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< $350 Graphics Card?

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Hello,
I am wanting to replace my current old graphics card with a new one, what is the best graphics card for less than or close to $350USD?
 
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If you wish to spend all 350$ then rtx 2060 but it depends on what to you play and @ what resolution
 
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A used 1080? Just a suggestion, when I bought mine off ebay I looked to make sure the person did not have a bunch of cards for sale before and after the auction. He sold only the one card and said he upgraded to 1080ti because of a 4k monitor so his reason was reasonable. I was trying to make sure I wasn't getting a worn out mining card and thats one way to do it. I was a real miner all my life and I tell you, that stuff does wear on ya:)(true not /s)
 
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What is your current card?
Honestly, I'd wait until after 7/7 regardless of what card you are buying, as AMD is releasing some new options, which may shake up the market a little.

At this point, you can get an Nvidia 2060 in that range for right around 350. (Pick your preferred manufacturer)
or for the ~$255 range, you can find 1660 TI's

If you prefer AMD, there's the RX 580 8gb starting at $159, but is likely going to be end-of-lifed very soon.

Since I'm looking to build a new rig, I'm going to be upgrading my kiddo's card shortly, from a 960, likely to a 1660 TI, but am going to wait until I'm ordering parts, all at once.
 
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Probably just 1080, I don’t know what games I’d play. It looks like there are several different rtx 2060, MSI, Gigabyte, etc, which one is best? I see something called wind force that costs about $25 more is it worth it?

My current card is EVGA GeForce GT 730 (Low Profile)
 
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There isn't a 'best' one as far as I can tell. I personally prefer EVGA, I like everything I've bought from them, but they are always at the higher end of the pricepoint, too.

As for the "wind force" (or other overclocking rebrands) Unless you know the answer to that question is 'yes', the answer is "No". You don't need to overclock, factory or otherwise, to see a night and day improvement over your existing cards.
The short version is you're going to see a night and day improvement. You don't need to spend $25 extra for an extra roughly 2-8% improvement. It won't "hurt" but I wouldn't suggest it.
 
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Probably just 1080, I don’t know what games I’d play. It looks like there are several different rtx 2060, MSI, Gigabyte, etc, which one is best? I see something called wind force that costs about $25 more is it worth it?

My current card is EVGA GeForce GT 730 (Low Profile)

Unless you plan to upgrade your 1080p 60hz monitor anytime soon then stick with a GTX1660. Anything else is overkill and your money would go further towards a new monitor down the road.
 
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Your system begs for a RTX-2070, assuming a higher resolution monitor is in the future. Any chance you can save up another ~$110?
 
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Your system begs for a RTX-2070, assuming a higher resolution monitor is in the future. Any chance you can save up another ~$110?

maybe you can loan it to him...

PS. MIR are not real money discounts so the OP would still need to pay $489 out the door plus tax, plus you will need to cover the paypal fee which would mean a $200 loan from you but on the good side you will get a pre-paid $30 gift card in mail in 6-8 weeks!...assuming the OP fills out everything correctly in the MIR...so just think of it as a real $200 loan but $170 in your head.
 
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Probably just 1080, I don’t know what games I’d play. It looks like there are several different rtx 2060, MSI, Gigabyte, etc, which one is best? I see something called wind force that costs about $25 more is it worth it?

My current card is EVGA GeForce GT 730 (Low Profile)

Avoid Gigabyte. MSI is very solid and has been for the last few generations across the board, Asus is hit/miss and tends to be overpriced.

If you are coming from a GT730, I'd say stick to your budget and grab that 2060, don't move further up because price/perf goes out the window completely and you're already going to make an absolutely massive jump in performance (what is it, +500-600% more FPS? :D). Or wait a bit, but that is always valid :) if you'd stick to your 1080p/60 monitor, this card will provide max settings now in all games, maybe rarely you will briefly duck to 55 FPS but thats it. And it will last for a good couple years like that.

I will say my 1080 is still eating everything alive, and when I DSR 4K High~V High I still have playable FPS in a wide range of games. Not 60 FPS locked, but above 30 for sure. My use case is 1080p/120fps/hz though.
 
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Is the RTX-2070 a lot better than the 2060?
 
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Ok will the Radeon 5700 be better?
 
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Ok will the Radeon 5700 be better?

First, you have a really unbalanced system.

Second, no one knows.

The 5700 will have a competitor for the 2070 and the 2060. Prices are unlikely to move much.

If you are in the US, I saw ads for Vega 56 for $260 which is hard to beat. Otherwise, pick anything between 1660, 1660ti, 2060, 5700, 2070, 5700XT. Anything after 5700 non-XT is going to be over $350.
 
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First, you have a really unbalanced system.
How is it unbalanced? Just that the graphics card is old and everything else is new?

Is this the card?
Is there any reason I shouldn’t go with this one?
 
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How is it unbalanced? Just that the graphics card is old and everything else is new?

Is this the card?
Is there any reason I shouldn’t go with this one?

It's really hot and it's really loud otherwise performance is fine for the price.
 
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Is the RTX-2070 a lot better than the 2060?

Its faster but its also more dolla

The long and short of GPUs is simply that the higher you go in the GPU stack, the more you pay per FPS. Otherwise translated as 'perf/dollar' and TPU has a nice chart on that


I made an assumption here that despite your very fast CPU (and expensive system) you also had a GT730 and stated you weren't even sure what games to play/aim for at this point. So don't buy right into that top half of the product stack, you can get your 'minimal gains' later when you really know what you want, and the 2060 does already offer maxed out gaming for your current monitor and then some.

As it is today, that card is the most interesting around at the price point of 350. You can always wait, the question is if a baby step such as Navi is really worth waiting for. 30 bucks more MSRP (almost 10%) for (hopefully) a marginally higher % of performance. Not a game changer I think. The real thing to wait for is Navi 20 and Nvidia's first real 7nm GPU, both are a good few months away and its mostly interesting for the high end, not midrange. There's also the coming SUPER release which is a Turing refresh, but again its going to be a small step and small price shift much like Navi 10.

When in doubt between Vega 56/64 and a 2060... get a 2060. It has a much better perf/watt, uses almost half the power = much less noise and heat.
 
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2/hand 1080 or Vega 64, here in the the uk if your shop around you could get maybe cheaper i picked up a x display open box msi aero 1080 for £200.
 

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Grab a 2060 super when it releases.
 
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How is it unbalanced? Just that the graphics card is old and everything else is new?
"Unbalanced" depends on your workload, but for gaming a 9900k is complete overkill unless you're going for high-end graphics as well - you'd get indistinguishable performance with a CPU $200 cheaper than that. Then again, it might be that you're using the CPU for something besides gaming? Streaming? Rendering? Video editing? CAD? I kind of hope so, as you've made some rather poor component choices otherwise.

From looking at your system specs, you're using an old 22" monitor - I'm assuming it's 1080p 60Hz? If so, any GPU beyond an RX 570 or 580 is pretty much overkill (or at least quite bad value compared to those two). They won't get you 1080p60 Ultra in AAA titles for years to come, but they're incredibly cheap and perform well. Then again, you might be planning to upgrade the monitor in the near future, in which case a beefier GPU would make sense.

Honestly, though, if gaming is your heaviest load, my plan of action would be to sell the 9900K, get a 9600k or similar CPU, and put the extra money into a better GPU and monitor - either 1080p with a decent refresh rate (and preferably FreeSync/"G-Sync compatible"), or 1440p60. There should be decent options for both of these that aren't overly expensive. Decide the GPU based on your total budget and resolution/refresh rate goal, and whatever you do, wait until the upcoming one-two punch of GPU launches has landed and we have some reviews.

edit: I realized I ought to be a bit clearer on what I think you should do if you indeed have a use for that monster CPU (which of course is the more reasonable assumption here). You say you're unsure which games you'll be playing, and again, it looks like you have a 22" 1080p60 monitor. If that's the case, the value proposition of a (lower) midrange GPU (RX 570 or 580, GTX 1660 or 1660 Ti) is far superior to something like an RTX 2060. The only reason to go for a GPU that powerful with a monitor like that is future-proofing, if you want to keep the GPU powerful enough to game at 1080p60 for 3-4 years or more. Beyond that, you're just throwing money out the window, as you won't see anything real in return for the extra GPU cost. Of course, going lower down the GPU range also leaves you money to upgrade your monitor, as mentioned above. This is a balancing act - do you go overboard with the GPU with the intention of upgrading your monitor as soon as you can afford to, or do you buy a cheaper GPU that better matches your current monitor, but will be a poorer match for any upgrade on that front? Ultimately you'd have to make that call, but unless you're into future-proofing your hardware, I wouldn't spend more than $2-300 on a GPU for your uses for now, and there are good arguments for going even lower than that. On the other hand, you've built a PC with a $500 CPU, so you're obviously able to scrape together rather significant sums of cash - in which case going for something like an RTX 2060 now and a good monitor to match in a little while could make sense.
 
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Wait for the SUPER series and rethink your choices. I would wait for the SUPER on steroids on 7nm Nvidia but that is another year or so.

Don't sell the 9900. just to make it look balanced, you loose 2 cores and save nothing. Obviously when you buy cpu it must be the best possible for the motherboard, otherwise it will end costing the same in the long run when you upgarde unless you waited 10 years and upgrading 9600 to 9900 would cost 20$.. Of course avoiding as best as possible the insanely priced soon to be outdated and replaced by IceLake IPC +20-40% CPU and riddled with vulnerabilities degrading the IPC further that needs disabling the HT for security reasons and such. Other than that 9900 is fine for future proof. Imagine you got the 2700K, moved back to 2500K to make it look good well now you have to get 2700K again. what is the point to make it look OK and jump through additional hoops back and forth.
 
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Wait for the SUPER series and rethink your choices. I would wait for the SUPER on steroids on 7nm Nvidia but that is another year or so.

Don't sell the 9900. just to make it look balanced, you loose 2 cores and save nothing. Obviously when you buy cpu it must be the best possible for the motherboard, otherwise it will end costing the same in the long run when you upgarde unless you waited 10 years and upgrading 9600 to 9900 would cost 20$.. Of course avoiding as best as possible the insanely priced soon to be outdated and replaced by IceLake IPC +20-40% CPU and riddled with vulnerabilities degrading the IPC further that needs disabling the HT for security reasons and such. Other than that 9900 is fine for future proof. Imagine you got the 2700K, moved back to 2500K to make it look good well now you have to get 2700K again. what is the point to make it look OK and jump through additional hoops back and forth.
That's a rather odd take. First off, I only recommended downgrading the CPU if gaming is the only use case, simply because the performance difference will be negligible while the price difference can be used to upgrade other things that will actually make a difference. Secondly, "Obviously when you buy [a] CPU it must be the best possible for the motherboard" is pure nonsense. When you buy a CPU, buy the one that's right for your needs - and in 99% of cases, that isn't the highest-end one, which this picture proves.

If someone bought an i7-2600K for gaming back in the day and thus had to cut $100 off their GPU budget, that was a poor decision compared to someone buying an i5-2500K and a better GPU, as the latter setup would game better for the same price. Same goes for a 9600k vs. a 9900k today - but the price difference is much, much bigger, to the tune of ~2x. Future-proofing does have merit, particularly with CPUs (where a 2012-era 2600k is still perfectly fine today), but it has to be a very conscious decision, as it entails initially overpaying for performance that you won't notice for a significant amount of time. It's a decision that only makes sense if you're conscious of its drawbacks and going into it knowing you're getting a relatively bad deal with any gains from it well into the future. And, of course, the upgrade path for someone with a 2500k today isn't to a 2600k, but to a new platform outright, so your example in that case doesn't make much sense overall.

As for the GPU, of course waiting for the super series is the smart move, even if buying a 2060 super for a 1080p60 panel will be silly the arrival of those cards (and the RX 5700 series before them) is likely to drive prices down.
 
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System Name Lynni PS \ Lenowo TwinkPad T480
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7700 Raphael \ i7-8550U Kaby Lake-R
Motherboard ASRock B650M PG Riptide Bios v. 2.02 AMD AGESA 1.1.0.0 \ Lenowo 20L60036MX Bios 1.47
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 Chromax.Black (Only middle fan) \ Lenowo WN-2
Memory G.Skill Flare X5 2x16GB DDR5 6000MHZ CL36-36-36-96 AMD EXPO \ Willk Elektronik 2x16GB 2666MHZ CL17
Video Card(s) Asus GeForce RTX™ 4070 Dual OC GPU: 2325-2355 MEM: 1462| Nvidia GeForce MX™ 150 2GB GDDR5 Micron
Storage Gigabyte M30 1TB|Sabrent Rocket 2TB| HDD: 10TB|1TB \ SKHynix 256GB 2242 3x2 | WD SN700 1TB
Display(s) LG UltraGear 27GP850-B 1440p@165Hz | LG 48CX OLED 4K HDR | AUO 14" 1440p IPS
Case Asus Prime AP201 White Mesh | Lenowo T480 chassis
Audio Device(s) Steelseries Arctis Pro Wireless
Power Supply Be Quiet! Pure Power 12 M 750W Goldie | 65W
Mouse Logitech G305 Lightspeedy Wireless | Lenowo TouchPad & Logitech G305
Keyboard Akko 3108 DS Horizon V2 Cream Yellow | T480 UK Lumi
Software Win11 Pro 23H2 UK
Benchmark Scores 3DMARK: https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/89434432? GPU-Z: https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/details/v3zbr
Personally I wouldn't buy any Nvidia's for now when their new "Super" cards around the corner I would hold my money back.

That's just me.
 
Joined
Jun 18, 2019
Messages
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Processor Intel - Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor
Motherboard MSI - MEG Z390 ACE ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Cooling DEEPCOOL Captain 240 RGB V2, AIO Liquid CPU Cooler, Anti-Leak Technology Inside, Sync RGB Waterblock
Memory Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory
Video Card(s) EVGA GeForce GT 730 (Low Profile)
Storage Crucial - MX500 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Display(s) HP Pavilion 21.5-Inch IPS LED HDMI VGA Monitor (22cwa)
Case Rosewill - RISE ATX Full Tower Case
Power Supply EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Software Windows 10 Pro
Ok thanks where do I look at these “Super 2060” cards? Is there usually a certain place to buy them cheapest?
 
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