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Im no pc expert but have built a gaming pc with my son using advice from here and pc part picker ( their AMD budget gaming pc build ). But we can't find a budget GPU anywhere. We are looking to spend £175 for a core speed of 1530 MHz and boost speed of 1740 MHz. Can anyone advise us on why they are all out of stock, the best places to look, whether second hand is viable, and would a cheap one work in a gaming pc ( as a stop gap until the better ones come back in stock ). Thanks
You might get a GTX 1650 (not Core speed) for that.
Have a read into the number formats for Nvidia and AMD Radeon.
Don't get too into core speeds, it's the card series you need to look at.
Nvidia are on RTX 3xxx series now, but mega bucks, and very short supply.
My daughter is using a GTX 970 donated from y son on her Ryzen build, as he went for a RTX 2770 back in the summer. We did a deal as it worked out cheaper if I bought the 970 for my daughter's build. She doesn't do VR and racing sims that need the horsepower, although the 970 is a very good card.
Here you go !
Aria are good.
thanks fossy, which one would you recommend - I have no idea and have been using pc part picker to make my decisions ...
Actually, only the first one is in stock that makes the decision easier!
Have a look on the web site.
Stocks seem really low at the moment.
Nvidia went 9xx, then 1xxx, then 2xxx and now 3xxx
The 1650 is the lower end o the 1xxx range, but try and stick in budget - what will your son be playing as some cards are over £1k ?
My son's RTX 2070 was £400 in the summer, but I paid him £200 for his old 970 and a power supply to go into his sister's machine as she doesn't play the same demading games (he has VR).
A 1650 will play most games in 1080p in high detail well.
I don't have the answer but...
We are looking to spend £175 for a core speed of 1530 MHz and boost speed of 1740 MHz.
... is the wrong question. You've got half a solution already formed despite admitting you "have no idea," where have you pulled those really rather specific numbers from?
If you want to play eg. Minecraft or Fortnite then say so, it'll enable people to better advise.
Cougar, those were the numbers of the GPU that pc part picker was recommending when the GPUs were in stock at that price in early December.He wants to play war zone, Cold War, fort nite, rocket league but mainly multi player shooting games - his words, not mine!
My answer was exactly at the 'logicalincrements' web site answer for a 'fair' system. GTX 1650
I have a Radeon RX590 and it would play those games really well at 1080p. I play Forza Horizon 4 and get 100fps+ on mostly the highest detail settings. That’s with a Ryzen 5 2600x CPU and 16gb ram.
Is it the card that controls FPS, what is the minimum recommended for gaming GPUs - my son is very focused on this number!
Good to get a Radeon user on too.
OP spend a little time understanding the series numbers on the cards of both makes. Then find one that has the highest number for the budget. Don't worry too much about the core speeds as the series/generation number is more important.
Some older cards will run at the speeds you were quoted, but a newer card is faster. Those games will be fine in HD - normal monitor/TV resolutions on a £175 card for some time.
The problem with 'gamers' is it's not 'enough'- it's a bit like SLX being perfectly great, XT a little better then XTR wallet busting.
The issue with PC gaming is that it can be expensive.
The cards mention will run minecraft with loads of add-ons/packs really well (one my daughter plays). It won't run Microsoft Flight Sim well.
My son ran VR on his 970 really well, but his PC was quite beefy, if 4-5 years old) - it runs even better now with the 2070. A 1060 is a fair bit faster than a 970, and that was an expensive card a few years ago, and is still getting high second hand values.
Is it the card that controls FPS, what is the minimum recommended for gaming GPUs – my son is very focused on this number!
It’s all about being balanced. There’s no point in having a top end processor and a lame graphics card if you want to play games as the processor will be able to throw lots of info at the graphics card but it won’t be able to output the frames very quick. Likewise a £1000 graphics card won’t get enough data from a low end CPU to make it worthwhile.
My 2600x is a 6 core 12 thread processor which is fairly mid range for most normal folk, and a RC590 is low to mid range in the grand scheme of things. Would probably be a £800 pc bought on its own. So they are quite balanced. I paired them with a 512mb m.2 SSD and a 1tb mechanical drive, the m.2 drive holds my OS and most played games so they load faster. I’ll probably upgrade the mechanical drive to an SSD soon as well.
Be mindful that some games can use memory a fair bit, sometimes a bit above the standard 8gb ram, so go for 16gb as it’ll have a lot more headroom and be a bit more future proofed too, would make the computer better for other stuff than gaming too.
Another slight issue is that if you are playing fast paced games make sure your monitor has a fast response time otherwise the lag of the cheapo monitor may hinder their results!
I have a 144hx Illyama Freesync gaming monitor which is awesome and wasn’t expensive for a 1080p 24” monitor.
Using a TV can be really awful.
Bascially, go for the latest (highest) series number card you can get for the budget.
CPU's and GPU's aren't going 'much' faster these days, but they are running more cores and literally do stuff quicker. I'd look at benchmark tests.
But, you'll get a good enough card for £175.
Thanks all, lots to investigate - it makes choosing headsets look easy!
+1 for 1 Nvidia 1600 series card, if you can find one. It's a really crappy time to buy a GPU.
The problem at the moment is that Nvidia have just brought out their 3000 series, but only the higher end cards. The 1600 series was essentially the lower end variants of the previous 2000 series, but the equivalent has not came out yet for the 3000 series. However I believe, production has ended or has at least been scaled back as the product is reaching end of life.
There's rumors of a 3050 being released in the near future which should be relatively affordable and offer some serious bang for buck, but that's at least a few months out.
AMD are in exactly the same boat as well.
It’s a bit weird that I could sell my current graphics card for more than I bought it for a year ago!
Also, re FPS, you want at least 60 FPS for most games to run smoothly. If the build can support it, a 144Hz monitor is fractionally smoother.
Typically on a gaming rig, it will be the graphics card that will bottleneck the system and therefore limit FPS. The other components that can typically do it are CPU, system RAM and the power supply, but unless there's a serious component level mismatch or you're playing very CPU intensive games, that doesn't happen.
My other piece of advice with a gaming pc is to try and budget a gold series power supply, they're generally much more reliable and a PSU is the one component that can fry an entire PC if it goes.
Sold my MSI GTX 970 a week ago, listed it with a buy it now of £95 thinking that was a tiny bit rich and someone bit my arm off in minutes, suspect I shoud have been greedier.
Gone up to a 1080 and it's lurvely, warzone look amazing.
Someone on here said to go for the 1650 super instead of the 1650. A few more pounds but a lot faster.
Sold my MSI GTX 970 a week ago, listed it with a buy it now of £95 thinking that was a tiny bit rich and someone bit my arm off in minutes, suspect I shoud have been greedier.
its over 2 years since i sold the same card, £95 was all i got for it then. may have lasted me longer at 1080 but was really starting to struggle at 1440.
replaced it with a vega64 which so far copes well with all settings maxed out.
sorry, thats not much help to OP but i tend to find with pc stuff spending more on higher end parts gets a longer life out of them plus they are still worth a bit when you do eventually upgrade.
Is it the card that controls FPS, what is the minimum recommended for gaming GPUs – my son is very focused on this number!
That being the case, if it were me I'd nip this in the bud and buy him a console.
If he was in any way actually "focused on numbers" in any sort of relevant fashion as a PC gamer then he'd already know what card he wanted for the given budget and you wouldn't need this thread. The fact you have to ask suggests to me that this isn't the case and so he needs to stop whining about frame rates. This path rarely ends well.
Ha! Wall of information to sift through here, OP. Good luck.
For what it's worth 2nd hand is the only place you'll get even close to reasonable prices at the moment. As above, GTX1650/1660/super are the sweet spot GPUs at the moment. I'd look on Facebook Marketplace, things tend to be a bit cheaper there. e.g. for Christmas I bought my dad a flight stick & throttle for £70, on eBay they were £200+.
Also re: additional memory. If you're going to do that then I'd definitely suggest getting EXACTLY the same spec as the 8GB you already have. Same manufacturer, same model, same clock speed - e.g. if you have Patriot Viper Steel 8GB 3000MHz, don't stick in a Corsair Vengeance 8GB 2666MHz. Mix & match can cause some compatibility/running issues - not always but not really worth chancing it.
That being the case, if it were me I’d nip this in the bud and buy him a console.
If he was in any way actually “focused on numbers” in any sort of relevant fashion as a PC gamer then he’d already know what card he wanted for the given budget and you wouldn’t need this thread. The fact you have to ask suggests to me that this isn’t the case and so he needs to stop whining about frame rates.
Or, you know, realise that he's a just kid who's probably latched on to FPS as a measure of how good a PC is from youtube gaming channels. Instead of opting for Cougar's "easy way out" take this focus and run with it, use it as a bonding experience as you and your son learn even more about PCs than you already have in building one together, and let it grow into a real genuine passion for the both of you.
It’s a bit weird that I could sell my current graphics card for more than I bought it for a year ago!
The world has gone mad!
I’ve just looked... The GTX 1060 Ti that I put in my step-son’s computer 2 Christmases ago, I could sell it for more 2nd hand now than I bought it for new! 😮
His mum just bought him a 4K Monitor for Christmas this year, to replace his ageing 1080 screen... I have a feeling he’ll be wanting a new card again soon, but this time to get anything with a meaningful performance advantage is going to cost an arm and a leg!
Just coming back to say thanks for all the advice. I didn't say that the pc is fully built except for the graphics card with a Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 and 16G of RAM. Im quite surprised at my son's patience but based on the above, he is going to wait for the 1650 super cards to come back into stock which, hopefully, will be about 2 weeks - I wish I had that patience when I really wanted something
Claudia - just seen this thread, if it’s any interest I have put a GeForce gtx 1060 6GB card on the classifieds this afternoon. Just removed from my sons pc.
If it’s something you are interested in for your son will help with price to get up and running sooner.
Chris
His mum just bought him a 4K Monitor for Christmas this year, to replace his ageing 1080 screen…
Oh crap, now go and find out how much it’ll cost for a graphics card which will run 60fps on a 4k monitor on a recent or new game - ouch!!!!
The 1060 6GB is between 11 and 27% better performance than a 1650, so that is a good offer for the used one at £170.
Hello sidders34, thanks for the offer but we are going to hold out for the 1650 super cards to come back into stock
We have finally finished our first pc build. Sourcing a new graphics card was hard work as demand is far in excess of available stock. Really enjoyed the whole process and learnt a lot. Biggest lesson was when using pc part picker for a gaming pc they assume you are going to use an Ethernet cable ... My sons pc is a long way from the router so we have now learnt about pci express wifi cards! Anyway all up and running now. Thanks to all for advice plus singletrack as a whole for the various threads that gave us the confidence to attempt it!
What was the final spec, and what GFX card did you end up with?
This is pc part picker's budget AMD gaming build but the graphics card is upgraded and it includes the pic express wifi card
LG UltraGear 24GL600F 23.6 Inch (1920 x 1080) TN Display - 1ms 144 Hz Radeon Fsync HDMI DP
AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6 Core (Socket AM4) CPU
Gigabyte B450M H AMD Socket AM4 Motherboard ( without wifi !)
ASUS GeForce GTX 1660 Phoenix OC 6GB GDDR5 VR Ready Graphics Card
PNY XLR8 16GB (2x 8GB) 3200MHz DDR4 RAM
S12III 550 - Non-Modular PC Power Supply - 80 PLUS Bronze - 550 Watts
PNY CS900 480GB Internal SSD Series 2.5 SATA III, BLACK
Gigabyte GC-WB1733D-I ,1733Mbps AC Wireless PCIe Adapter + Bluetooth 5
Cooler Master MasterBox Q300L - mATX Mini Tower Case with Full Side Panel Display
mboy
Free MemberThe world has gone mad!
I’ve just looked… The GTX 1060 Ti that I put in my step-son’s computer 2 Christmases ago, I could sell it for more 2nd hand now than I bought it for new! 😮
Christ, you're not wrong... I've got an old R9 380 knocking about, just checked on ebay and they're selling for actual money despite being a thousand years old. And I replaced that with a Vega 56 which is still in the machine and which was already a bit old when I bought it and yep, used values are higher than I paid for it new.
Yup, my 5600XT is now worth £200 more than I paid for it a month ago. Bonkers.
I just looked at the prices for the ASUS ROG Strix OC GTX 1070 8GB I bought second hand 2 years ago. Its worth more now,crazy.
Covid supply chain issues + lockdown demand has made the market absolutely crazy.
Unfortunately any graphics card with 4GB VRAM is now in demand for e-currency miners (Ethereum being the biggest threat). If the prices dip, then it might suddenly free the market up.
Pretty much all you can buy at the moment are 1650/1660 variants.
1650 Super seems to be the best value.
This chart is arranged in value order - but is american, so stock levels and prices are a little different (but not much).
https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_value.html
Bonkers at the moment. I've just built a new PC for work (involves video editing, 3D work, etc) and I can't actually buy a decent GPU to go it in, so I'm moving my old 1050 Ti over for now until things settle. Crazy situation.
Just checked mine, an RX480 8gb - no spring chicken but basically the same performance as an RX580 8gb or a GTX1060 6gb...
The priced bounced for them not long after I bought one as they are good mining cards, but I think now the inflated price is also due to covid/brexit/supply chain issues.
Same with buying bikes, or other PC parts - lots of peole moaning you can't buy the power supply you want, it's more of a case of buy what's in stock or go without. It's not quite as bad with PSUs as you can usualy find something pretty simmilar to what you want.
I've ended up with a old overpriced (a bit cheaper than the big names) MSI 1050 Ti because of this shortage. My existing card fried itself last week.
Was going to buy from Aria PC but they shut their showroom a couple of years ago after some dodgy financial dealings and there are reports of them not accepting returns or issuing refunds. The second big Manchester based supplier with a dubious history, the other one disappeared without a trace!
Perfect storm of covid, bitcoin miners and scalpers/arseholes inflating prices to silly levels.
It must be strange, people buy graphics cards to mine crypto then 6 months down the line realise that actually, the card itself is the investment.
It must be strange, people buy graphics cards to mine crypto then 6 months down the line realise that actually, the card itself is the investment.
Ha yes - I don't think the ROI of 6 months even takes that into account! (if they aren't all dead after 6months of 24/7 thrashing).
Man I hate cryptocurrencies - imagine making a totally new system and then just basing it on electricity consumption
I might be wrong but I dont think mining is particulary hard on GPUs, its more of a sustained load but not murdering the card with thermal cycles of cold and hot - other than the fans will be going 24/7 so you might have issues with fans getting worn out/failing.
When the rx480 first hit the market, OCUK were limiting customers to 2 cards maximum per purchase as they were being hoovered up by mining farmers, leaving none left for people who just wanted to play games, lol