Edit: Thanks guys I bit the bullet, newegg has a deal on sapphire nitro+ OC RX 480 for $265, I was about to buy battlefield 1 deluxe anyway, so saved $20 there, so sorta kinda not really $245 is what I am paying. Thanks everyone for your help :) always great to have lots of info before dropping large stacks of cash.
Original: Howdy folks, I am currently in the market for a graphics card since I have been using a 750m in my laptop at 900p and gtx 560 (2gb) at 1080p so honestly anything is a major improvement. The RX 480 and gtx 1060 (6gb) are within reach so the 3 options are. 1: $240 XFX RX 480 2: $220 gigabyte gtx 1060 (6gb) windforce 3: $230 gigabyte gtx 1060 (6gb) mini
The reason this is a hard choice to me is that I heard about the Halo 5 Forge water physic issue with nvidia cards, as well as wanting to dig into linux a bit more which I have heard currently does better with the 480. Also just being able to get a freesync monitor for much cheaper than a gsync if I choose to upgrade later on.
The 1060 is a fair deal cheaper for me which obviously is a great thing and from most benchmarks floating around they seem to be basically the same as a 480 when at stock and I dont intent to overclock unless I really need to to get a solid frame rate on something and even then would be minimal. The decision between the 2 1060s is also tough as the mini costs more and would have higher thermals which are negatives but also is a 6pin and short so would be useful in a few years to pass off to family's potatoe PC. Note the long one is an 8pin which is fine for my current rig since I have 2 6pins.
As for actual usage, college student with a steam library nearing 1k games, I dont play many AAA games, with the notable ones being R6 Siege, Payday 2, skyrim (I call it MyRim as its modded to heck), Halo 5 Forge, and maybe some of the xbox one games with the crossplay stuff. Non gaming wise I dont do anything where a GPU would be hit hard, since only playing with paint.net, transcoding some videos, or the occasional 2 minute video montage of this years staff or what not. Current PC listed below HP z800 (note i have another x5670 on hand, but its in something else currently since 6 cores is enough for me) CPU: x5670 RAM: 48GB (6x6 1366mhz ecc Hynix) SSD: 256GB samsung 850 pro PSU: 850watt, 2 6 pins, 1 line of molex
Isn't there cheaper 480s around? In any case an RX 470 is pretty fine as well, but ya I'd maybe stick to AMD if you want adaptive sync, you save minimum $100 right there
If you can link me to a cheaper 8gb rx 480 thatd be great. I can find a reference 8gb 480 for $240 on newegg right now, I didnt see it earlier, so already thank you for reminding me to check again. The choice is becoming harder lol.
Was more a question, pricing and availability are indeed screwed right now, 470s are pretty available at around $200 atm, although I don't see any 1060 6gb models for less than $250
For your use case, I suggest you pitch a tent and wait for a good and well priced 480
EDIT: I'm saying this normally being partial to Nvidia. I don't know why I always feel like saying this. I guess I feel like it would perhaps further legitimize my opinion or something.
What would you consider well priced? is the 4GB vs 8GB model a substantial thing as sorry I havent found much info on that, as seems like everyone reviewing is doing it with 8GB 480s.
Yeah Reviewers do get the more top shelf models. 4 GB isn't bad necessarily, since 1440p and 2160p isn't really too feasible on a 480 (with current APIs) , but I've seen the 8 GB pull out a few more FPS, plus having more ram is just generally good, as not having enough is real real bad. Higher resolutions as well as bad optimization will make 8GB more necessary. And if you use any sort of GPU accelerated non-game program, more ram is real important.
in dx 11 nvidia tends to do better. in dx12 / vulkan amd does better. you seem to be playing mostly dx11 games so i would go with nvidia if i were you. the evga cards are pretty good, and stay away from founders and stock.
I'd personally recommend you go with the 480 over the 1060. It does better in Vulkan and dx12 which are slowly becoming the standard. And it's only a matter of time before the 480 surpasses the 1060 due to driver optimizations (I say this looking at the history of amd vs. nvidia cards over time, this has happened countless times already so I'm inclined to believe history will repeat itself. Though this is also a slight bit of speculation so you can take it with a small grain of salt if you'd like).
From the Linux perspective I would recommend AMD. They have quite up to date open source drivers and will support freesync on it as well. Especially for rolling release distros and compatibility the open source drivers are the way to go. I used to have the proprietary AMD drivers installed, but since AMD shifted to open source everything is less painful and way smoother. Same with Nvidia, but they just don't have as good performing and up to date open source drivers...
For Vulkan etc. games AMD is a relatively future proof card. If you are planning to stick to 1080p the 4gb card should be fine, but for 20$ more I'd honestly take the 8gb version. The upcoming console games are more likely to be AMD optimized, since they have the same GCN architecture inside.
In my opinion Nvidia should only be your choice, if you only care about current dx11 titles. But those can be run by the 480 at 1080p above 60 fps as well....
Definitely get the 480. Linux, vulkan, and open source drivers are the future. You won't have any problems with amd whereas nvidia only works well with proprietary drivers on Linux. Sadly I'm stuck with an evga 980 but I make do. Based off my experience nvidia proprietary has so many compatibility problems just because its proprietary
Amd drivers (AMDGPU-PRO) are crazy bad at this moment with the latest ubuntu....I can't even make them work with my 290x. Bioshock infinite plays good but I can't even launch rocket league and salt and sanctuary.
I've always read that nvidia is the way to go for linux.
That is because the drivers are still only meant to be used with Tonga, Fiji and Polaris chips. I had an RX480 for a week and I have my Fury and AMDGPU-PRO is great on those cards.
I said it multiple times already and I will say it again: I don't like nvidia as a company. They are closing off their stuff more and more. The latest example for that is that you have to create a nvidia account of some sorts to use GFE. So, gameready drivers, shadowplay and all of that, only if you are cool with trading in your soul, basically.
Also I think that the 480 is the better card for 2017 and beyond. I would take a good look at the Sapphire Nitro, it is more expensive but probably worth it.
i think the sapphire card is nice but im concerned with how the heatsink is really thin on the inside like it doesnt go to the edge of the pcb like normal heat sinks ive seen on gpus do
Thanks guys, newegg has a deal on sapphire nitro+ OC RX 480 for $265, I was about to buy battlefield 1 deluxe anyway, so saved $20 there, so sorta kinda not really $245 is what I am paying. Thanks everyone for your help :) always great to have lots of info before dropping large stacks of cash.
Shouldn't be a problem unless it's not touching some of the heat generating componentry. Of course, this IS Sapphire we're talking about who are basically the cream of the crop when it comes to AMD video cards. It's not like the entire pcb needs cooling, just things like power delivery, vram, the gpu itself, etc.
