PC Graphics

[daymon74]

I have a Moneul Moncaso PC case which is a compact case so I may be somewhat limited in the physical size a graphics card I can use. MAXIMUS IV GENE-Z motherboard, EFI bios,  700w psu, Intel core i5 2500k 3.30GHz cpu. I've never replaced a graphics card, but I understand it can be tricky business to get it right. I'm looking for a good modern card that will handle most if not all modern PC games. This 6570 has been great, but it's time to upgrade. I'm just hoping an upgrade is even possible. 

[black_zion]

Compact how? Single slot only? ITX form factor required?

[daymon74]

Thanks for getting back to me. There are 2 slots, but the case itself is compact. Designed to integrate into a home theater component system. I've attached a couple pictures. Maybe that will help?

[elstaci]

It might help to give the dimensions of your PC Case. It seems to be very short in height.

[pokester]

Yah that sure looks limited to half height cards.

[daymon74]

The PC case dimensions are: 3.5” deep, 14.5” front to back, and 17” across. The card itself is about 7” long.

Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows 10

[colesdav]

Hi,

If you want to stay AMD ...

How about an R9 Nano or the new PowerColor Nano Vega 56?

You might find this useful ... it contains physical dimensions of lots of GPU.
Graphics Card Comparison Table (A Sortable Database of Desktop GPUs) - Graphics Cards

Bye.

[daymon74]

Thanks, Colesdav! The R9 looks like it would fit (if I can find one in stock) but the 6570 is PCI Express 2.1 x16 and the R9 is PCI Express 3.0 x16..... I have an idea that is talking about my card slot on the motherboard. If so, does that mean I'm limited to PCI Express 2.1 graphics cards?

[pokester]

you would just be limited to the bandwidth of pcie 2.1. it would still work fine. realistically that card wouldn't have more bandwidth than the 2.1 spec enough to make a real difference, IMHO.

[colesdav]

Hi

I guess you mean the R9 Nano looks like it would fit.
It should fit and it really packs a punch in terms of gaming performance. It has 4GB HBM memory which is very high bandwidth. Dont worry that it is only 4GB.
It will run vast majority of games at good speed and performance on very high settings.

PCIe2.0x16 versus PCIe3.0x16 should not impact gaming performance by that much.

An R9 Nano will run on PCIe2.0x8 PCIe2.0x4, and even on PCIe2.0x1 - USB.0 - PCIe_16 slot mining adapter.

I will take a look at your motherboard specs though.

If you can tell me exactly which make and model of your HD6570 (Sapphire? etc) you have we could check the exact dimensions or your card  and double check how it compares to the R9 Nano.

You will likely need to purchase and R9 Nano second hand on Ebay but if you need some advice on that then send me a direct message here and I will tell you what to look out for and what to negotiate w.r.t. testing and inspecting the card within the 14 day return period.

If you do not want to do that then you could look at RX550 cards but they are lower performance, it depends what games you want to run.

Bye.

[pokester]

I linked at really nice 1050ti low profile, if any interest in the green team from amazon for 169, that would be nice. But it is held up by the moderators, my links never get approved until Matt comes in for some reason.

[pokester]

if interested search for

Zotac ZT-P10510E-10L Graphics Card   on amazon

I think it would be far more powerful than a RX 550 solution and has low power requirements. I have a full height version of this card and it performs very well. It will run any game I have, even current AAA at reduced settings, 1080p.

[daymon74]

Hmmm... the 6570 will run a lot of AAA games as well. In fact there are only 2 games I had problems with. One was just unsupported shaders, and Resident Evil 7 just flat out wouldn't load. Even played BF 1 ... though it warned not to this card did fine.... on lower settings of course

[elstaci]

AMD Forum is run by a program called JIVE. JIVE is the one that puts your posts for approval automatically if it has a link in it. Depending on the link you post.

[pokester]

Yah I get that, it's just so often the help I try to give requires a link and often that link comes in way to late then in the conversation. I am sure you have had that too.

[colesdav]

Hi,

Yes if daymon74 cannot get hold of an R9 Nano and the PowerColor Nano Vega 56 is not of interest then Nvidia may be the only option available.

Zotac make great small form factor Nvidia GPU's. I am very interested in the Zotac GTX1080Ti Mini for myself. They are about 650 here.
I think it might be too big for daymon74  PC case though.

There are also compact ITX GPU from Gigabyte. The Gigabyte GTX 1070 Mini 8GB is wider than an R9 Nano but it is the most comparable compact card from Nvidia and beats R9 Nano performance. I think they cost about 450.

A GTX 1060 mini 6GB is also possible it should run ~ at or below R9 Nano performance.  They cost about  270.

A good example of a used R9 Nano should sell for about 250-300 on Ebay or you may be lucky to get unused one from a retailer for ~ 300-350.

Bye.

[black_zion]

The R9 Nano has been discontinued for some time, so you're limited to the used market for it, and the Sapphire and PowerColor Vega Nano so far are vaporware. Do you need that size of a case or can you swap to a proper tower with room for a full graphics card? Another question is what do you mean by "handle" games, as in what is your target, such as 1920x1080@60?

[pokester]

Good point! Might be worth 40 bucks go move to a big case!

[daymon74]

This one is an MSI. Nont sure of the exact model. Took a picture of the label on the back if that helps.

Get Outlook for Android<https://aka.ms/ghei36>

[pokester]

that picture link isn't working.

[pokester]

If you are looking at MSI low profile cards make sure it comes with the half height riser they are know for making them optional. You get a half height card with a full height riser that negates the purpose. The zotac cards come with them typically.

[daymon74]

Thanks for pointing that out.... definitely would have missed that

[colesdav]

Picture too blurry to read. Sorry.

[colesdav]

Hi,

There have been multiple reviews of the PowerColor RX Vega Nano recently so I am assuming they will start to turn up in retail soon.
Not searched everywhere but they are starting to show up for sale.
Maybe this is a scam, if so it should be reported. to Ebay.

Bye.

[daymon74]

Saw one on Newegg, but it was out of stock.... maybe they just created the listing for when they come in? I sure hope that price isn't right. Those are 8GB instead of 4 like the R9. I wonder if that's overkill for my setup. Looks promising though!

[pokester]

I would tell anyone if they can get 8gb on a card at this point to go for. I have lots of games that use it now, and couple that even would like a little more than that! I wold say at this point a 4gb is the bare minimum if you want to play games and becomes a quick bottleneck with AA and high or ultra textures in many current games.

[colesdav]

Hi,

Which games did you need 8GB of textures on and on what card and resolution?
I am genuinely interested because I have been looking into what will kill a pair of R9 Nanos at 2K on maxed out textures and graphics.

The memory bandwidth and compression is important not just the capacity.

The R9 Fury/Nano have 4GB of HBM and they cope with running all games I have tried so far at 1080p/2K resolution with maxed out textures and graphics settings such as Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor with the large texture pack. Doom on Nightmare textures. Hitman, Rise of the Tomb Raider (does start to struggle in one area) , and Crysis 3.

One game I have found that does kill the R9 Fury/Nano is Forza 7.
I do not think  it is necessary to run games at absolutely maxed out AA settings at 2K though.
I think 4GB of HBM for gaming will be o.k. for a while.

You do have to balance the VRAM versus the Resolution you want to drive versus the power of the GPU.
The HD7970 OC 6GB card I have is an example which had lots of VRAM at the time but the GPU was too weak to run 2K games at high framerates anyhow.
It was more geared towards multi-monitor and the proposal was to crossfire them to get the performance, but they were so rare I could only find one of them and they are big 2.5 slot cards ... which meant 2 in Crossfire blocked too many PCIe ports. Hence my reluctance to ever go for > 2 slot high card again.

Bye.

[colesdav]

Hi,

RE: I wonder if that's overkill for my setup. Looks promising though.

I think that price is too high I agree. They are only RX Vega 56 and not RX Vega64. They have 8GB HBM. They do perform better than an R9 Nano in Gaming based on the benchmarks I have seen from reviewers.

You need to decide how much you are prepared to spend.

You need to decide what gaming performance you want, which games do you want to play, and are you happy with 60FPS or 75FPS or do you need 144FPS.  Do you want a FreeSync Monitor.
Do you want to stick with 1080p or 2K or 4K monitor.
Are you prepared to change the PC case, if so the entire situation changes.

Just looked on Ebay.com. There is a good example of an unused R9 Nano on Ebay.com for $300  Buy it now price. - It isn't one of mine ;-).

Your CPU should be fine - it has 4 cores and should cope with most games. You could probably find a used  i7 4core 8 thread version and upgrade it if you wanted for reasonable price.

Bye.

[daymon74]

Considered upgrading the cpu, but there again I'm not sure if this MB will take a newer intel cpu. I originally went with the i5 because the i7 in my laptop got stupid hot, and being a compact case I didn't want to run into heat issues. Kind of rethinking that now. I'm a bit leery of buying an older compatible one used.

[colesdav]

Hi,

OK - as you may have guessed I do buy second hand GPUs, Started because AMD were late with RX Vega 64.
Once that started I then looked at second hand CPU...
I have purchased second hand Intel Extreme i7-920XM for one of my laptops replacing an earlier i7-720QM processor (which still works).
That CPU gave me a significant boost in performance and it cost me 80 on Ebay.

In your case you would have to look for a compatible CPU with the same socket as is used on your motherboard.
Asus usually provide a list of certified CPU's...

Bye.

[colesdav]

Hi.

Here is the list of your CPU options:
MAXIMUS IV GENE-Z CPU Support | Motherboards | ASUS Global
You might be able to find some of those new. If heat is a problem you could always try a Corsair AIO cooler if their is room in that case to fit one.

I will be away from the forum for a while.
Good luck in getting a PowerColor  RX Vega 64 Nano if that  is what you decide on.

Bye.

[pokester]

https://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-ZT-P10510E-10L-Zotac-Graphics-Card/dp/B06XCXGVGR/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid...

I think this would be a great replacement card. I couldn't find a low profile AMD product available that I feel is an equivalent. Looks like stock is depleted on them? My personal opinion is that these run better with older cpus too. My 1050 ti our performs my RX 580 on an old Phenom II x6 setup. I know it sounds crazy but it does. Now if you have the cpu power to drive it, the RX 580 would blow it's doors off. But right now I'd say the green team has a slightly better product at the low end plus the price is good and more importantly I can find one.

If you can find an RX 550/560 low profile it may suite your needs just fine too. I never had one myself and can only tell you the 1050 ti is a solid card. It's power requirements are lower than your current card too. So you should be good there as well.

[colesdav]

Hi,

Thats a nice motherboard, it deserves at least 1 R9 Nano ;-).

MAXIMUS IV GENE-Z | ROG - Republic Of Gamers | ASUS Global

The specs are here:
MAXIMUS IV GENE-Z | ROG - Republic Of Gamers | ASUS Global

It says you can run at PCIe2.0x16 or dual PCIe 2.0x8.
You could run 2 R9 Nanos on that board although you will start to see a performance drop at PCIe2.0x8 bandwidth with 1 R9 Nano, and I am not suggesting you go MultiGPU unless you have a very good reason other than gaming.

Bye.

[daymon74]

Isn't this what crossfire is for? Let me see if I understand this correctly. If crossfire is being used (playing a game or something) I'll get a performance boost, but during normal use there would be a performance drop because its only using one card which has a decrease in PCI because 2 slots are being used?

[pokester]

I am not much of a crossfire fan myself. I think Dave has had way better and more experience with this. It will only help in games optimized for it and if the current driver is working for it too. So much of the time it can be more trouble than it is worth. It is usually maybe a handful of games that are helped and overall stability can suffer by having the second card in place. It is IMHO only a great solution when the planets align just right, and that doesn't happen often. I would always recommend a single card solution that meets your needs over multi card. I like to stick to the logic of just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Although moving forward it is looking like multi gpu in DX 12 will ultimately replace crossfire tech and maybe finally make 2 and more cards a far more pleasant experience than it has been. Your will even be able to mix AMD and NVIDIA together. That would be great! However I know of no DX12 games aside from Gears of War 4 and Ashes of Singularity that do multi-gpu currently, there may be others I don't know of. In normal Windows yes only one of those cards would be utilized.

[colesdav]

Hi,

You motherboard PCIe slots are PCIe Gen 2.0x16 - little to no performance loss for a single GPU.

However if you connect another matching GPU on that motherboard you will then have

PCIe Gen 2.0 x 8 for the Primary
PCIe Gen 2.0 x 8 for the Secondary.

Unfortunately PCIe2.0 x 8 you will see GPU performance start to drop off.
So if you were to have two GPU on your motherboard, and Crossfire were disabled, you would see lower performance on the Primary GPU.

If you enabled DX11 Crossfire on a supported game you should see a performance improvement but I do not think it is worth it to go out and buy two cards just for Crossfire.

If your motherboard were PCIe3.0x16 for a single card or
PCIe 3.0x8

PCIe 3.0x8

You would not see a performance hit on the Primary card.

Bye.

[daymon74]

That is a BUMMER. Seems like kind of a useless feature other than the rare occasion it might come in handy. I'm liking what I see in the PowerColor RX Vega Nano. Guess I just gotta wait for it to start shipping. Thank you guys for all of the help and suggestions!!!!

[colesdav]

Hi,

The PowerColor RX Vega 56 Nano is longer than the R9 Nano. Please double check the length of the card will fit in your case.
I have been sending links out about good video reviews and info on Vega 56 Nano and I will point you to those next.

Bye.

[daymon74]

Looks like the R9 Nano is 6 inches (I have 7 to work with) and the PowerColor RX Vega 56 Nano is just under 5mm longer .... so in lenght it should fit. Height on the other hand may still be an issue. I just watched a video review for the PowerColor RX Vega 56 Nano and i can tell just by that its taller. I'll have to take the lid off and measure that

[colesdav]

Hi.

Have you seen this review and video?
https://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/powercolor_rx_vega_56_8gb_nano_edition_review/18
Be careful. I think the PCB is 5mm longer but the cooler is 1 cm longer than an R9 Nano.
See here: PowerColor Radeon RX Vega 56 Nano Hands-on | TechPowerUp

The more I look at those PowerColor RX Vega 56 Nanos the more I like them ... even if PowerColor did drop the Vega 56 Red Dragon in favor of them (Both cards have the same PCB).

Bye.