- Joined
- May 2, 2015
- Messages
- 144 (0.04/day)
- Location
- Finland
Processor | AMD Ryzen 7 5700X |
---|---|
Motherboard | MSI B350 Tomahawk |
Cooling | Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4 |
Memory | 32GB (2 x 16GB) Kingston FURY Beast, DDR4 3200MHz, CL16 |
Video Card(s) | ASUS Cerberus GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Advanced Edition |
Storage | Samsung 960 EVO 512 GB (M.2), Samsung 860 EVO 1 TB (SATA) |
Display(s) | 27" Ozone DSP27 Pro |
Case | Fractal Design Define S2 |
Audio Device(s) | Onkyo TX-SR444 |
Power Supply | Seasonic 620W M12II-620 Evolution |
Mouse | Logitech G502 HERO SE |
Keyboard | Razer Ornata Chroma |
Software | Windows 10 Home x64 |
Hello,
I currently have the following system:
AMD Phenom II X4 955 (OC at 3.6 GHz)
8 GB 1600 MHz RAM
Asus M5A97
Asus Radeon HD 7850 DirectCU II
256 GB Samsung SSD 840 EVO![Mad :mad: :mad:](https://tpucdn.com/forums/data/assets/smilies/mad-v1.gif)
40 GB Intel 320 Series SSD
Some old 160 GB 7200 RPM WD HDD from 2008
Antec HCG-520 High Current Gamer 520W
Now, seeing that The Witcher 3 has a minimum requirement of a GTX 660 or a HD 7870, I've been eyeing a GPU upgrade. However, I'm shocked at the slow progress of GPUs. I bought this HD 7850 in December 2013 for 150€ and the rebrand of the same card, the R7 265, still costs exactly the same 150€. I wouldn't want to spend a lot of money on a new graphics card, and don't care that much about maxing out games as long as I can play them smoothly. Nice-looking graphics are of course a bonus, but the HD 7850 is able to max out all games I currently play with the exception of Arma 3, and even Arma 3 runs nicely at medium-high settings which I consider good enough.
If I upgrade, I'll naturally want to get a significant performance boost, and it seems that I'd need at least a GTX 960 or a R9 285 for that. With the prices around here, the cheapest GTX 960s seem to go for around 230€ while with the recent price drop, R9 285s are going for exactly 200€. R9 290s go for over 300€ and GTX 970s come close to 400€, so those are far out of my price range. The few remaining 280Xs are about 250€.
Being 30€ cheaper, the R9 285 seems like a better deal than the GTX 960, but I'm worried if my PSU can handle the power draw. Some people are also saying that the HD 7850 is over-clockable to 7870 performance levels - if that's doable, then I'd gladly save my money since I got this GPU only 1½ years ago, and with the exception of The Witcher 3, it looks like this HD 7850 still has some life in it. While I realize that the Phenom II could bottleneck the R9 285, I'm not looking for a CPU upgrade yet - it has handled all the more interesting games so far, and in non-gaming tasks it doesn't slow me down at all (with the exception of heavy image editing, but I do that rarely).
What do you think I should do? Get the R9 285 (as long as my PSU can handle it), get the GTX 960 to avoid a PSU upgrade, or try to overclock the HD 7850 so that it'd run TW3 acceptably?
Another concern with the R9 285 is that if I get it, what happens if AMD goes bankrupt? I tend to keep my hardware for a while, and with AMD's financial state I'm worried about losing driver support. I do generally prefer AMD, but if Nvidia is the better choice I don't hesitate to switch.
I currently have the following system:
AMD Phenom II X4 955 (OC at 3.6 GHz)
8 GB 1600 MHz RAM
Asus M5A97
Asus Radeon HD 7850 DirectCU II
256 GB Samsung SSD 840 EVO
![Mad :mad: :mad:](https://tpucdn.com/forums/data/assets/smilies/mad-v1.gif)
40 GB Intel 320 Series SSD
Some old 160 GB 7200 RPM WD HDD from 2008
Antec HCG-520 High Current Gamer 520W
Now, seeing that The Witcher 3 has a minimum requirement of a GTX 660 or a HD 7870, I've been eyeing a GPU upgrade. However, I'm shocked at the slow progress of GPUs. I bought this HD 7850 in December 2013 for 150€ and the rebrand of the same card, the R7 265, still costs exactly the same 150€. I wouldn't want to spend a lot of money on a new graphics card, and don't care that much about maxing out games as long as I can play them smoothly. Nice-looking graphics are of course a bonus, but the HD 7850 is able to max out all games I currently play with the exception of Arma 3, and even Arma 3 runs nicely at medium-high settings which I consider good enough.
If I upgrade, I'll naturally want to get a significant performance boost, and it seems that I'd need at least a GTX 960 or a R9 285 for that. With the prices around here, the cheapest GTX 960s seem to go for around 230€ while with the recent price drop, R9 285s are going for exactly 200€. R9 290s go for over 300€ and GTX 970s come close to 400€, so those are far out of my price range. The few remaining 280Xs are about 250€.
Being 30€ cheaper, the R9 285 seems like a better deal than the GTX 960, but I'm worried if my PSU can handle the power draw. Some people are also saying that the HD 7850 is over-clockable to 7870 performance levels - if that's doable, then I'd gladly save my money since I got this GPU only 1½ years ago, and with the exception of The Witcher 3, it looks like this HD 7850 still has some life in it. While I realize that the Phenom II could bottleneck the R9 285, I'm not looking for a CPU upgrade yet - it has handled all the more interesting games so far, and in non-gaming tasks it doesn't slow me down at all (with the exception of heavy image editing, but I do that rarely).
What do you think I should do? Get the R9 285 (as long as my PSU can handle it), get the GTX 960 to avoid a PSU upgrade, or try to overclock the HD 7850 so that it'd run TW3 acceptably?
Another concern with the R9 285 is that if I get it, what happens if AMD goes bankrupt? I tend to keep my hardware for a while, and with AMD's financial state I'm worried about losing driver support. I do generally prefer AMD, but if Nvidia is the better choice I don't hesitate to switch.