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AMD R9 270x (2GB) vs RX 570
I saw a deal for a Sapphire RX 570 4GB for only $99. One thing that was weird is it is PCIex8 and uses PCIe 3.0. It only has one DVI output which is fine with me. Looking at benchmarks it seems like a significant cheap upgrade, but it almost seems too good to be true. My current 2GB card is starting to struggle on newer games at 1080. Black ops 4 is a GPU RAM Hog, Ass. Creed Odd is not very playable, and the anthem demo is not real smooth. I can not afford a new PC currently so I am just wondering if this would be a worthwhile upgrade.
Thanks
Comments
That being said, I understand budgets. I don't know about the specific card your looking at. 570 in general is a good card too, and would definitely be an upgrade. Just not quite as good a deal as the 580 is running right now if you can swing it.
*EDIT* Quiz says I should edit this, but I stand by my original statement. For my money, it would be better spent on the 580 than the 570 - not saying that the 570 isn't a good deal, just I think the 580 is a better one.
https://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Radeon-GDDR5-DVI-D-Graphics/dp/B07MCDNQX2/ref=sr_1_6?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1549144641
I'd say, go ahead and get it. It will be about double the performance of what you have now, which is enough to justify the upgrade. And it could be years until you get that level of performance for under $100 again.
It looks like the card was originally intended for Ethereum mining. Then the price of Ethereum did this:
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/
That Ethereum is now valued at less than 8% of what it was worth at its peak makes the card unattractive to miners. Either whoever Sapphire intended to sell a zillion of those cards to backed out, or they built them assuming that they'd be able to sell them, then couldn't get a buyer. Perhaps they've finally given up and just want to be rid of their stock, even at a loss, which is why it's such a good deal.
That it was intended for mining is why some of the usual niceties aren't there, including multiple monitor ports and a PCI Express 3.0 x16 connection rather than x8. (The latter will occasionally be a modest performance hit for gaming, but will rarely matter much.) If they aren't a deal-breaker for you (they would be for me, as I use three monitors), then go ahead.
This reminds me of when Sapphire released a particular SKU of Radeon HD 5850 ("Xtreme") for $140 in April 2011. Basically, there were a ton of Cypress chips that they needed to get rid of (or possibly that AMD needed to get rid of and gave them to Sapphire at a deep discount). That was by far the best video card deal if its era, and it would be several years before you could again get that level of performance at that price. They lasted about a month, then they were gone, never to return.
Meanwhile, moving from an RX 570 to an RX 580 adds 1/8 more compute units enabled and clocks them a little higher. That's worth spending 75% more on the card? Why?
First, it's a faster card. Are you going to pay more for it? Yes. The 570 mining card is a good deal, I don't deny that, but I don't think that your getting ripped off by the 580 by any stretch of the imagination. 15% performance may not sound like it's worth 75% price... but compared to a "typical" 570, which are still running $150+, it's a nice deal.
Second, the 570 is a card designed for mining. It's PCI 8, it only has a DVI output, I don't know anything about the cooling on the card, who knows what else. BIOS changes? Future driver issues? Maybe it's perfectly fine. Heck, it's probably perfectly fine. I would just hate to throw out $100 then find out in a few months that something didn't line up...
The 580's are all nice AIB cards designed for gaming, not mining. A variety of outputs, a variety of cooling solutions, a variety of brands available at that or near that price level. There are even 8GB versions available at that price level.
Third, and this one is a personal thing - I do run multiple monitors. One DVI output won't work. It isn't even HDMI, so I don't believe you can't use Freesync.
In this case, it's not my money. I'm just stating my recommendation. My money would go to the 580. And in fact, it did, I picked one up last week for my son's Birthday.