Best May 2018 Upgrade for an older GTX 750ti User

[mdm-adph]

Backstory: I game with a online friend who still uses a GTX 750ti in their system (their CPU is a Athlon X4 860K). It was fine for a long time (it was a very decent card for its price point), but it's getting to the point where their performance in online games is starting to suffer, and they're having to turn down graphics settings WAY low just to play.

I'm trying to help them with a GPU upgrade, but with the mining craze still going on (at least for the next year or so until ASIC-mining takes over and the price of GPUs plummet), this is tough! Their price limit is $100USD, at an absolute max -- if a card can be bought cheaper, the better.

Goal: are there any GPUs that are faster than a 750ti, not too expensive, and were never really part of the mining craze because of their debut date/power draw? I've thought of something like a GTX 950 or a R7 370. Leaning towards the GTX 950, because the auctions/listings I find for R7 370s still seem to mention "mining" (and the GTX 950 is definitely cheaper!).

Thanks for any help!

 

[dgianstefani]

1050ti is your best bet.

 

[Vayra86]

For 100 bucks? Get a second hand card of one or two generations back. You could probably move to a GTX 770 for that money. I already see them for 120 bucks left and right... and that is a substantial performance boost. Do consider the increased TDP with the PSU that's in the system.

If you manage to up the budget to 150 ~ 175 you can even move up to a GTX 970 which is more than sufficient for the coming year(s) and probably will run circles round a 1050ti.

EDIT: yup

Realistically you should tell your buddy that 100 bucks really isn't realistic for any sort of decent GPU - and spending just a tad more will in the long run save him money for not having to upgrade again in a short while.

 

[MyTechAddiction]

changing to the intel platform might squeeze more fps from that 750 ti

 

[dgianstefani]

1050ti is on the same performance level as a 970. Plus it has support for newer tech, all in all a better option.

 

[Vayra86]

1050ti is on the same performance level as a 970. Plus it has support for newer tech, all in all a better option.

No the 970 is 15-25% faster, across virtually all games. Newer tech like what? Faster cores? Or a shitty 128 bit VRAM bus that the 1050ti chokes on consistently?

And the 1050ti costs more.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?N=100007709 601273503&IsNodeId=1&Submit=ENE

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-970-vs-GeForce-GTX-1050-Ti 970 is marginally faster at twice the TDP.

Right, you play GPUBoss a lot, or do you play other games too?

Stop looking at those silly comparison sites, its the shortcut to badly informed purchases. Seems you got some learning to do, this is lesson one. Theoretical performance =/= ingame performance.

 

[dgianstefani]

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-970-vs-GeForce-GTX-1050-Ti 970 is marginally faster at twice the TDP.

 

[hat]

changing to the intel platform might squeeze more fps from that 750 ti

No. While true that his CPU isn't the greatest and moving to a newer Intel platform would give better performance, it would be terrible value for the money as a gamer when his GPU is struggling.

 

[Supercrit]

changing to the intel platform might squeeze more fps from that 750 ti

Changing platform with $100, good luck with that.

1050ti is on the same performance level as a 970. Plus it has support for newer tech, all in all a better option.

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-970-vs-GeForce-GTX-1050-Ti 970 is marginally faster at twice the TDP.

GPUboss you serious? I wish I could blacklist websites with google search, that site would be one of them.

 

[Vayra86]

Changing platform with $100, good luck with that.

GPUboss you serious?

Holy crap man I even gave the 1050ti double the credit it deserved... 39% is HUGE

OCed 1050ti nonetheless.

Yes but lets face it, everything Pascal does its OC out of the box, what's left is 5-8% at best.

 

[Supercrit]

Holy crap man I even gave the 1050ti double the credit it deserved... 39% is HUGE

OCed 1050ti nonetheless.

 

[Durvelle27]

You could also look into a second hand GTX 780. They perform great at 1080P and can be had around $125

 

[Vayra86]

You could also look into a second hand GTX 780. They perform great at 1080P and can be had around $125

Better off getting the 970 in that case. Similar performance, but not thát old and a 780 runs real hot in comparison = more wear on everything over time = higher risk of failure. Big die SKUs shouldn't be too old as a second hand card, there's almost a guarantee you will spend more cash fixing up something on the cooler (and a 15 dollar fan on this purchase is a substantial price increase .

Also from Kepler > Maxwell you get delta compression which really helped the perf/watt, along with architectural improvements many recent games really ask such as a better tesselation engine.

 

[dgianstefani]

Pick what you want, but for $100, unless the only metric you care about is pure performance, the 1050ti is your best bet. Sure the 970 is 10-20% faster when considering pascal boost, but it takes twice the TDP to get that, and it's frame buffer is also 1GB smaller. Since you'll be playing at 1080p, a 1050ti will hit 60fps anyway so there's no issue with not enough power.

 

[silentbogo]

I'm on board with everyone who said GTX1050Ti.
Realistically you can't get anything decent within $100-$150 range.
If you go the GTX7xx or R9 2xx route you will also need a hefty PSU upgrade.
GTX950 is not worth the extra spending ATM, unless you want the cheapest option with real DX12 support. Back in a day I owned both 750Ti and 950 2GB, and the difference in performance was around 20% in most titles I played, even though reviews show a bit higher performance improvement. 960 is a bit better, but it's also more expensive.

GTX970 is still a good option, but I'd rather go with a much newer 1050Ti for the sake of reliability.

 

[Vayra86]

Pick what you want, but for $100, unless the only metric you care about is pure performance, the 1050ti is your best bet. Sure the 970 is 10-20% faster when considering pascal boost, but it takes twice the TDP to get that, and it's frame buffer is also 1GB smaller. Since you'll be playing at 1080p, a 1050ti will hit 60fps anyway so there's no issue with not enough power.

Dude stop spreading misinformation we already provided several sources that put the 970 comfortably above the 1050ti in every way shape or form, and you won't find a 1050ti at 100 bucks but rather at double that amount. See newegg link up here. The performance gap is also not 15-20% but double that.

Also the OP has already pointed out being open to second hand / older cards and the '1050ti because newer' argument really doesn't fly in the lower range of the GPU stack. In that range, you're much better off in every way shape and form to get a higher tier, older card. They will be more consistent and are always more bang for buck, the build quality is generally better in this segment AND they might resell once again.

So realistically the only argument is TDP... with hard core gaming (4+ hrs per day) you may save 10 bucks on a yearly basis due to that... that's a lot of years to make up for the difference elsewhere.

 

[dgianstefani]

You can pick up a 1050ti for $120 used. Since you'll have a tough time finding a 970 that isn't used, I fail to see the issue here.

And yea, build quality is going to be so much nicer on a card that's been used for two years right?

 

[FatLeeAdama]

So where are these 970's for $150??

 

[Vayra86]

So where are these 970's for $150??

Here let me spend 5 seconds...

175
https://tweakers.net/aanbod/1664165/msi-geforce-gtx-970-4gd5t-oc.html

185
https://tweakers.net/aanbod/1672363/asus-strix-gtx970-dc2oc-4gd5.html

And that's straight up without even trying to get a better price, which usually does happen. Its very well possible at 150-175 bucks. And before you say 'this is EUR'... the US has cheaper hardware so it should resell for a tad less too.

 

[dgianstefani]

Fascinating how you're making recommendations for 175% of the OP's budget.

 

[Durvelle27]

So where are these 970's for $150??

Multiple forums especially over on Hardfourm. I see them quite often

 

[Vayra86]

Fascinating how you're making recommendations for 175% of the OP's budget.

Still waiting on you to pony up a 120 bucks 1050ti...

 

[Supercrit]

So where are these 970's for $150??

On ebay if you're patient.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

You can pick up a 1050ti for $120 used.

If I could find one for that price, I'd buy it, but I'm not buying one of those fake ones on e-bay.
I'll also throw my vote for a GTX 780. Before this mining craze, you almost couldn't give one of those away. Also, consider the GTX 660.

OP, will your friend be selling their 750 Ti? If they can get $100 for it, maybe they can think about a 3 GB GTX 1060. I'm seeing them quite often for $220.

changing to the intel platform might squeeze more fps from that 750 ti

I wanted to jump all over you for what I perceived as a cookie cutter "Intel is better at gaming than AMD" response. But as I've thought about this, I've wondered if the games that they're playing are actually more dependent on the CPU, and that's where that dual core (don't tell me it's a quad core) Athlon X4 860K might be causing problems.

 

[mdm-adph]

First of all: thanks everyone for the help! TPU consistently has the most knowledgeable people on it.

While the Athlon CPU might be a problem, a new MB/CPU combo is out of the question right now!

The 1050ti would be great, but unfortunately the new 1050ti's are WAY too much, and even the used ones I've been watching on eBay are routinely going for about $150 or so.

My friend could definitely sell their 750ti. I'm seeing them on eBay for around $50-75, so perhaps we could go up to about $150 with that in mind.

What about a used GTX 960? Power draw is definitely an issue -- I don't know about the quality of the PSU they're using, not that an upgrade is in the cards right now.