I've now got my eye on the Sapphire Radeon Nitro+ RX 590 or the Pulse RX 590 and I'm waiting until black friday to see what goes on sale since it's less than a week away. I like the cooling system on the nitro+. I don't know if it will make much performance difference but if it happens to go on sale I may grab one.
I've also realized that my processor is going to bottleneck the new card. I'm using the processor I installed in 2012 so it's pretty dated at this point. I'm not sure the mobo needs replacing but I know they often come in combo deals with processors.
Any suggestions on what I should upgrade to if I want to get the most out of a new graphics card? I'm on a budget so I want to keep costs low. Hopefully black friday will help with that.
Right now I would say AMD has the worse drivers. It's more about the thermal design issues than anything else and are solved by not using the reference design. The reference design only dissipates heat under high loads with a high fanspeed. In order to deal with the noise, the AMD driver waits until the Temps are very hot before kicking on the fan. Sometimes the temp increase comes on too suddenly and the fan doesn't kick on fast enough before a crash. Sometimes the default fan speed isn't enough to cool the card at load. Sometimes wattman resets itself.
I've also realized that my processor is going to bottleneck the new card. I'm using the processor I installed in 2012 so it's pretty dated at this point. I'm not sure the mobo needs replacing but I know they often come in combo deals with processors.
The mobo needs replacing because it's not compatible with any current processors.
You'll also need to replace your RAM because you have DDR3 RAM and all modern motherboards require DDR4.
If you want to get cheap replacements I'd recommend Ryzen 5 2600 CPU + some cheap motherboard with B450 chipset + 16 GB of RAM. Something like this: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/
Also with all the new parts you'd be getting, if you're using older Windows it's good time to upgrade to Win 10.
Also you should think about improving your hard disk if it's still the original because SSD prices have dropped a lot. Right now newegg.com has a Black Friday deal on 1TB nvme SSD disks. https://www.newegg.com/intel-660p-series-1tb/p/N82E16820167462 That disk would only work with a new motherboard. Your motherboard is so old it doesn't have the right connector.
Actually you might want to consider getting a new computer.
EDIT: But your processor isn't that bad yet. It's ok to just replace the GPU and see how much the speed improves.
XFX, and Sapphire make S***** graphics cards that sometimes don't even last 3 years before failure, and worst of all the warranty is horrid.
Stick with Nvidia, and a reputable company ASUS, or EVGA.
Sorry, but I have to completely disagree with that statement. Nvidia cards are all over priced and they do not last any longer than AMD cards. Most monitors come with free sync which is a big advantage to AMD while monitor manufacturers have to pay a significant royalty payment to use Nvidia's G-Sync, hence G-Sync monitors being more expensive.
Both are well within your stated $200 budget, and probably remain so even if you add sales taxes. And both also have the monitor ports you need.
I'd recommend using DisplayPort for your monitors if you can do so easily. That's the modern standard, and it's better than HDMI in quite a few ways that you may reasonably not particularly care about. DVI is pretty much a legacy port at this point, and not what you want to use unless your monitor doesn't support anything else.
With RX-590s going for 170-180 that is about the best deal going for a graphics card as long as you are not into 4k. Personally I use 2k for everything, the difference between that and 4k is minimal if you are sitting at a desk looking at a monitor. 2k monitors are much cheaper than 4k ones.
Comments
The reference design only dissipates heat under high loads with a high fanspeed. In order to deal with the noise, the AMD driver waits until the Temps are very hot before kicking on the fan. Sometimes the temp increase comes on too suddenly and the fan doesn't kick on fast enough before a crash. Sometimes the default fan speed isn't enough to cool the card at load. Sometimes wattman resets itself.
You'll also need to replace your RAM because you have DDR3 RAM and all modern motherboards require DDR4.
If you want to get cheap replacements I'd recommend Ryzen 5 2600 CPU + some cheap motherboard with B450 chipset + 16 GB of RAM. Something like this:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/
Also with all the new parts you'd be getting, if you're using older Windows it's good time to upgrade to Win 10.
Also you should think about improving your hard disk if it's still the original because SSD prices have dropped a lot. Right now newegg.com has a Black Friday deal on 1TB nvme SSD disks.
https://www.newegg.com/intel-660p-series-1tb/p/N82E16820167462
That disk would only work with a new motherboard. Your motherboard is so old it doesn't have the right connector.
Actually you might want to consider getting a new computer.
EDIT: But your processor isn't that bad yet. It's ok to just replace the GPU and see how much the speed improves.
https://www.newegg.com/gigabyte-radeon-rx-590-gv-rx590gaming-8gd-rev-2-0/p/N82E16814932222
Here's another Radeon RX 590 for $180 with 2x DisplayPort and 2x HDMI, as well as a free game and three free months of Xbox Game Pass:
https://www.newegg.com/sapphire-radeon-rx-590-100415p8gl/p/N82E16814202333
Both are well within your stated $200 budget, and probably remain so even if you add sales taxes. And both also have the monitor ports you need.
I'd recommend using DisplayPort for your monitors if you can do so easily. That's the modern standard, and it's better than HDMI in quite a few ways that you may reasonably not particularly care about. DVI is pretty much a legacy port at this point, and not what you want to use unless your monitor doesn't support anything else.