Best Graphics Card?

Hi, I'm sorry to ask what is probably a silly question, but am hoping for some advice.

I'm trying to play a gameand the graphics card isn't the best (FS2020), infact, it's quite old.

I was wondering if somebody could give me some advice as to what graphics card I could buy around £200 to £250 that would work with my motherboard which is MSI z97mate. Processor is 4th gen i5 and have ssd hdd. I plan to upgrade the motherboard, processor and ram next year, but for now, was wondering what the ebst graphics card I could afford would be giving me the best experience I coud get at the moment? The card would, ideally, be able to fit into a motherboard with a 10th gen i5 next year.

I hope this makes sense. trying to have fun on a shoestring

Thank you for any and all help.

There's a fairly comprehensive article here that might help: https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/features/microsoft-f... . I can tell you it runs just fine on an RTX3080, but that's a little out of your price range.

FS2020 is also fairly heavy on the processor, and prefers 8 threads or more..

Under £250 at present...

Assuming Nvidia, the 1660 Super is the most powerful option. It's a 6GB card and will require a cable from the PSU for additional power, as most of it's more powerful relatives do.

If AMD Radeon is your thing, the RX580 is the most powerful option under £250. It has 8GB instead, but is less impressive in benchmarks.

If you have your heart set on 8GB, I would recommend looking for a 2060 Super. It'll depend on if you're planning on gaming above 1080p. Not sure if the 6GB cards are up to 2K gaming, and while I'm sure the AMD 8GB is up to it, I wouldn't expect astounding FPS.

https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-RX-580-vs-...

A couple of years ago, I was swithering on 1060 3GB vs 1060 6GB, and along came a factory clocked EVGA Ultra Silent (silly name) 1070Ti, with 8GB, but the factory overclock means it runs at speeds more in line with a 1080, depending on the benchmark or task.

Here's a benchmark score, and where it was compared to benchmark averages at the time - https://i.ibb.co/Zh2X6FF/PM1070ti.jpg

Obviously, the card isn't that near 1080Ti cards that have been properly configured and tweaked, but it's on a par with 1080s (10% faster).

Now at the time, the card I wanted was around £465, which was too much for my taste. There were other 1070Tis for around £430-£450, but that wasn't the one I wanted. Then my card went on offer somewhere, and I grabbed it for £395.

Still very expensive, but it's for a system hoping to last 5+ years.

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While we're on the subject, I have a 2700x CPU, which was £300-ish a couple of years back. Right now it's priced at £170 to £220-ish, depending where you look. A 3700x is priced at £100 more for an extra 15% performance. I imagine a 2700x would be an adequate 'entry level' 8-core CPU for FS2020.

Lastly, I would think very hard about how you setup your storage for FS2020, operating system, orthos etc. If you're keen, you could drop £200 for a 2TB NVME drive. The going rate for 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB SSD is around £100 per TB. Cheaper than that, and they're probably slow SSDs, while the very fast models at 2TB and 4TB are pricey.

Meanwhile, you can get a WD Gold 10TB for £230-£250. I don't recommend HDDs these days, but some FS users are kinda forced down that path or have to pay thousands for storage.

Edited by camieabz (Tue 20-Oct-20 03:27:31)

Difficult thing to do is recommend a graphics card, you just need to go and do some research.

Maybe start with part picker, put in what you are going to buy next year and see what it recommends for graphic cards.