Graphics card decision

[gorilla]

Hi,
Just nearing the end of my pc upgrade, just need advice regarding graphics cards.

the computer is mainly used for office work shopping and occasionally high spec gaming such as arma, battlefield and far cry.

I’m currently using a evga GeForce FTC 970 ftw. My question is what would be best, getting another 970 and running in sli or getting a newer single card?

 

[Graculus]

Hi,
Just nearing the end of my pc upgrade, just need advice regarding graphics cards.

the computer is mainly used for office work shopping and occasionally high spec gaming such as arma, battlefield and far cry.

I’m currently using a evga GeForce FTC 970 ftw. My question is what would be best, getting another 970 and running in sli or getting a newer single card?

Live with it and buy a RTX 3080 when availability improves.

 

[AlienFTM]

Live with it and buy a RTX 3080 when availability improves.

Son in law builds servers. When I upgraded my PC, we looked at GPUs. You will pay an arm and a leg for the latest and greatest. If you buy the previous iteration, we determined that you'll get 80% of the power for about half the price because suppliers want rid. These cards were bleeding edge a few months ago.

 

[gorilla]

If I were to upgrade to a better single card, it would be a second hand card around £300

 

[exbluejob]

There is a massive shortage of GPUs now for several reasons, not least the huge increase in people playing games and cryptocurrency mining taking off again. The latest Nvidia 3000 series are the dogs danglies as they're a step up from previous incarnations but almost impossible to buy without being gouged. A good 2nd hand one off of ebay might be best but even there prices are expensive for cards which should be dropping in price.

So, when will I be able to buy a new graphics card?

It might be a while if you're looking to upgrade your GPU anytime soon.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Blogg]

Live with it and buy a RTX 3080 when availability improves.

In meantime install something like Afterburner, not so much to play with the voltage settings to produce a pile of molten slag but to wind the GPU fan speed profile up when required and limit temperature to make sure the bugger isn't throttling down on you.

In order to get "low noise" card makers put stupid rpm profiles into the fan controllers combined with auto throttling.

For gaming set fan speed to 80% minimum and things suddenly got much better.

And clean the GPU heatsinks out regularly!

 

[Listy]

I'm at the stage in my PC's life where I need to upgrade.

I'd advise waiting 6-8 months. My reasoning is:
Nvidia's new cards are hard to obtain currently. Equally, getting a 2000 series offers no real advantage in price. As a 3000 series gives more for the same RRP cost. The only thing you'll have to watch out is for the increased power consumption for the 3000 series.
In that time frame the 3060 will be out I should hope, and that's the budget end of the 3000 series. Unless you're doing stupidly high end graphics it should do. Equally there's some quality control issues from the 3000 series at current, and it depends on which manufacturer you go for as to how close to the specs the card you buy is. I'd expect all this to be sorted out in a few months as well.

AMD will get their new series to market. AMD are new to the graphics card game, so their cards aren't as good. However, they've recently developed new technology that lets their new Graphics cards use spare processing power capability from the CPU to provide extra GPU performance. They're also lower power cost cards. Of course, NVIDIA has worked out how AMD has done it and released that info to the public, so it's likely that a modern CPU will be able to (eventually) benefit from it. Also to utilise the feature you'd need an AMD CPU (at current).

So basically, with everything's up in the air, in flux and a confused mess at current. Add in stocks are hard to obtain. Give it time to calm down and you'll be able to get a better idea of the lay of the land, and also quality control issues and price scalping will have subsided.

 

[bakerlite]

What are the specs. on your build?
Will you be playing at 1920 x 1080, 2560 x 1440 or 4k?
The above is good advice, wait until the market has sorted itself out.
Wait until AMD has sorted out potential driver issues on its higher spec. cards before comparing them with the Nvidia offerings.

​

 

[exbluejob]

Got a Gigabyte GTX3060 Ti OC Pro on Xmas eve, played a new game yesterday for the first time. Didn't half chuck out some heat after about 15 mins! First time I've felt that. Card has 3 fans, my case has 2 on the front sucking in air, cpu cooler has a fan which is blowing warm air out the grille at the top. Everything within temp spec but I was surprised how warm my legs felt.

 

[Graculus]

Son in law builds servers. When I upgraded my PC, we looked at GPUs. You will pay an arm and a leg for the latest and greatest. If you buy the previous iteration, we determined that you'll get 80% of the power for about half the price because suppliers want rid. These cards were bleeding edge a few months ago.

True normally but it's a bit complex at the moment. An RTX 3xxx series card is better than the RTX 2xxx and more bang for your buck...until shortages and scalping set in.

 

[Provost]

Hmmm .... the ultimate graphics solution. Like chasing the rainbow.

 

[bakerlite]

Final thought:

Checkout the requirements of your games, new ones are getting greedier by the day. Then go to "Rock, Paper, Shotgun" on the web to see what they recommend.

eg Assassin’s Creed Odyssey PC graphics performance: how to get the best settings

Youtube will give you endless reviews and comparisons which show you how each card handles various games.

eg

 

[4(T)]

I'm running a second-hand GTX 1080ti.

I thought I'd fill in for a year or so by getting another similar card and putting them in SLI. Turns out that they are still at £450-600, even for a card thats years old.

For future games, I think I'll just turn off graphics effects as required.

 

[dogmeat]

AMD will get their new series to market. AMD are new to the graphics card game, so their cards aren't as good.

AMD bought ATI IN 2006.

 

[Skunkmiester]

I'm running a second-hand GTX 1080ti.

I thought I'd fill in for a year or so by getting another similar card and putting them in SLI. Turns out that they are still at £450-600, even for a card thats years old.

For future games, I think I'll just turn off graphics effects as required.

I have gone down the SLI route a couple of times and will not be bothering again.

It is a pain in the arse, hotter and noisier. Also not all games are developed to make the most of SLI and in one case I had to disable SLI to make the game stable.

I would recommend just waiting out and getting a 3070 or equivalent AMD card when they are available.

 

[FrosteeMARIA]

Hmmm .... the ultimate graphics solution. Like chasing the rainbow.

Or the dragon.....

 

[FrosteeMARIA]

I'm running a RTX3080 (had to wait a few months for it, mind!)

Safe to say we don't need the heating on in that room anymore. I was a bit concerned that the PC case was getting hot enough to cook on, but according to most folks, the temp on the card going past 75degC is perfectly normal! Case cooling is getting more complex..........

 

[scoldog]

Good luck trying to get your paws on anything at the moment.

COVID has caused major disruptions in computer part supply chains.

 

[exbluejob]

I'm running a RTX3080 (had to wait a few months for it, mind!)

Safe to say we don't need the heating on in that room anymore. I was a bit concerned that the PC case was getting hot enough to cook on, but according to most folks, the temp on the card going past 75degC is perfectly normal! Case cooling is getting more complex..........

When I replaced my PC around xmas I was astonished at how many cases came with several fans built in PLUS room for extras. Mine has 2 on the front which seems to be enough.

 

[4(T)]

I'm running a RTX3080 (had to wait a few months for it, mind!)

Safe to say we don't need the heating on in that room anymore. I was a bit concerned that the PC case was getting hot enough to cook on, but according to most folks, the temp on the card going past 75degC is perfectly normal! Case cooling is getting more complex..........

I don't know why they continue putting GPUs into what are effectively plastic boxes - small ovens.

Perhaps its time for the form factor to change and to put GPUs onto something the size and shape of a motherboard, with plenty of room for integrated cooling systems and heat sinks.