got started with the build. Got a decent deal on a AMD 3700, a B550 motherboard, and even splurged on a PCI4 m.2 just for S&Gs. She wanted the full RGB treatment - the tempered glass case glows like Rainbow Brite on an acid trip. She loves it.

I got everything all done, except the one component that was actually giving me issues - the GPU.

I couldn't find any decent deals on current gen GPUs. The new generation that we all have been waiting on are $500+. I'm looking to spend upwards of $300, I could stretch a bit over if it's warranted. She has a 1440 monitor, but does not play anything demanding and doesn't really notice frame rate drops even if they do happen -- so top tier 144Hz performance isn't a priority - although she did get a 144Hz capable Freesync 1440p monitor with this rebuild.

I'd like to get it done by Thanksgiving, or at least ordered, so I can be done with the build entirely. I don't know how much longer the 470 will hold out -- it's been a trooper and a great card, I don't knock it, it's been running for about 4 years now, in a system that routinely gets filled with cat hair.

I have half a mind to wait until Black Friday / Cyber Monday and see if anything pops up. I am not holding my breath though. Something like a RX 5700 or 2060 would still be a big upgrade from her AMD 470 and be more or less in my price range.

Any suggestions?

Quizzical

Considering that the Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT cards are disappearing, I'd bet on AMD having a Navi 2X replacement for that tier sooner rather than later.  It's the same process node, so if AMD can deliver the same performance in a card that costs them significantly less to build, that's a clear win for them.  But even if it comes soon, that might not be this year.

For now, there are a lot of options on a Radeon RX 5600 XT for under $300.  New Egg has one new RTX 2060 for $300 or less:

https://www.newegg.com/gigabyte-geforce-rtx-2060-gv-n2060ixoc-6gd-rev-2-0/p/N82E16814932210

So there are options out there in your budget, but those options might well be disappearing.  I can't imagine that Nvidia is happy about having to sell 445 mm^2 dies in $300 cards.

There's surely an Ampere replacement coming for the $300 price point.  But it's a question of how soon--not just how soon it will launch, but how soon it will be available to buy.  And again, even if it's soon on both counts, that might not be this year.

Parts of the GTX 1600 series might hang around for years to come.  But even if they do, the entire RTX 2000 series is surely going to be gone and replaced by Ampere.

Vrika

There are very little good options at $300 price range at the moment.

I'd recommend looking at a bit lower price range what kind offers for 1660 Super, 1660 Ti and RX 5600 XT you can find. They might offer you better price/performance, and if you wait for Black Friday there's a good chance of at least the 1660 Super/Ti going for sale.

Vrika

Ridelynn said:

The second GPU in the system, an AMD 470, is finally starting to show signs of aging with occasional artifacting, and the entire system is just due to be rebuilt.

Any suggestions?

This is just a thought, but: Have you checked with another monitor cable to make sure that the occasional artifacting isn't caused by something as simple as the cable.

Ridelynn

Vrika said:

Ridelynn said:

The second GPU in the system, an AMD 470, is finally starting to show signs of aging with occasional artifacting, and the entire system is just due to be rebuilt.

Any suggestions?

This is just a thought, but: Have you checked with another monitor cable to make sure that the occasional artifacting isn't caused by something as simple as the cable.

Good suggestion - yes, actually we did replace a older DVI cable with a HDMI cable. Same thing.

Ridelynn

Quizzical said:

For now, there are a lot of options on a Radeon RX 5600 XT for under $300.  New Egg has one new RTX 2060 for $300 or less:

Vrika said:

There are very little good options at $300 price range at the moment.

I'd recommend looking at a bit lower price range what kind offers for 1660 Super, 1660 Ti and RX 5600 XT you can find. They might offer you better price/performance, and if you wait for Black Friday there's a good chance of at least the 1660 Super/Ti going for sale.

Yeah this is what I found too. Looking at a 5600XT right now. Thanks all for the feedback. It's just not a good time to be buying midrange GPUs.

Same goes for PSUs - prices and availability on those are kinda out of whack at the moment as well.

Quizzical

At least on New Egg, the GTX 1660 Ti or GTX 1660 Super cost about the same as the Radeon RX 5600 XT.  At the same price, I'd sooner go with the latter.  The Radeon card also includes WoW Shadowlands if you're interested in that.

Vrika

Quizzical said:

At least on New Egg, the GTX 1660 Ti or GTX 1660 Super cost about the same as the Radeon RX 5600 XT.  At the same price, I'd sooner go with the latter.  The Radeon card also includes WoW Shadowlands if you're interested in that.

RX 5600 XT is best out of those three if prices are the same, assuming all models have somewhat equal coolers.

My ability to take Newegg's prices into account when I'm advising on computer parts is somewhat limited because Newegg blocked Europeans from browsing their website. I hope it's a temporary measure they took to fight RX 3000 buyer bots and not a permanent block.

cheyane

Just wanted to piggy back on this thread and ask about the i7 10700F and whether it was worth getting the i9 10900F instead. Husband is getting a new computer and if you know anything from my previous threads we always use the dreaded 4 letter place.

I was also thinking of getting the  2080 Super because it was the only one with 550W power source since the 2080Ti needed a 1000W power source upgrade. They also offered the RTX 3090 with 24GB with the same 550W power source but the price difference was a bit high and my husband who hardly plays any graphically demanding game was happy with the 2000 series.

The i9  3.7Ghz also needed the 1000W chassis.

I guess these places actually have the new cards and that they used a far lower power source.

Ridelynn

cheyane said:

They also offered the RTX 3090 with 24GB with the same 550W power source but the price difference was a bit high and my husband who hardly plays any graphically demanding game was happy with the 2000 series.

Wow. The 3090 is a huge heck of a card. It can eat a 550W PSU all on it's own just about - probably more if it overclocked at all.

I would say if your considering a 3090, there isn't much reason to not consider the i9 with it. But for gaming purposes you won't see much of a difference between the i7 and i9 - the two extra cores on the i9 won't matter in gaming at all for a long while  yet, and there's 400Mhz difference in boost clocks, but the i9 actually has a 100Mhz lower base clock.

You will need a much bigger PSU than 550W with either one though, unless you are planning on using IGP (which the F CPUs don't have anyway) or a much less capable GPU.

I would go out on a limb and say, if your considering any RTX GPU, you should probably be looking at around 700-800W PSUs. The new 3000 series are all power hungry so far - the slowest card to date (3070) is 220W all by itself, with no overclock or aggressive AIB clock boosting.

The 2080Super is a 250W card all by itself, and the 3090 is a massive 350W.

Another kick in the teeth is that Intel recently changed their definition of TDP. They still list most of their CPUs at 65W, but in reality, they can pull up to double that at stock speeds when they go to their boost clocks. 

A 550W might run that with a larger GPU ok.. but you would be pushing it hard. PSUs tend to decline in rating as they age, so you wouldn't have any margin for it to age into.

If you really wanted to run a system with a 550W PSU, you probably need to be looking at about the same video cards I am in this thread: something rated 150W or less.

Quizzical

cheyane said:

Just wanted to piggy back on this thread and ask about the i7 10700F and whether it was worth getting the i9 10900F instead. Husband is getting a new computer and if you know anything from my previous threads we always use the dreaded 4 letter place.

I was also thinking of getting the  2080 Super because it was the only one with 550W power source since the 2080Ti needed a 1000W power source upgrade. They also offered the RTX 3090 with 24GB with the same 550W power source but the price difference was a bit high and my husband who hardly plays any graphically demanding game was happy with the 2000 series.

The i9  3.7Ghz also needed the 1000W chassis.

I guess these places actually have the new cards and that they used a far lower power source.

First, it's better to create your own thread.

Second, there's not much point in getting a higher end Intel CPU these days.  Even if you want top end single-threaded performance (really the only reason to do so with today's lineup), AMD's Zen 3 CPUs launch next week and will be better than Intel's current lineup in just about every way.

Meanwhile, with new cards launching, the RTX 2080 Super is massively overpriced for what you get.  A GeForce RTX 3080, GeForce RTX 3070, Radeon RX 6800 XT, or Radeon RX 6800 are all both considerably faster and cheaper.  Granted, the RTX 3080 had a near-paper launch, the RTX 3070 a very soft launch, and the Radeon cards don't launch until next month.  But if waiting a month will get you 50% more performance for less money, then I'd recommend waiting a month unless you absolutely need something right now.  I'm optimistic that the RTX 3070 will be widely available near MSRP soon, and that's a much faster card than a 2080 Super, much cheaper, and even uses less power, since you seem to be worried about that.

You say you "always use the dreaded 4 letter place".  I'm guessing that means Dell.  Unless you're getting an enormous employee discount or something, I'd really recommend buying a gaming desktop elsewhere.  Even if you can't or won't build your own, there are plenty of sites that will offer you a much better deal than Dell.

So the short version is, I'd recommend waiting a month or so (at least until November 18), then coming back and starting a new thread where you state your budget.  Unless you need something right now, you'll get a much better product for the same budget a month from now than you will today.  We're talking major generational leaps of about two years worth of technological progress with the hardware that is launching.

cheyane

Ridelynn said:

cheyane said:

They also offered the RTX 3090 with 24GB with the same 550W power source but the price difference was a bit high and my husband who hardly plays any graphically demanding game was happy with the 2000 series.

Wow. The 3090 is a huge heck of a card. It can eat a 550W PSU all on it's own just about - probably more if it overclocked at all.

I would say if your considering a 3090, there isn't much reason to not consider the i9 with it. But for gaming purposes you won't see much of a difference between the i7 and i9 - the two extra cores on the i9 won't matter in gaming at all for a long while  yet, and there's 400Mhz difference in boost clocks, but the i9 actually has a 100Mhz lower base clock.

You will need a much bigger PSU than 550W with either one though, unless you are planning on using IGP (which the F CPUs don't have anyway) or a much less capable GPU.

I would go out on a limb and say, if your considering any RTX GPU, you should probably be looking at around 700-800W PSUs. The new 3000 series are all power hungry so far - the slowest card to date (3070) is 220W all by itself, with no overclock or aggressive AIB clock boosting.

The 2080Super is a 250W card all by itself, and the 3090 is a massive 350W.

Another kick in the teeth is that Intel recently changed their definition of TDP. They still list most of their CPUs at 65W, but in reality, they can pull up to double that at stock speeds when they go to their boost clocks. 

A 550W might run that with a larger GPU ok.. but you would be pushing it hard. PSUs tend to decline in rating as they age, so you wouldn't have any margin for it to age into.

If you really wanted to run a system with a 550W PSU, you probably need to be looking at about the same video cards I am in this thread: something rated 150W or less.

I was a bit surprised that the message to upgrade to 1000W did not appear when I picked the 3090 as an option but I also noticed that the water cooled  2080 Super also required 1000W. The 2080 super that was rated for the 550W was already overclocked according to a note on the card choice. I think Dell's power supply is also above the rate they display.

It is not that I am wedded to the 550W choice but the difference with the other choice was close to 1000 Euros. It is bad enough that my husband insists on going with Dell but I am trying to minimize the fleece factor.

Thanks for the i7 to i9 advice.

Quizzical said:

cheyane said:

Just wanted to piggy back on this thread and ask about the i7 10700F and whether it was worth getting the i9 10900F instead. Husband is getting a new computer and if you know anything from my previous threads we always use the dreaded 4 letter place.

I was also thinking of getting the  2080 Super because it was the only one with 550W power source since the 2080Ti needed a 1000W power source upgrade. They also offered the RTX 3090 with 24GB with the same 550W power source but the price difference was a bit high and my husband who hardly plays any graphically demanding game was happy with the 2000 series.

The i9  3.7Ghz also needed the 1000W chassis.

I guess these places actually have the new cards and that they used a far lower power source.

First, it's better to create your own thread.

Second, there's not much point in getting a higher end Intel CPU these days.  Even if you want top end single-threaded performance (really the only reason to do so with today's lineup), AMD's Zen 3 CPUs launch next week and will be better than Intel's current lineup in just about every way.

Meanwhile, with new cards launching, the RTX 2080 Super is massively overpriced for what you get.  A GeForce RTX 3080, GeForce RTX 3070, Radeon RX 6800 XT, or Radeon RX 6800 are all both considerably faster and cheaper.  Granted, the RTX 3080 had a near-paper launch, the RTX 3070 a very soft launch, and the Radeon cards don't launch until next month.  But if waiting a month will get you 50% more performance for less money, then I'd recommend waiting a month unless you absolutely need something right now.  I'm optimistic that the RTX 3070 will be widely available near MSRP soon, and that's a much faster card than a 2080 Super, much cheaper, and even uses less power, since you seem to be worried about that.

You say you "always use the dreaded 4 letter place".  I'm guessing that means Dell.  Unless you're getting an enormous employee discount or something, I'd really recommend buying a gaming desktop elsewhere.  Even if you can't or won't build your own, there are plenty of sites that will offer you a much better deal than Dell.

So the short version is, I'd recommend waiting a month or so (at least until November 18), then coming back and starting a new thread where you state your budget.  Unless you need something right now, you'll get a much better product for the same budget a month from now than you will today.  We're talking major generational leaps of about two years worth of technological progress with the hardware that is launching.

Thanks so much for the advice and I am sorry for the piggy back but I always hesitate when I create new threads because I am not bold by nature. Wish I had half of delete's confidence sometimes.

Yes it is Dell. Not to mention how much tax we pay on computer stuff in Italy.

Quizzical

cheyane said:

Yes it is Dell. Not to mention how much tax we pay on computer stuff in Italy.

Ah, if you're in Italy, that will change what options you have available.  I hadn't realized that.  But Italy is hardly a tiny country (I once helped someone pick parts in the Faroe Islands, which gave him a very limited selection), and given how bad Dell is in the US, I find it hard to imagine that there aren't any better options in Italy.

Regardless, I'd still say to wait a month or so.  AMD Zen 3 launches next week, the Radeon RX 6000 series two weeks later, and the GeForce RTX 3070 should start being in stock soon, too.  The RTX 3090 has been built in such tiny quantities that Dell likely doesn't have actual cards to sell yet, but just a placeholder for what they'll do when they get real inventory in a several months.

I'm guessing that you don't have Black Friday sales in Italy, considering that in the US, it's tied to Thanksgiving, which is a very American holiday and not one celebrated elsewhere.

Vrika

Quizzical said:

I'm guessing that you don't have Black Friday sales in Italy, considering that in the US, it's tied to Thanksgiving, which is a very American holiday and not one celebrated elsewhere.

Black Friday sales are in Europe too. Even if we don't have celebrations, many stores have picked the tradition of doing discounts.

Ridelynn

bigmilk said:

How about a GTX 1070 used on ebay for around 200 USD? But, the first question you need to ask is if you need/want 8 gb or if 6gb is sufficient.

Also I wanted to comment - this was also a good suggestion. I think a 1070 would be a decent card for this system: it's certainly in the speed range of the other options I'm looking at, and I don't think the VRAM is a huge issue.

I wouldn't mind if I could pick up a new one, but I don't want to go on the used market for this build. I prefer to have warranties intact, and hopefully the build will run for many, many years without needing another upgrade for a while.

cheyane

Quizzical said:

cheyane said:

Yes it is Dell. Not to mention how much tax we pay on computer stuff in Italy.

Ah, if you're in Italy, that will change what options you have available.  I hadn't realized that.  But Italy is hardly a tiny country (I once helped someone pick parts in the Faroe Islands, which gave him a very limited selection), and given how bad Dell is in the US, I find it hard to imagine that there aren't any better options in Italy.

Regardless, I'd still say to wait a month or so.  AMD Zen 3 launches next week, the Radeon RX 6000 series two weeks later, and the GeForce RTX 3070 should start being in stock soon, too.  The RTX 3090 has been built in such tiny quantities that Dell likely doesn't have actual cards to sell yet, but just a placeholder for what they'll do when they get real inventory in a several months.

I'm guessing that you don't have Black Friday sales in Italy, considering that in the US, it's tied to Thanksgiving, which is a very American holiday and not one celebrated elsewhere.

Thank you for the help but given our worry that an extended lockdown is coming soon to Italy he was in a hurry to get it done. I did my best with the options you all provided but I might add that options for the Alienware did not include AMD it is all Intel and Ge Force. I wanted to order just Dell but it had even less options. At least the Alienware had more options to pick from but I guess that was the whole idea. 

What's with the difference in price of 40 Euros between the white and black body. These people are such shysters.