Upgrading graphics card... decent card for AHIII?

[Warty]

I'm upgrading my older system with the sole goal of getting it working with AHIII. I'm hoping for some recommendations and advice on a middle-of-the-road GPU that would produce decent results. I've seen the following GPUs referenced here in other posts: RX 470 and GTX1050 Ti. Are there other cards I should consider? Any advice on picking between them?

(It's been years since I've looked into graphics cards, so my knowledge is all out of date).

[Bizman]

At the moment it looks like Nvidia is a little faster, a little quieter, a little cooler and uses a little less power than AMD.

The GTX 970 was the best bang for the buck card for "everything maxxed" on a single 1920x1080 monitor, now it looks as the GTX 1060 has taken that post, plus it runs quieter.
The GTX 960 was a good budget card for more than average settings, the 1050 looking very promising in that range. The latter is the first GTX #50 that looks like a good performer in AH3, the 950 may have been a little on the weak side even when compared with the older 670 and 770.

Both the 900 and 1000 series are available.

[Drane]

Check out Tom's Hardware for graphic card info.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gpus,4380.html

[Pudgie]

Warty,

You might want to consider the GTX 1060 series as there are several players who have recently upgraded to these and have reported good results. Most are settling for the 6Gb ones but since you only play AHIII the 3Gb one would be a good buy for you as so far AHIII w\ fairly high graphics settings is showing to use less than 2Gb vid card mem (highest I've seen is a little over 1.4Gb and this was using the vid card driver's AA at the max settings w\ texture filtering set at high.....using the vid card driver settings at default and using the AHIII in-game settings for AA I've seen a little over 1.3Gb vid card mem used which is less).

If AMD is a consideration the Rx 470 would be a good choice but you also may want to wait for the newer Rx 475 series as these Polaris GPU's are reported to be as much as 50% more power efficient outputting the same performance levels as the current Rx 470 Polaris GPU....which means extra OC overhead if warranted. As stated above for the GTX 1060 series you may go for the 4Gb version of any AMD Rx vid card over the 8Gb version to save some dough if all you play is AHIII.

Hope this helps you out.

 

[Rich46yo]

I say get the 1070. You want something you'll be happy with for a few years and its worth spending the few extra $$ to do it. AMD appears to have a lot of performance for the buck but I have no experience with them.

[Warty]

Thanks guys. I think I'll try the 1060... seems like a good card for a couple of years, I'm thinking this whole rig will need a revamp if I ever take a leap into VR land.

But... there are *16* 1060s with 3GB listed on newegg. 16! will it matter much which one I Pick? (if not, i'll just pick one of the $199 ones).

I really like that Tom's hardware link with the kind of "here's the best from each company at this spot in the heirarchy" setup.

[artik]

I have gtx 960 4gb, 1920*1080 screen playing all Max but trees down and environmental mapping to 1 or 0. It works solid 60fps virtually all the time...

[Pudgie]

Thanks guys. I think I'll try the 1060... seems like a good card for a couple of years, I'm thinking this whole rig will need a revamp if I ever take a leap into VR land.

But... there are *16* 1060s with 3GB listed on newegg. 16! will it matter much which one I Pick? (if not, i'll just pick one of the $199 ones).

I really like that Tom's hardware link with the kind of "here's the best from each company at this spot in the heirarchy" setup.

Hi Warty,

This is just me saying this, but I would go w\ the 1 that has provided thermal cooling on the vid card VRM's and mosfets............

The Gigabyte GTX 1060 3Gb WindForce vid card is 1 such card that has designed the cooler to contact the VRM's & mosfets as well as the GPU for cooling. Plus it is a sharp looking vid card w\ a backplate added as well..........but I'm into this kind of stuff...

 

FYI.......................... ......

 

[DaddyAce]

The Gigabyte GTX 1060 3Gb WindForce OC vid card  is the one I went with and am happy with it.  My thoughts were that the 2 fans were worth the small increase in price (tend to run quieter and cooler?), plus I assumed that since the manufacturer overclocked it a bit they must have used a better grade of processor with it.

Good luck with your choice!

[Warty]

Thanks for all the help fellas! I ordered the Gigabyte GTX 1060 3Gb WindForce OC vid card. Sounds like it's going to be great for AHIII.

[Bizman]

Sounds like a well argued choice. The ones with improved cooling have the word "longevity" stamped on them, IMO. 

[MADe]

think ahead, are u donna go VR? or a 4K display?

buy a smidge for into the future.
 

[Pudgie]

The Gigabyte GTX 1060 3Gb WindForce OC vid card  is the one I went with and am happy with it.  My thoughts were that the 2 fans were worth the small increase in price (tend to run quieter and cooler?), plus I assumed that since the manufacturer overclocked it a bit they must have used a better grade of processor with it.

Good luck with your choice!

I've been keeping an eye on the Gigabyte line of vid cards recently due to their build quality and designs.

If I didn't already have this Fury X I would have definitely bought this 1:

http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5956#kf

Gonna wait to see what they come up w\ once Vega 10 comes out...............

 

[Warty]

A little report-out, in case anyone else is in a similar situation, and wants to see what kind of frame rate improvement they might see:

• This is a 2011 custom build system with 4 GB RAM
• With the old radeon card, I was getting between 21 and 30 FPS online.
• With the new 1060 nVidia, I'm getting 55-70 FPS online.
• I also bumped up the distance and detail sliders a bit, and switched from max 1024 to max 2048 textures. Oddly enough, this didn't really seem to change the FPS much in very light testing.

All testing with the DX9 version. I haven't tried running the DX11 version yet. (people report it's slower in general, apparently). 1080p, going to a vizio 42" tv.

Overall, even though the system is from 2011, it is more than playable with this $200 upgrade.

NOTE: it has not solved my stick problems, my view problems, or my pilot-skills problems. I'm particularly worried about that last one, because I've called around, and there doesn't seem to be a reasonably priced upgrade available.

Thanks again everyone for help and suggestions!

[SIK1]

Warty, I made the same basic upgrade. I went from a gtx 480 to a gtx 1060, on an older sytem (E8400, 8GB ddr2 ram). I was able to turn up most of the eye candy and am now running textures at 4096. Flew FSO and maintained 60 fps throughout using dx9. Using a 42" 1080p tv. I did some testing with dx11 and didn't seem to experience any of the issues associated with it. Of  course I didn't test it for very long and the arena wasn't real busy at the time.



Oh and AH is way prettier now.

 
Sik