card makers
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You are currently reading a thread in /g/ - Technology
Does buying from an excellent card manufacturer really make a difference, or should i just buy a powercolor?
>>51476593
The price diference is small enough so i only buy asus. they redraw all schematics and use better parts.
>>51476593
if they're a reference model they're usually 99% identical. if not then usually the difference is all in the cooler. sometimes the company will actually make changes to the pcb layout. read reviews on the different models (ex. search "gtx XXX roundup") to see where their particular performance lands.
>>51476593
>Does buying from an excellent card manufacturer really make a difference
Yes, well it can. No manufacturer has a perfect track record, and none of them should be implicitly trust to put out a top notch product.
Every vendor has their hits and misses.
Always search for reviews, even if they're forum posts where people pull of heat sinks and look at the power phases on the PCB.
>>51476593
PC is actually a well known company outside of the US. I've never had any issues.
>>51477192
and i dont mean to sound stupid, but what i thought was an excellent company i heard getting bashed on, and it seems like there is just constant negative criticism no matter who makes what and i was just... i dunno im baked and looking for a new card and dont want to make a piss poor choice.
>>51477246
ASUS and Gigabyte have each had terrible runs of mobos and various GPUs within the last 3 years, and they're two of the most respected names in the industry.
>>51476593
They're all the same aside from the super custom ones
Read reviews and get one with best warranty
I like to spend a little extra on a high end varient of the card I plan on getting since it gives it a slightly longer life with better OC potential, better parts and such.
Customer service can be a factor. If two cards have similar price points and performance from two different vendors but one has significantly better customer service then that's the obvious choice.
for me personally, powercolor has been the best "it just works" experience compared to problems of all other brands
i've only used them for medium range solutions, but i have enjoyed them
>>51477456
this is definitely the route to take
always get the best warranty
I was looking at getting the Asus Z97-A to build a new budget pc.
Is there any better mobos in that price range.
I was also gonna get some GTX 950
>>51477649
Z97-AR instead.
Yesterday I picked out parts so I happen to know
>>51477218
Yeah, I have a powercolor 280x and it's dank
>>51477649
wtf
why would you get such an expensive mobo? also what cpu are you planning to pair it with?
>>51477883
Bro that shits expensive
I was hoping to cut down a little bit on cost
>>51477904
Probably an i5
>>51477912
AR is cheaper though. It's lacking in VGA and DVI-D outputs
>>51478018
Its almost a $30 difference
>>51478569
Maybe it's out of stock or something. It should be cheaper
>>51478588
It's not
>>51477649
>>51477941
If you're that guy then get an i5 4460 with an H97 board, literally no reason to get an unlocked CPU
>>51476593
get the one with the best warranty
>>51478860
OK so I have an i5 4460 ($189)
MSI Z97S ($100)
ASUS GeForce GTX 950 ($170)
Corsair Vengence 8 GB ($45)
Can I still keep this build close to $600?
>>51479311
Should get a 380 over a 950, more performance, and potentially better DX12 support
PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/T7R2P6
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/T7R2P6/by_merchant/
CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($174.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($45.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($33.99 @ Adorama)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($51.88 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 380 4GB Double Dissipation Video Card ($189.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($29.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $576.71
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-22 19:00 EST-0500
>>51479396
Or you can get an 860K + 390 for gaming at higher resolutions, but the i5 is going to have higher average frame rates in CPU heavy games
PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/pXkVVn
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/pXkVVn/by_merchant/
CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($68.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A68HM-DS2H Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($46.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($33.99 @ Adorama)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($51.88 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 390 8GB PCS+ Video Card ($294.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($29.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $576.82
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-22 19:02 EST-0500
>>51479396
Damn thanks.
Do you think it would be worth putting in a little more money for a better mobo?
I plan on using 2 screens, and I don't care about 1080p I just want to be able to run everything at 720 with blazing speed.
>>51479453
I also plan on hoarding my 500GB++ music library, so are those "audio" mobos snake-oil?
>>51479453
You can do that with a 300 dollar APU rig and have a super tiny GPUless build
>>51479567
Well I guess eventually I'll use 1080p, just don't have the monitor right now.
Also I've heard bad things about AMD graphics cards not working well with games.
>>51479453
nah, current mobo is fine
>>51479602
An APU with fast memory can still do about 30fps@1080p
Otherwise what do you mean? AMD's GPUs beat out nvidias by a decent amount in every price point right now except for the super high end
>>51479602
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OIj034xMME
>>51479661
> 42 fps
>>51479616
>>51479619
Well, I need HDMI
So I'll probably grab the MSI-H81M I guess
Also, is $50 too much to spend on a case?
I can get the Windows 7 free from school, so I could afford to bump up a case and mobo
>>51479824
The graphics card has HDMI on it..,.
>>51479923
Well I'm gonna go kill myself
>>51476823
Only for nVidia.
They just slap the nVidia cooler designs on AMD cards and hope for the best.
Don't buy an Asus AMD card unless it's on a massive sale, then sell it for retail and buy a sapphire or gigabyte.
>>51479824
50 bucks is fine. What case? I'm curious.
>>51480022
I was thinking the Corsair SPEC-01
I just want dat side window
Any other recs?
>>51480105
that's not a bad case, but I'd recommend a source 210
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146102
>>51480130
So i was always under the impression you should spend a little extra money on the mobo
>>51480182
nah, just get the cheapest mobo you can with all the features you want. You're not overclocking so it doesn't matter.
>>51479422
>>51479396
Both weird builds.
You're literally $300 away (i7-4790k, gold-rate EVGA psu, 16gb ram) from building a respectable system that will last for longer.
>>51480205
Should I look into a audio card or audio centered mobo?
>>51480234
$300 is a lot of money
>>51480316
every mobo you can get nowadays has onboard audio that'll work fine for you
>>51480316
Assuming you're using less than $200 worth of speakers or headphones, there's no need for a discreet sound card
>>51480366
A lot of motherboards have very noisy audio outputs. I hear a lot of noise from my Asus H97M-PLUS compared to my Diamond MX300, Mac mini, and Wii U.
>>51478722
AR is objectively cheaper.
If not, you're visiting a retarded store.
>>51480433
This is what scares me
>>51480449
AR is a little more expensive where I live too.
>>51476593
Only card I've ever had that actually started artifacting after a while was powercolor.
Never again.
>>51480536
I've had issues with a few different cards, all from different manufacturers.
MSI GTX 660 that shits the bed in some games. Complete system freezes when playing The Witcher 2.
Gigabyte R9 290 with a crappy tripple fan cooler. Fans run at 100%, but the GPU still reaches 95C. The throttling makes games unplayable unless I lower the power limit in the amd control panel.
Asus 7600GT. Bad capacitors.
Only brands I didn't have any issues with was Creative (Voodoo 2), STB (Voodoo 3), Sapphire (Radeon 9600), and XFX (GTX 260). But that's just random. Any brand can have some crappy cards sometimes.
>>51480623
The only video card that's even crapped out (i.e. over-heated and BSOD'ed) on me was a Sapphire X1800.
I'm still traumatized to this day because it was my first big-boy card that I bought myself. I don't touch them anymore, but yea, it's purely random.
>>51480316
sound cards are useless
>>51480234
600 dollars is all you need for a solid 1080p/1440p gaming rig
>>51477308
MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH
ASUS is a big name in the industry but IF something breaks they are also known for telling you to shove that warranty up your ass buy another.
What are trusted mobo brands.
And what is a card similar in price/performance to the GTX950
>>51480906
Asus' shit tier RMA service is why I'd never buy one of their products again. Their graphics cards are massively overrated anyway. They're very rarely the best in any area.
>>51480932
ASRock, Gigabyte, ASUS, and EVGA are all good.
Why not get the 950? It's a good card.
>>51481174
I wonder if it's worth going to a 960
>>51482190
if you have enough money for a 960, you have enough money for a 380, which is a better choice
what about buying a biostar motherboard
>>51483202
would not recommend
Whats the best cooler for 390? I was thinking about getting the ASUS but I remember hearing that they were shit.
I'm reading a Sapphire 280X Dual X product page and it's being down voted into oblivion. They were all about how it's either DOA or dies in a few weeks. Is this true? Another thread here was raving about Sapphire 380 Nitro.
>>51483690
Asus has at least 2, if not 3, different models of the 390.
The dCUII trades performance for low noise (fanless idle/low usage), the dCUIII does a bit better normally on OC'ing and has higher quality fans and actually has a heatsink on the VRAM. But it's normally about $40 more, and is clocked the same.
>>51480778
>$600 is all you need for a "solid" 1440p gaming rig
Sez you.
I'm currently on a brand new, $1100 rig and the three games I play the most I cannot break 60fps constantly at 1080p.
>i7 5860x stock clock
>32gb DDR4 3000
>390x OC'd to 1125/1668
>Asus 850 Pro
Literally everything I play I'll hover constantly around 50fps on ultra. Look at something that isn't moving and I'll shoot up to 100-110fps, look at water or something and I'll drop to fucking 8fps.
I'm not throttling, temps are excellent across the board (no part of CPU over 45C, VRM1 is hottest thing on GPU at 63-65C). Can't seem to find any bottlenecks, heaviest load I've recorded on any physical core was 65% (or about 35% on virtual cores), using no more than 9gb system RAM, and never using over about 2.5gb of VRAM.
>>51484277
Well clearly you're having issues unrelated to functional hardware, I play through all of MGSV with a 5800K + 7850 at 1440p
>>51480906
Don't know where you're getting this. I've RMA'd a laptop twice (different issues) and a monitor without any issues through ASUS. The process was usually pretty quick and painless: call support, receive RMA email, send it off, get fixed product a few weeks later.
I try to stay away from them now though since their shit kept breaking, but as far as RMAs are concerned they had their act together.
>>51484330
I'm apparently not alone in this though.
I've RMA'd the card 3 times, upgraded from a 270x from a different manufacturer, and have had the same issue (wildly fluctuating fps) through the same 3 games with all 4 cards.
The 270x is now in an A8-based CPU my kid has and it does the exact same shit there.
>inb4 it's the game's fault
No motherfucker. These are not new games either. If I cannot get a constant 90fps with an enthusiast-grade GPU in UNMODDED SKYRIM the card is shit, end of story.
Some games just flat-out don't like AMD cards regardless of their on-paper specs.
>>51484369
>A8-based CPU
I meant A8-based computer. Fuck me.
>>51479619
>30 fps 1080p
Jayztwocents was getting 40-50 fps battlefield 4 iirc.
>>51476593
Yes it makes a difference. Especially when it comes to anything that deviates from reference designs too. The "good" manufacturers often not only make better "baseline" cards, but also have "enhanced" versions with better coolers and better components.
I'd say stick to the following - Asus, MSI, and EVGA. Asus and MSI make both AMD and Nvidia cards, while EVGA only makes Nvidia. All three offer multiple models, including those with enhanced coolers, out of the box overclocking, and better components.
>>51484369
So what's the power supplies in those rigs? a 390x is almost 4k capable in some games, at least around 30fps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEAbyqG3DjU
>>51484425
My desktop's running a 1200w bronze-certified EVGA from 2013, the A8's running a 750w platinum-certified Seasonic from early this year because it's got like 12 hdd's in it and it was the cheapest PSU that had enough power connectors without having to splice or use molex.
>>51484425
>wants to show how well a 390x runs in Skyrim
>several points in the video the 390x dips below 60fps and several other points spikes over 120fps
A 50% fluctuation from a GPU that's actually enduring (more than a couple frames) is fucking unacceptable.
Especially in a game that's been out that long and has (or should have) fully mature drivers.
>>51484489
Wait doesn't skyrim break if you run it higher than 60fps?
Otherwise it might just be an issue with the game itself
If it's happening in multiple games I don't know, you have a weird issue
>>51480932
Like a $10 difference between the 950 and 380.
>>51484505
Initial release it would, but that was patched like 3 years ago.
Yes, I'm having it in every game in my Steam library, it's just not as critical in some of them because a dip from 140fps to 85fps is still a playable framerate.
However:
>Ark: Survival Evolved
Is a fucking Mantle and soon-to-be dx12 game specifically tailored to work best with AMD cards. Will literally go from 55fps (the fastest I've ever gotten) to 6fps for no apparent reason, and stay at 6fps for 30-45 seconds.
>FO4
Yes I know it runs poorly on everything. I should still be able to -occasionally- get over 40fps with this card, and shouldn't be -normally- at 24fps with drops to 1fps that last for several minutes. I have friends that are running i5 2500k's with 780's and 960's and able to hold a pretty steady 50+fps with zero dips, my computer is significantly better but because it's an AMD card it shits itself.
>ArmA 2 vanilla
Singleplayer I can usually get 75+fps, unless I'm around water. Around water I'm down in the 30fps range. Multiplayer has a hard-coded 60fps cap, rarely can hit that but that's probably server issues and not local.
>RO2/Rising Storm
Only game that works properly. Funny, considering it's custom-tailored for Nvidia. 60+fps multiplayer, 144fps constant singleplayer.
>TERA Online
This is one of those f2p/p2w MMO's, as such it's designed to run on a fucking toaster. Guess what? Can't get over 30fps and am usually stuck at less than 24fps. For a game where you still have to aim shit, this is unplayable. On bosses that do any kind of AoE or in cities I'm in the single digits. Friend of mine on there is playing on a fucking 5yo laptop with a 640m and getting 45+fps on the same settings (low), son's old GPU, a fucking GTS250, will get 45+fps on medium. Yes, a GTS250 from 2005. A decade-old mainstream card is beating my 390x.
>>51484563
I should also mention this is on a 24" 1080p 144hz freesync monitor.
>>51484563
What's your system specs?
Ram?
Ram speed?
Cpu?
Motherboard?
Check gpu z to make sure your card isn't running in pcie 1.1 mode.
I had horrible stutter issues with sli on my old lynnfield but then I realised because it was running at pcie 8x/1x because I had a pcie wifi card in there.
Switched to usb wifi and it ran great.
And yes, I realise you're using a single gpu, but a pcie bottleneck is still a bottleneck.
>>51484574
Your monitor shouldn't affect your output
>>51484511
I thought the 960 is $199?
>>51484582
i7 5960x @ 3.0ghz stock
32gb (4x8) Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3000 @ 15 17 17 35 (stock speeds, no XMP, tried XMP and would hang at POST)
Gigabyte GA-X99 UD5
Asus 390x dCUII, have tried various OC's and stock. Currently @ 1125/1665/+63mv. Significant improvement in mins over stock, only gained about 3fps on top end
Win7 Home on 850 Pro 512gb SSD
No component is over 8 months old.
Have completely disassembled and reassembled twice, no change. Have RMA'd card 3x, problem persisted from old 270x from different maker.
>>51484592
Yeah I know. Was really expecting someone to call bullshit on it being 1080p or trying to blame it on me trying to drive a monster TV or something over HDMI.
BTW, it is hooked up via DP.
>>51484630
The fucked up thing is it SMOKES Unigine Heaven, IBT, and just about every other benchmarking software out there. Have recorded over 50 consecutive runs through Heaven at 120+fps, very little variance in the runs.
>>51484582
>>51484679
Yeah click on that question mark next to pcie 16x 1.1
>>51484647
Have you tried running the games without a gpu overclock?
>>51484679
>@x16 1.1
>>51484729
Yeah it goes to proper settings (3.0) when rendering. It's a power saver that I don't know how to turn off. I have validated this with games running.
Yes I have tried running it stock clocks. It's significantly worse on minimum framerate but not much change on max framerate.
>>51477886
I have a PowerColor 380 (4GB)
Let's be friends.
>>51479311
950 for $170? Are we talking USD? Cause you can get a 960 or 280x/380 for that price
>>51484794
Are you using beta or whql drivers?
>>51476823
sapphire does this to AMD late cards, like 290x vapor-x for example
