Can I get a graphics card recommendation?

Hi everyone,

I'm about to upgrade my ageing graphics card, and as the only game that needs any grunt at all I really play on my PC (it's mainly for work!) is BeamNG, I figured I'd go for one that would benefit it most :^)

So I'm running Windows 10 64 bit, Intel Core i5-4670 CPU @ 3.4Ghz, 8Gb RAM

Current card is a GeForce GTX 460 V2, 1Gb DDR5 and i must say it did used to be able to semi cope with BeamNG but then I didn't play for a while (maybe 3 or 4 updates passed... maybe more!) and after i updated last night the game really is chugging and the fan on the card is going wild!

Any suggestions are very gratefully received :^)

 

A GTX 750 Ti or a 960/970 would go really well with that setup. I have a similar setup as you (including same CPU generation) and a GTX 750 Ti Superclocked, and I can run BeamNG nicely at 60fps (1080p normal settings).

 

budget?

 

Hi gigawert,
Ah good to hear! I actually found a 4Gb GTX 960 for a really good price that I was eyeing up! But as you can probably tell, I know nothing about whether that's good or not haha!
60fps sound great to me! Thanks a lot for the info :^)
--- Post updated ---
Hi SixSixSevenSeven,
Um, not sure! Helpful, i know! I don't want to spend a ton because as i said, not a huge PC gamer. So i'm not looking for bleeding edge super cards!
I'm in the UK so, i guess up to maybe £180 is fine.

 

Wait until GTX 1070 start shipping. Everything else will be crazy cheap as all the enthusiasts sell off their 970s, 770s and 280Xs and go for the 1070.

Even if you're dead set on a 960, at least wait a bit.

Happy hunting!

 

Not bad advice that randomshortguy :^)

I'm not all that fussy about getting the absolute lowest price though. I'd rather get a card by the end of the week so I can actually play the game.

I'm guessing a lot of stuff was added since my last update (and also i run two monitors since the last time i played... though only running the game on one! I have no idea if it has multi-screen support!) because i could merrily race about before but now, yeah... it is seriously chugging. I have to turn the res way down to the lowest 16:9 one on offer and turn the settings way down and even then it's not what i;d call smooth.

 

I also use a 460v2 and last update jumped my FPS hugely.
But yeah that money will get you a 960, when they go on sale an AMD Radeon 480 may also be a good option though I dont know when that will be sadly.

 

Ah ok, fair enough! I guess it's just a sign I need to upgrade :^)
Yeah, I found a 4Gb 960 for £160 so I think I'll grab that and try out the new vehicles that turned up since I last played :^D

 

So, converted to US dollars (what I use), your budget in USD is $260.

After thinking, my recommendation is an R9 380. My particular 380 is a 4 GB MSI OC card. The exact model is the 4GD5T OC. Runs a huge map like the newly released Mammoth Valley, the highest quality version (trees, snowflakes, everything) at 55-60 FPS 95% of the time. I don't need anything higher than that since my monitor only goes up to 60 Hz. With my i5-6500, it starts to chug a tiny bit when you start to have 4 or 5 vehicles, but anything lower than that on a map like East Coast, USA for example this card runs beautifully. (runs many other games at 60 FPS as well, like Skyrim even on Ultra)

The price for the exact model I have ranged from around $200-275 USD, but I got mine on sale about 3 months ago on Newegg for about $180, and right now it is about $200-205 on Newegg right now. Even at Walmart and eBay it's about $270.

 

you should know we pay a large premium on compuing components versus US counterparts.

 

blueshift, thanks for that! The more input the better :^)
I found that card for about £13 more than the GeForce 960 I found. I wonder what the performance gap is? (time to hit google!!)

 

R9 280X is what I have, it works quite well with 4 cars spawned, any more and it's a bit too much but they're cheap on eBay, last I checked they were 150$. Cheaper if you buy them if they used to bitcoin mine but I would avoid those cards. I am unsure if they are the same prices in the UK.

 

I'd recommend R9 380 4GB (MSI/Sapphire) over any GTX 960, I had both in my PC, and well 380 win this battle. Price is almost the same, while you have visible better performance. I've OCed mine pretty high, and don't have troubles with it, didn't had troubles with OCed 960 too, but my framerate in games with disabled GameWorks was around 10-15% higher. But if you're not in hurry I'd wait for RX 480 for 2 reasons, 1 if you'll have enough money for it (199USD + taxes + USD/Pound conversion) it will be faster than GTX 970 or maybe even (depends on source) faster than GTX 980, for less price, but if it will no be that good, or you'd like to spent less money it's worth waiting anyway, because all cards will became cheaper. Who would buy used GTX 970 or R9 390 for 250 USD if brand new RX 480 will be faster.

 

I personally wouldnt on the basis I have only had bad experiences with numerous AMD GPUs.
But even so, I couldnt recommend a 380, I'd recommend waiting a few weeks and getting a 480 which is more powerful for less money, albeit not much more powerful, but you cant argue with it having a TDP lower than NVidias cards when the 380 has a TDP of a small nuclear reactor and certainly cant argue with the price.

 

I'll be honest, it took me a week or two to get all the crashes to stop, of course I built my computer and had windows 10 when it just came out on it immediately so that was the probable cause, but I have had way more luck than on my 750ti (sold to a friend) and what I mean in luck is occasionally you would get crashes on the 750ti, now I don't.