Video card upgrade questions

By DaCypher
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DaCypher

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I've been looking to upgrade the video card in my PC to one of the new AMD RX 480 cards.  However, I'm not totally sure if this upgrade makes sense given that my PC is overall a bit dated.  This is what I have now:

 

  • Asus P8P67 LE motherboard
  • Intel Core i5 2500
  • 8 GB RAM
  • AMD Radeon HD 6800 (1GB video RAM)

 

I know that my motherboard only supports PCIe 2.0 but I think PCIe 3.0 is cards are backwards compatible?  But does it make sense to go with the RX 480 if I only have PCIe 2.0?  I realize that the rest of the PC isn't top notch these days but it would be nice to get some more life out of it.  Also, I don't know exactly what kind of power supply that I have but I believe it's 800 watts.  I know the RX 480s have some intense power requirements.  What are the chances my power supply could handle this?

 

I'm not a hardcore gamer by any definition but I would like to be able to play some modern games.  Being able to play them at 1080p would be nice.  I'd also like the ability to run Windows 10 desktop at 4k (with a monitor upgrade).

 

So does the RX 480 makes sense for me?  Should I go with 4GB or 8GB?  Also, where can I actually buy these things?  Pretty much everywhere I've looked is out of stock but I thought these came out over a month ago?

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Jim K Global Moderator

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I think you would be very pleased upgrading to the RX480 especially from the ~6 year old AMD Radeon.   I wouldn't worry about the PCIe 2.1 either as the performance "decrease" is negligible compared to PCIe 3...maybe 1-3% ... if that.

 

Regarding the PSU ... you didn't list the make/model of your PSU or the model of your current video card.  However, the AMD Radeon 6850 demands are about the same as the RX480 so I would assume you'll be ok in that aspect.  I would just be sure that your PSU has the necessary PCIe connectors to match whichever RX480 you go with (like one 6-pin, one 8 pin or whatever).  The power requirements of the RX480 aren't really that intense ... though they were having issues with it drawing more power than the PCIe spec from the motherboard ... which I believe they've corrected on recent drivers.

 

Regarding the 4 or 8GB ... well ... that depends.  If you are playing at higher resolution than obviously the 8GB will help more ... if you are just playing at 1080p ... I believe the 4GB will be more than sufficient.  I believe the difference in the cards are about 30 bucks.  Where to get them is another good question ... they are still relatively new/popular ... you have the whole issue of supply and demand.  NewEgg has a couple but they are the more expensive ones (almost 300 bucks) ... which I wouldn't recommend.  You may just have to hold for a few more weeks.

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DaCypher

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Great info jjkusaf, thank you.  I just opened up my case and it looks like I have a 620 watt PSU.  My current video card has 2 6 pin power connectors going into it (there is also a separate 2 pin connector so it looks like it would support 8 pin if needed).  So it seems like the RX 480s would only use one 8 or one 6 pin connector which seems like it would be less power than my current card?  I'm going to keep an eye out for RX 480 8GB over the next few weeks and see what I can find.  Thanks again for the help.

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Mindovermaster Moderator

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An RX480 should be fine with 620W. Again, what is your brand of your PSU? 620 sounds a bit strange...

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sinetheo

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I would not get that card. There is a scandal where it can damage PSU and motherboards as it is over 25% over PCI specs with power drawl. Be ware!

 

FYI I just replaced 2 PSU's and a SSD with a now damaged motherboard too! How? I traced it to an Asus GTX 770 that too was out of spec that cost me several hundred dollars! Thankfully my board has 2 bioses so I could fix it.

 

I bought the AMD rx 470 which if you buy overclocked is the same speed as the rx 480 but doesn't have the risk. Over clocked to 1250 mhz it is about the same speed as the nvidia 970 and within 2% of the rx 480.

 

Your i5 is fine for most games as they are just mostly comnsole ports to the slower xboxone. 

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sinetheo

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6 hours ago, jjkusaf said:

I think you would be very pleased upgrading to the RX480 especially from the ~6 year old AMD Radeon.   I wouldn't worry about the PCIe 2.1 either as the performance "decrease" is negligible compared to PCIe 3...maybe 1-3% ... if that.

 

Regarding the PSU ... you didn't list the make/model of your PSU or the model of your current video card.  However, the AMD Radeon 6850 demands are about the same as the RX480 so I would assume you'll be ok in that aspect.  I would just be sure that your PSU has the necessary PCIe connectors to match whichever RX480 you go with (like one 6-pin, one 8 pin or whatever).  The power requirements of the RX480 aren't really that intense ... though they were having issues with it drawing more power than the PCIe spec from the motherboard ... which I believe they've corrected on recent drivers.

 

Regarding the 4 or 8GB ... well ... that depends.  If you are playing at higher resolution than obviously the 8GB will help more ... if you are just playing at 1080p ... I believe the 4GB will be more than sufficient.  I believe the difference in the cards are about 30 bucks.  Where to get them is another good question ... they are still relatively new/popular ... you have the whole issue of supply and demand.  NewEgg has a couple but they are the more expensive ones (almost 300 bucks) ... which I wouldn't recommend.  You may just have to hold for a few more weeks.

The driver update just moved the out of spec from the motherboard to the PSU?? Since he has an older 630 watt PSU it might damage it or take it out. I recommend the rx 470 which is almost identical to the 480 for $25 less or go with an nvidia 1060 GTX

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Jim K Global Moderator

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20 minutes ago, sinetheo said:

The driver update just moved the out of spec from the motherboard to the PSU?? Since he has an older 630 watt PSU it might damage it or take it out. I recommend the rx 470 which is almost identical to the 480 for $25 less or go with an nvidia 1060 GTX

I disagree.  The PSU is much better suited for handling slightly more wattage (or out of spec wattage) than the PCIe lane.  His PSU has the 2x 6+2 pin PCIe connectors ... so the difference is the two grounds.  With their latest drivers moving the "scandalous" power draw away from the PCIe slot itself (which was bad) ... you will not have that worry about taking out the motherboard.  

 

Also, if you just want to be cautious ... majority of the AIB's are equipping their RX480's with the 8-pin connector so just look for and grab one of them.  Problem and worries solved.

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Razorwing

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I would suggest you get the GTX 1060 based on the online benchmarks that reviewers have done. It is slightly better, but not by much. 

 

 

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Mindovermaster Moderator

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18 minutes ago, Razorwing said:

I would suggest you get the GTX 1060 based on the online benchmarks that reviewers have done. It is slightly better, but not by much. 

 

 

You mean the 3GB or 6GB?

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Razorwing

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7 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said:

You mean the 3GB or 6GB?

I think it's the 6GB in the video I posted. 

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DaCypher

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The GTX 1060s look a bit pricier (unless I'm just not a good shopper).  Also, I haven't seen any RX 480s with 8 pin connectors.

 

I think I have things narrowed down to either RX 470 (factory overclocked), RX 480 8GB, or GTX 1060 6GB.  But it's hard to really decide given that prices are very much in flux due to supply issues.  Can anyone recommend any specific cards with these GPUs?  I'll keep an eye out for them over the next several weeks to see which ones become available and for how much money.

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Grand Master

Andre S. Veteran

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On 20/08/2016 at 7:50 PM, sinetheo said:

I would not get that card. There is a scandal where it can damage PSU and motherboards as it is over 25% over PCI specs with power drawl. Be ware!

It was fixed almost immediately through a new driver, and only ever affected reference models. Custom RX 480s all use a different power layout. See http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Radeon-RX-480-Power-Consumption-Concerns-Fixed-1671-Driver

 

So, just to make it clear, PCI-E compliance on the RX 480 is not an issue. 

 

 

Quote

Should I go with 4GB or 8GB?

Depends very much on the game. In some games there is practically no difference, in others there is more. You get what you pay for, either with the 470, 480 4GB or 480 8GB (assuming prices close to MSRP). Even the 470 will be a capable card at 1080p but won't have that extra power to drive ultra settings in everything.

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LaP

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Core i5 2500 is still perfectly fine specially if you overclock it.

 

Ram should be upgradable to 16gb if needed.

 

The video card is definitely a bottleneck for this cpu in pretty much all new gpu intensive games.

 

This pc with a 480 or 1060 will run games like Witcher 3 just fine at 1080p (even with 8gb of system ram only).

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