When to upgrade GPU.

pcuser

Hi Everyone,

I built my 1st PC in December and used an i5 4460 and GTX 950.Im planning on upgrading the GPU soon enough but im not too sure if I should buy now or hold out a few months until new cards come out.


As im still new to gaming PCs im not too sure if its worth waiting around for.Is there much of an improvement that it is worth waiting for I. Or should I wait and hope that I can pick up a GTX 980 at a much lower price when the new cards come out?

I have a corsair 450W PSU and my budget is around €400.

Xenoronin

Sit on that wallet for a bit. The 950 is grand for 1080p in most games medium/high (with lower settings on the latest games). The performance jump should be pretty big this time so give it a few months. We are still waiting on real info on both AMD and nVidia so we can't link anything more than leaks and rumors. The performance upgrade will come from the pretty dramatic die strink from the 28nm node all the way down to the 16 and 14nm node. To put that simply, you can fit more transistors into the same space. There are additional difficulities with die shrinking so it isn't simply double the number but it's pretty close.

AMD seem set to take a lead this time around if they get things right, but nVidia are being pretty close lipped about things so it's hard to tell.

If you can't wait, then a GTX 970 is an excellent card (Yes, there is a slight issue where 256mb of the 4gb of VRAM is inaccessible but you won't notice that). The AMD alternative is the R9 390, I think it comes in 4 and 8gb variants. AMD have been pushing to optimise their cards for DX12 so the 390 is a little more future proof than the GTX 970.

pcuser

Thank you for the reply.

Il hold out a bit longer

Dave_The_Sheep

I'm in the same boat. I've been saving up and plan to dump about €2,000 into a new gaming build (original plan was this month). I've been keeping an eye on 980ti prices, but if the new cards are going to be as far ahead as claimed/expected I'd obviously be better off waiting.

Question is, when are the new cards coming out - if it's this time next year, I can't be arsed waiting. Not even sure I'd bother waiting until Christmas. Anyone know any release dates (even if they're complete estimates)...

Digital Solitude

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

I'm in the same boat. I've been saving up and plan to dump about €2,000 into a new gaming build (original plan was this month). I've been keeping an eye on 980ti prices, but if the new cards are going to be as far ahead as claimed/expected I'd obviously be better off waiting.

Question is, when are the new cards coming out - if it's this time next year, I can't be arsed waiting. Not even sure I'd bother waiting until Christmas. Anyone know any release dates (even if they're complete estimates)...

Summer from nVidia and Autumn from AMD, no confirmation so take it with a pinch of salt

Eoinmc97

Q2 2016 is the contension period DS, mobile chips from AMD are expected in early June and then Computex might be the paper launch.
Given Pascal's no show for the entire year now (Drive PX2 doesn't count in my books, considering Toyota engineers worked on it too) it might be paper Launch for nVidia too.
In terms of what cards are being launched, we have come to a halt in what chips are actually being launched.
AMD's design according to Raja Khodouri is based on shutting off cores through electric path routing. Literally, any chip could be another one if the paths could ever be unlocked.
nVidia is using a method similar to Maxwell, in just 'cutting' down the chip. Whilst nVidia claim a 970 memory fiasco will never happen again....well I'll hold my breath.

Dave_The_Sheep

I speak English, and I'm also much more tech savvy than the general population. However, my relative noobishness in terms of pc building means that I read you entire post, Eoinmc, and not really have a clue what you're actually saying.

Digital Solitude

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

I speak English, and I'm also much more tech savvy than the general population. However, my relative noobishness in terms of pc building means that I read you entire post, Eoinmc, and not really have a clue what you're actually saying.

I'm seen as knowledgeable around these parts and I only understood every second or third word when read independently, as a whole I'm just as lost as you are :pac:

TerrorFirmer

I'm a dab hand in ancient Aramaic, but that post...

Xenoronin

Dave said that he might not be bothered waiting due to delays.
Digital said the new cards are estimated at arriving around summer this year.
Eoin just stated (in a roundabout way) that this year will be a paper launch only, the cards themselves (probably) won't be released and we have no timeframe yet for an actual hardware launch (and then continued into a discussion to nobody but himself about electric path routing for some reason).

One point I failed to address in my original post above was the cost of picking up a second hand card on the cheap when the new cards are released. At that point, prices for second hand cards may actually increase. I haven't enough knowledge in this area, but I am going to assume that supply and demand will both increase and any difference in buying second hand now, and by the time new cards arrive will be negligible.

Eoinmc97

Yeah sorry guys, I'm not clear entirely either on what is going to happen. Basically, the chips this year are scaleable on the AMD side. Which means the usual stuff of 'unlocking' shader cores is bound to happen again through modders tinkering around. We have no idea what GPUs are launching, as Polaris 10 and 11 go all the way upto to the Fury X in terms of shader counts, AMD just turns some off to make a less powerful card.
nvidia is still following it's old method of cutting card dies and turning off blocks of Cuda cores. Whether a 970 fiasco occurs again will be difficult to predict.
So, is there a point of waiting? Maybe, if only just to find out what the story is.
I'll try to be more clear in the future!