Upgrading from a 290X

[StinkyPinky]

I've moved to a 1440p/60 monitor and I feel I need more GPU muscle to power this in gaming. Which GPU would give me a noticeable bump in performance and last for the next couple of years? 1060, 1070, or 1080?

I'm leaning towards the 1070, do you guys think that's the best choice?

 

[Maverick177]

Fury or FuryX.

 

[frozentundra123456]

1070 or 1080 for 1440p. If you happened to get a freesync monitor, they FuryX. The new RX480 or GTX1060 would not be much of an upgrade, if at all.

 

[Bacon1]

$309 Fury Nitro from amazon is a good deal, not a massive bump from a 290x but works very well @ 1440p

 

[Red Hawk]

Fury or FuryX.

Nah, I don't think there's all that much point of going from 290X to Fury, due to the Fury having limited RAM (which is already holding the card back from higher texture/shadow settings in games like Doom and Deus Ex Mankind Divided, even at 1080p). I'd go with a 1070/1080, or wait for AMD's Vega chip if you really want to stick with AMD. Don't go for the 1060, that would be more of a sidegrade.

 

[f2bnp]

I would probably go for the 1070.

300$ Fury is not a bad deal either, but I don't think you'd be futureproofing much with 4GB VRAM.

 

[Bacon1]

Fury having limited RAM (which is already holding the card back from higher texture/shadow settings in games like Doom and Deus Ex Mankind Divided, even at 1080p).

Thats not true at all. People are running maxed settings in Mankind Divided on Fury @ 1080 and 1440p.

http://www.hardwareunboxed.com/deus-ex-mankind-divided-15-gpu-benchmark-ultra-very-high-high-medium/

Here is Doom with Nightmare on Fury X

http://www.hardwareunboxed.com/doom-vulkan-vs-opengl-benchmark-the-tide-turning-in-amds-favour/

Even doing 4k Nightmare same FPS as 980 Ti and 1070.

 

[Jackie60]

The 1070 or 1080 are the only cards that will give you significantly more performance than you currently have and won't be ram limited now never mind in the future. Buying a Fury/Furyx would be like investing in Blockbuster Video-old architecture and severely RAM limited. A used 980ti would also offer a significant performance boost at a bargain price.

 

[happy medium]

1070 is by far the best choice. I cant believe people are recommending a fury card,that's ridiculous.

 

[f2bnp]

Fury isn't VRAM limited now, but it certainly will be in the near future. If you want to keep the card for 2+ years, then it will be an issue to consider. Texture Quality is very important for IQ and costs nothing in performance if you have adequate VRAM. It's what people suggesting 1060 3GB and 470/480 4GB can't quite grasp.

If, on the other hand, you are looking for a stop-gap card for a year or less, then by all means go for the greatest bang for buck, be it Fury or 980 Ti. You really can't beat these right now.

 

[tviceman]

1070 is the minimum you should consider, giving you a ~50% or so performance bump. Moving to a Fury vanilla would only yield about a 20% performance improvement. The 1070 will cut power usage down by a 100 watts too. Don't get the founders edition, AIB cards can be had for under $400.

 

[tg2708]

I decided to get the rx 480 but only after trying both the 1070 and 1080. I was not getting the frame rates I see other people getting with the 1080 so something was truly wrong with my setup. Now I need to either get the 6700k and or wait for Kaby lake as it seems in cpu limited games especially GTA v and crysis their is an uptick of about 25 fps and much better minimums. With the price I paid for 1080 it would be a waste with 4670k even overclocked. I just need some deals on cpu and motherboard to make the jump. In other words if you are planning on buying a high end graphics card match it with an equally strong cpu or else you won't be using either to their potential.

 

[happy medium]

The 1070 will cut power usage down by a 100 watts too.

very good point. Same goes for the 980 ti @250 watts.

 

[happy medium]

I decided to get the rx 480 but only after trying both the 1070 and 1080. I was not getting the frame rates I see other people getting with the 1080 so something was truly wrong with my setup. Now I need to either get the 6700k and or wait for Kaby lake as it seems in cpu limited games especially GTA v and crysis their is an uptick of about 25 fps and much better minimums. With the price I paid for 1080 it would be a waste with 4670k even overclocked. I just need some deals on cpu and motherboard to make the jump. In other words if you are planning on buying a high end graphics card match it with an equally strong cpu or else you won't be using either to their potential.

the OP is using a 1440p monitor and upgrading from a 290. A 480 and 1060 are garbage upgrades.

1070 is the best choice.

 

[tg2708]

the OP is using a 1440p monitor and upgrading from a 290. A 480 and 1060 are garbage upgrades.

1070 is the best choice.

Read what I wrote I never told him not to get the 1070.

 

[zinfamous]

I agree with most that 1070 is the minimum you should be considering right now. Nitro Fury is only a good idea if you can score one for less than $300, which is happening every other week these days, but 1070 is much better for future proofing.

Vega is probably 2nd Qtr 2017 now, so that's a long time to wait to stick with AMD

 

[ConsoleLover]

I'd go for the 1080 if you have the money, probably wait a little bit and see if the prices fall, otherwise just dish out the cash and get the 1080. The 1070 is just not in a good price/performance slot, its way too slow compared to the 1080 and still costs quite a lot.

Alternatively I'd wait for AMD to release Vega in January on a paper launch and wait for availability in February.

 

[Insomniator]

A 480 is a downgrade if anything. Certainly not an upgrade. 1070 minimum.

 

[Thinker_145]

I'd go for the 1080 if you have the money, probably wait a little bit and see if the prices fall, otherwise just dish out the cash and get the 1080. The 1070 is just not in a good price/performance slot, its way too slow compared to the 1080 and still costs quite a lot.

Alternatively I'd wait for AMD to release Vega in January on a paper launch and wait for availability in February.

lol what? A 1080 is 20% faster and 50% more expensive.

Sent from my HTC One M9

 

[Thinker_145]

I decided to get the rx 480 but only after trying both the 1070 and 1080. I was not getting the frame rates I see other people getting with the 1080 so something was truly wrong with my setup. Now I need to either get the 6700k and or wait for Kaby lake as it seems in cpu limited games especially GTA v and crysis their is an uptick of about 25 fps and much better minimums. With the price I paid for 1080 it would be a waste with 4670k even overclocked. I just need some deals on cpu and motherboard to make the jump. In other words if you are planning on buying a high end graphics card match it with an equally strong cpu or else you won't be using either to their potential.

A 4670k at 4+Ghz(which ANY chip should achieve) will not bottleneck a 1070. Something else must have been wrong.

Sent from my HTC One M9

 

[Bacon1]

1070 is by far the best choice. I cant believe people are recommending a fury card,that's ridiculous.

I'm using fury @ 3440x1440 and not having issues. Was a solid upgrade from my 290.

None of the cards right now are a huge upgrade for the OP for the price, 1070 isn't worth it when they hover around $400 compared to a $300ish Fury.

 

[tviceman]

I'd go for the 1080 if you have the money, probably wait a little bit and see if the prices fall, otherwise just dish out the cash and get the 1080. The 1070 is just not in a good price/performance slot, its way too slow compared to the 1080 and still costs quite a lot.

Alternatively I'd wait for AMD to release Vega in January on a paper launch and wait for availability in February.

Your entire post is misinformation. The GTX1080'S perf/$ is way lower than 1070 while being about 20% faster. And Vega is launching in H1 2017, not Q1. H1 points to the May/June time frame, not January/February.

 

[tg2708]

Sent from my HTC One M9[/QUOTE]

A 4670k at 4+Ghz(which ANY chip should achieve) will not bottleneck a 1070. Something else must have been wrong.

Sent from my HTC One M9

Not sure but from what I have seen from digital foundry benchmarks of the 6700k it delivers much higher frame rates and better minimums even against the 4790k which is better than the 4670k. I increase the ram from 8 to 16 which fixed the sudden low fps dips but still I don't think I was getting anywhere near what a 6700k would have gotten with same card. To put it simple where the cpu is more of the bottleneck the 6700k will have a much better frame rate with any card. Keep in mind the games where the gpu is taxed more I see no discernible difference eg doom. I'm in a dilemma though cause I want to get the 6700k but not sure if Kaby lake would be better to wait for

 

[Carfax83]

I'm using fury @ 3440x1440 and not having issues. Was a solid upgrade from my 290.

Not having issues sound very subjective to me. Some people have been gaming on 4K on a single GTX 980 Ti and didn't have problems, but personally, I think a single GTX 980 Ti would be too slow for 4K unless you dial down the settings significantly so I would never recommend it to anyone looking for a solid 4K experience.

None of the cards right now are a huge upgrade for the OP for the price, 1070 isn't worth it when they hover around $400 compared to a $300ish Fury.

Latest hardware roundup test from Computerbase.de shows the GTX 1070 with 42-54%% faster performance vs the R9 390 at 1440p, depending on whether it's F.E or aftermarket. 290x isn't on the list, but the R9 390 has very similar performance so we can easily extrapolate a 50% increase for an aftermarket GTX 1070.

Not a huge upgrade, but it's definitely very significant. Plus he gets double the VRAM, HEVC decoding, Shadowplay, less power usage etcetera...

 

[Bacon1]

Not having issues sound very subjective to me. Some people have been gaming on 4K on a single GTX 980 Ti and didn't have problems, but personally, I think a single GTX 980 Ti would be too slow for 4K unless you dial down the settings significantly so I would never recommend it to anyone looking for a solid 4K experience.

He is asking for our opinions on 1440p gaming. I'm running 3440 x 1440 vs 2560x1440 so 33% higher and doing well with a single fury.

Latest hardware roundup test from Computerbase.de shows the GTX 1070 with 42-54%% faster performance vs the R9 390 at 1440p, depending on whether it's F.E or aftermarket. 290x isn't on the list, but the R9 390 has very similar performance so we can easily extrapolate a 50% increase for an aftermarket GTX 1070.

Not a huge upgrade, but it's definitely very significant. Plus he gets double the VRAM, HEVC decoding, Shadowplay, less power usage etcetera...

You forgot to point out that the 980 Ti Gaming is 2% faster than the 1070 Gaming. It all comes down to price. Cheapest 1070 is $400, 30% more expensive than the Fury Nitro.

It makes sense to buy a cheaper custom 980 Ti over 1070 unless you believe that either DX12 will take over or Nvidia will stop supporting Maxwell. Do you believe those will happen?