Waste if money?

safehaven

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 28, 2008
Messages
217
I need a video card to drive my two 32” UHD monitors. There is a deal going right now for XFX 5700 and 5700xt. I’m suspecting maybe that is too much video card for my current rig and I’d be pissing money away. Thoughts and insights??


Intel Core i5-4690K CPU
Asus Z97-A Intel Z97 Motherboard
2 x Kingston HyperX Blu KHX1600C10D3B1/8G 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM
Samsung 840 Evo Series 250GB SSD
XFX TS Series XFX TS 550W PSU
Cooler Master Seidon 120V Liquid Cooling System

CPU is OCed, don’t remember to what though.
 
Up to you and what you want to do. If you game at all it's worth it to pickup a 5700xt. If this is just to drive two displays while you do office apps, then you could get by with like a 1050 or lower.
 
It really depends on what you play. If you play anything Frostbite (ie Battlefield), then the 4-core i5 will be a bottleneck. I noticed that big time when I upgraded my video card from an R9 280X to a GTX1070Ti with my previous rig based on an i5-4670K, but other titles using other engines ran significantly better. Some engines are taking advantage of more cores more than others, it seems, and I read that Frostbite in particular is designed to take advantage of 6 cores.

How big is the deal vs MSRP?
 
It really depends on what you play. If you play anything Frostbite (ie Battlefield), then the 4-core i5 will be a bottleneck. I noticed that big time when I upgraded my video card from an R9 280X to a GTX1070Ti with my previous rig based on an i5-4670K, but other titles using other engines ran significantly better. Some engines are taking advantage of more cores more than others, it seems, and I read that Frostbite in particular is designed to take advantage of 6 cores.

How big is the deal vs MSRP?

Bottlenecking on my older gear is what I was really thinking might be an issue. I should have clarified.
 
Bottlenecking on my older gear is what I was really thinking might be an issue. I should have clarified.

If you do any gaming at all, Under $300 is a very for a RX 5700 is a very good deal, and the base card runs cooler than the XT so isn't so bad with AMD's blower cooler.
 
I know, I saw that right away. I tried to edit it, but it doesn’t let you edit the title.

Actually, I believe you can edit the thread title... when you're viewing your post, on the top of the thread should be an option that says "Watch Thread"... to the left should say "Thread Tools", and clicking on that should give you the option to edit thread. Then you can edit the Title.

thread.JPG
 
It's not too much vid card for your current rig. A nice OC on the cpu would keep you chugging for a while.
 
Well if you are budgeting for this, I would buy some type of upgrade. It will be a big step up for you.
 
No such thing as too much video card.

I agree.
My motto is get exactly what you want so you dont have any regrets. Even if it means breaking the bank a little :D
If you nab a 5700/xt at a sweet price now you can kick back and enjoy the added frames while you take your time configuring your new rig.
 
No such thing as too much video card.
It is dumb as hell to buy a video card that will perform no better than a cheaper one will because the rest of the system is not up to snuff. Pairing a 5700xt with an old 4 core/ 4 thread cpu would be beyond stupid. That cpu will be fully pegged nearly the whole time in most modern games and cant even hold 50 fps never mind 60 in some titles. Even in many games where the fps seems fine you would get hitching and just panning around would be a little stuttery.
 
I agree.
My motto is get exactly what you want so you dont have any regrets. Even if it means breaking the bank a little :D
If you nab a 5700/xt at a sweet price now you can kick back and enjoy the added frames while you take your time configuring your new rig.
There is no logic in that if he does not have plans to upgrade the cpu very soon. If he does not upgrade the cpu for a year or so then we will have faster cards out for less money and he would have accomplished nothing at all as a cheaper card would have given him the same playable performance that whole time anyway. The absolute minimum cpu needed for modern gaming is newer 4 core/ 8 thread cpu and even that will not keep 60 fps the whole time in all games. No way would I personally pair a 5700 or better with anything less than a modern 6 core/ 12 thread cpu at this point.
 
Hahaha. Logic? Thats what you consider logic? Newer cards for less money? Shit man i want in on some of that logic! Lay off the whateverthefuck your smokin bob. New cards ALWAYS cost more bob! You got some inside track shit youd like to lay on the rest of us?
Its kind of obvious(at least to me) that whatever he upgrades to will be running in his new system for a good longtime. So he may as well go with a SOLID mid range gpu like a 5700/xt vs a low end placeholder that will inevitably drag his cpu/mb/mem upgrade down and leave him regretting it. Yep thats solid advice...
Wheres the logic in that bob?
 
Hahaha. Logic? Thats what you consider logic? Newer cards for less money? Shit man i want in on some of that logic! Lay off the whateverthefuck your smokin bob. New cards ALWAYS cost more bob! You got some inside track shit youd like to lay on the rest of us?
Its kind of obvious(at least to me) that whatever he upgrades to will be running in his new system for a good longtime. So he may as well go with a SOLID mid range gpu like a 5700/xt vs a low end placeholder that will inevitably drag his cpu/mb/mem upgrade down and leave him regretting it. Yep thats solid advice...
Wheres the logic in that bob?
Well thanks for proving exactly what I thought about you when it comes to having any sense at all. So in that brain of yours you think newer faster cards "always" cost more money? Even this crappy over priced generation of cards still gave you more performance for the dollar except for some of the RTX cards. And before this generation we typically got pretty big increase for LESS money. An example would be the gtx 1060 which matched the gtx 980 for less than half the price. Someone with a cpu too slow to push the gtx 980 with no intentions to upgrade their cpu soon would have accomplished nothing but wasting money as a gpu just as fast for half the money came out before they even upgraded their cpu to take advantage of the gpu they bought for twice the price. AGAIN it makes way more sense to get a gpu that your cpu can actually get pretty good use out of if you dont intend to upgrade the cpu anytime soon. Sure if you are planning on upgrading the cpu in the next few months then get the fastest gpu as long as your cpu is at least decent and there is not a new line of gpus launching right around the corner. So no way in hell would I suggest someone with an old 4 core/ 4 thread cpu get a 5700 or faster if they dont plan on a new cpu very soon.
 
Last edited:
Had a similar setup as the OP. Built it around 2014 (i5-4690K, Z97 ASUS mobo, GTX 970, etc.). A bit long in the tooth now, but still capable for some newish games and clearly older ones.
 
Sigh, his last gpu is from 2012 bob...chances are pretty good he will hold on to his next gpu for that long. So what makes better sense, a current mid range card that will continue to be relevant for 2-3 years minimum or something even slower that will potentially be irrelevant almost immediately. Hes already alluded to liking the 5700 and price to perfomance its top notch. Its a solid choice period. Particularly running a pair of 32in monitors with it. There is nothing wrong with him leaving a little on the table until he upgrades the rest of his rig. So what if its next year. He will have the luxury of building and configuring his rig knowing his gpu is set.
Ive no idea why you are so hung up on his quadcore? Even if he waits another year to upgrade the rest of his rig his cpu is no dog. This, omg its not a cutting edge 6c 12t proc so its junk line of thinking is just false. Sure its not a 3600 or 8700 but Its still a viable cpu and obviously its doing what hes asking of it...anyhow im not going to waste anymore time yappin away with you. Ive made my point and hopefully safehaven has found it useful.
We will have to agree to disagree.
 
Sigh, his last gpu is from 2012 bob...chances are pretty good he will hold on to his next gpu for that long. So what makes better sense, a current mid range card that will continue to be relevant for 2-3 years minimum or something even slower that will potentially be irrelevant almost immediately. Hes already alluded to liking the 5700 and price to perfomance its top notch. Its a solid choice period. Particularly running a pair of 32in monitors with it. There is nothing wrong with him leaving a little on the table until he upgrades the rest of his rig. So what if its next year. He will have the luxury of building and configuring his rig knowing his gpu is set.
Ive no idea why you are so hung up on his quadcore? Even if he waits another year to upgrade the rest of his rig his cpu is no dog. This, omg its not a cutting edge 6c 12t proc so its junk line of thinking is just false. Sure its not a 3600 or 8700 but Its still a viable cpu and obviously its doing what hes asking of it...anyhow im not going to waste anymore time yappin away with you. Ive made my point and hopefully safehaven has found it useful.
We will have to agree to disagree.
well a quad core isnt relevant anymore since 2016 it isnt enough for some games, and the older it gets the worse it will handle games, so in fact having a quad core and thinking is fine, seem rediculous a 4c 8t cpu struggles with some games like BF V/Metro Exodus to name some
 
well a quad core isnt relevant anymore since 2016 it isnt enough for some games, and the older it gets the worse it will handle games, so in fact having a quad core and thinking is fine, seem rediculous a 4c 8t cpu struggles with some games like BF V/Metro Exodus to name some

Ill be sure to tuck that brilliant bit away for the bazillion quadcore users that dominate the gaming environ. You know... The ones that think its fine. And yes ill be sure to enlighten them as to how ridiculous their rigs are... In some games.
 
Sigh, his last gpu is from 2012 bob...chances are pretty good he will hold on to his next gpu for that long. So what makes better sense, a current mid range card that will continue to be relevant for 2-3 years minimum or something even slower that will potentially be irrelevant almost immediately. Hes already alluded to liking the 5700 and price to perfomance its top notch. Its a solid choice period. Particularly running a pair of 32in monitors with it. There is nothing wrong with him leaving a little on the table until he upgrades the rest of his rig. So what if its next year. He will have the luxury of building and configuring his rig knowing his gpu is set.
Ive no idea why you are so hung up on his quadcore? Even if he waits another year to upgrade the rest of his rig his cpu is no dog. This, omg its not a cutting edge 6c 12t proc so its junk line of thinking is just false. Sure its not a 3600 or 8700 but Its still a viable cpu and obviously its doing what hes asking of it...anyhow im not going to waste anymore time yappin away with you. Ive made my point and hopefully safehaven has found it useful.
We will have to agree to disagree.
Yep we will definitely disagree. I just upgraded from an oced 4770k so I might have some actual real world perspective instead of just talking out of my rear end. Even my overclocked 4770k could not maintain 60fps in some games and when I tested several games with hyper-threading off the performance was quite stuttery and the CPU was pretty much pegged in nearly all modern games. In some of the more CPU heavy games I was dropping into the 40s when using just 4 cores without HT. So yes I definitely feel that buying a 5700xt to stick with an older 4 core/ 4 thread cpu that is not even capable of maintaining 60 or even 50 fps in some newer games is stupid.
 
Last edited:
Ill be sure to tuck that brilliant bit away for the bazillion quadcore users that dominate the gaming environ. You know... The ones that think its fine. And yes ill be sure to enlighten them as to how ridiculous their rigs are... In some games.
There are people with even worse systems that think they're fine because they don't know any better or they really don't give a damn. That absolutely changes nothing about an older 4 core/ 4 thread CPU not being very suitable for using with something like a 5700 XT.
 
If your not gaming get something much cheaper... If you are gaming, I would stay away from the OEM blower style cards if you want AMD based cards. Solid deal, just noisy and loud...
 
Get the 5700xt card it is pretty decent card. I put mine on water and never looked back.
 
4690k is fine with a 5700 for the vast majority of games if all you want is 60Hz.

I have a 4690k/1070ti in a rig. Hell, I ran a 2080ti with a Ryzen 1400 and it held 60Hz in a lot of games lol.

5700s are pretty cheap and it’ll be night and day from what he has now.
 
Last edited:
Bottlenecking on my older gear is what I was really thinking might be an issue. I should have clarified.

Can't talk about bottlenekc without looking at the workload
You hardware itself has no bottlenecks when it does nothing. it can do and infinty amount of nothing
Once it had to do something the ressoruce ratio needes vs the ressources ratio you have is what determines where you bottleneck is

In a situaion where you have no goa ltreshold AKA no maximum FPS you want to reach. ( more is always "better") then you will always have a bottleneck. it just a question of where.


TLDR: You question is logically flawed ans thereby has no answer
 
I'd go 5700 and flash to xt bios. Gives within 1-2% performance and $60 less.

At 1440p you shouldn't be too cpu bottlenecked and you can put that extra $70 towards a used i7 to alleviate it since bob is so convinced that those extra 4 threads will make a huge difference.
 
OP, I was in a similar boat a couple years ago, 4690k @ 4.5GHz with a GTX 970, before going GTX 1080 on the same proc, before going up to a 7700k @ 4.8GHz, all on my sig monitor and I certainly wouldn't consider it a waste of money to upgrade your GPU to the best you can afford/are willing to spend. You'll notice your lows won't change much in the CPU-heavy areas (because that will be your bottleneck), but your average and high end FPS's will certainly increase by a noticible amount (more so on the higher end.) Do expect a large delta at times, but for the most part, you'll certainly be satisfied.

Pair that with a decent processor upgrade down the road (take your pick) and you'll see those lows increase a considerable amount, average will increase a little further, but don't expect much more on the top end.

Upgrading both at the same time isn't do-able for some, and I get it, but upgrading the graphics card will definitely be the more "bang for your buck" option.
 
Back
Top