Best card for $400 - 1080p/i5-4670K

Zero Cool

Limp Gawd
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Feb 28, 2014
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136
I'm giving my buddy my PC (minus the graphics cards) so he can start gaming but I don't know what he should do about a GPU. He's got $400 and a 1080p monitor. The rig in my signature is what he is getting and he's into all the latest games like The Witcher 3, MGS5, GTA5 etc. What do you guys think? Any input would be greatly appreciated!
 
You can get a used 980GTX for that price. Pretty good bang for the buck at $400.
 
EVGA B-stock had some $350-400 980s in the past, otherwise the gtx970 or 390/390x are the best options.
 
970 all day, couldn't find any games i couldn't max at 1080p without a sweat. even at 1440p it plays almost everything on ultra. Good luck!
 
B-Stock GTX980 or a 390x on sale can be found for $400 or less.

If you're in a rush and can't wait for B-Stock or a Sale, then the GTX970 or R9-390. The 390 is preferable, as it's overall faster and actually uses the advertised amount of RAM, not to mention having more than twice as much RAM as the GTX970. Also, the 390s tend to be a bit cheaper and apparently are more prepared for DX12.
 
Hell, I just put an ASUS STRIX GTX 960 4GB card in a new build and it's perfect at 1080P. I'm running a good load playing World of Tanks and seeing 100 FPS give or take. You can get the card for about $220 easy. Plenty of other things to put that money into more useful then a high FPS counter.


1080P = GTX 960 4GB
2K go with a 970 or 980
4K well 980.

Remember the PSU will come into play depending on the choices.
 
That's some lucky friend. Unless he's going for new goods, I've seen used 970s go for as low as $220 on here. I don't think the 980 is worth the extra money having used both. The extra money can be used to buy new accessories. Mouse/keyboard/speakers.
 
I agree with most of the others here. If I wanted to keep my gpu under $400, I'd go with a GTX 970 and be done with it. On the Nvidia side, the GTX 970 and GTX 980 Ti are what I consider the sweet spots as far as price/performance go. Looking into a second SSD (or selling the current ssd and opting for a single 500gb) would be a really solid upgrade also. The $/gb ratio has plummeted lately.

On another note... That's a hell of a system to break into the world of gaming, good on you for sharing the love.
 
You can find a 970 for under $300 and you won't have to worry about a new power supply. It will handle 1080p no problem. Hell even a $100 750ti can do 1080p pretty well.
 
Hell, I just put an ASUS STRIX GTX 960 4GB card in a new build and it's perfect at 1080P. I'm running a good load playing World of Tanks and seeing 100 FPS give or take. You can get the card for about $220 easy. Plenty of other things to put that money into more useful then a high FPS counter.


1080P = GTX 960 4GB
2K go with a 970 or 980
4K well 980.

Remember the PSU will come into play depending on the choices.

My GTX 980-Ti barely does 4k, the GTX 980 is not recommended for that resolution. I picked up my GTX 970 for $240 from B-Stock, it's a much better proposition than a GTX960.
 
XFX HD 7750. I got a new one 3 years ago for $110. Plays Tomb Raider at 42fps on shmedium. Tri-Fire baby. Max out that Dirt: Rally fps. Best part is you only need a single 6 pin for each card. You could use the 4 pin IDE Molex converters even. About as small as a Nano too.
 
XFX HD 7750. I got a new one 3 years ago for $110. Plays Tomb Raider at 42fps on shmedium. Tri-Fire baby. Max out that Dirt: Rally fps. Best part is you only need a single 6 pin for each card. You could use the 4 pin IDE Molex converters even. About as small as a Nano too.
I lol'd
 
It's hard to beat the value of a 970 and will do well at 1080p. It's a good match with the rest of the system. 980 is still a shitty value... might as well get a 980ti if you're spending that much.

AMD.... meh. Kinda a shitty value but there is the 390x if you want to throw them a bone. Used 290x supposively there's good deals and it's about the same as 390x/970.
 
It's hard to beat the value of a 970 and will do well at 1080p. It's a good match with the rest of the system. 980 is still a shitty value... might as well get a 980ti if you're spending that much.

AMD.... meh. Kinda a shitty value but there is the 390x if you want to throw them a bone. Used 290x supposively there's good deals and it's about the same as 390x/970.

390 is a much better card than the GTX970 if you have the space for it. I clocked my 290 to 390 clocks and it stomps my GTX970 almost across the board. The 390 is a better value (they can be found as low as $300) also has more than twice the amount of usable memory and is better prepared for DX12.
 
B-Stock GTX980 or a 390x on sale can be found for $400 or less.

If you're in a rush and can't wait for B-Stock or a Sale, then the GTX970 or R9-390. The 390 is preferable, as it's overall faster and actually uses the advertised amount of RAM, not to mention having more than twice as much RAM as the GTX970. Also, the 390s tend to be a bit cheaper and apparently are more prepared for DX12.

Yep if you can get a 390 for the same price as the 970 the 390 is the better buy. If you want to step up $80-100 you can get 390X for around $400 too. I think both the 390 and 970 are better bang-for-your-buck than the 390X though, especially at 1080p where all of these cards are probably overkill.

The additional memory on the 390 won't make any difference however. TechReport did some testing and 3.5GB of VRAM wasn't an issue even at 4K let alone 1080p. They had to push the resolution above 4K for it to become a problem, and by that point none of the cards were getting playable framerates anyway (even the TITAN X) http://techreport.com/blog/28800/how-much-video-memory-is-enough

I personally got a 970 instead of the 390 mainly because it came with a game I was going to buy anyway (MGS V), which effectively made it a $250 card. Plus I play a lot of Project CARS which runs better on Nvidia. I don't think AMD or Nvidia are bundling their cards with any games right now though.
 
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390 is a much better card than the GTX970 if you have the space for it. I clocked my 290 to 390 clocks and it stomps my GTX970 almost across the board. The 390 is a better value (they can be found as low as $300) also has more than twice the amount of usable memory and is better prepared for DX12.

The DX12 part is a factor to consider. If you plan to OC the 970 evens the field though. The performance differences are definitely negligible... hell I just bought a Fury X out of curiosity/to throw AMD a bone. So far I haven't been disappointed by AMD or nVidia.
 
GTX 980

EVGA usually sells their B stock 980's for 359.00. They are sold out quite often, but have an "auto-notify" option which will email you when they are available.
 
Hell, I just put an ASUS STRIX GTX 960 4GB card in a new build and it's perfect at 1080P.

Remember the PSU will come into play depending on the choices.

1. The 960 is a garbage card at that price point, and can barely run at 1080P settings that would even begin to stress 2GB of Vram..If the card were $180~$200 BEFORE any sales/rebates/discounts then I might agree if you are a Team Green fan, but otherwise as it stands the R380 kills it price/performance wise..

2. Why would he need a new PSU when the old one is handling 980 SLI just fine?:confused::confused:


You can find a 970 for under $300 and you won't have to worry about a new power supply. It will handle 1080p no problem. Hell even a $100 750ti can do 1080p pretty well.

I see you are getting your post count for work up, but I will bite..As mentioned above, why would he need a new PSU when the current one is handling 980 SLI?:confused::confused:
 
Powercolor PCS+ 290X for $298 shipped with a $20 mail in rebate. As a 290x owner, I have yet to run up on anything I cant play at max settings with very good frame rates. Its the same thing as the 390x basically but nearly $100 cheaper.
 
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