Upgrading my GPU, need advice

Subject states it. I'm currently running a pointless CrossFire setup with an HIS HD 7870, and an XFX 7870 because my friend had one (a 7870 that is) laying around so I wanted to see what this CrossFire shit was all about, and it seems pretty meh. From doing a bit of research, it seems as if CrossFire only really helps if the game/whatever you're doing is correctly optimized for it? I've actually had to disable it for a few different games (or switch to borderless fullscreen) because I get a strobelight lightning effect in-game. Anyways- so I'm looking to buy a new(er) card, and my only real goal is to keep it under $300ish. I'm not extremely well-versed in what exactly to look for when I'm comparing cards (obviously I understand that more GB is probably better, I mean shaders, core clock, mem clock, etc.), so any advice would be great/specific card suggestions (and WHY you're suggesting it, I want to learn what I should be looking for/comparing).

In other words- GPU Thread.

RX 480. Releasing on June 29th for $200 and will be by far the best price/performance card on the market.

Fucking AMD shill

OP here. Why is it so cheap? Aren't brand new cards usualy much more expensive? Or is that the gimmick they're selling?

It's the equivalent to the HD 7870 you have now. It's not the big AMD chip. That one will come at the end of the year.

That's not the 1070 user.

I see. Is it worth it? Will I see a decent boost in performance? You said equivalent, that's why I ask.

Rx 480 will be a decent upgrade because it'll be on par with an r9 390/x, but a gtx 1070 would be a significantly better upgrade and more futureproof.

OP said keep it under $300

Tell me about this 1070, I'm curious. Seems like this is very quickly boiling down to these two cards vs. each other.

It'll give you enough performance to max out every game at 1080p / 60+ Hz.

RX480 uses less electricity then 1070
AMD has superior driver updates expect a decent performance boost.

>Nvidia cards
>Futureproof
Pick one.

Also, the GTX 1070 will be twice the price of an RX 480.

Triggered Nvidia shill detected.

Cool. How about if I'm also recording a high-end game? I've recently gotten into that whole thing. It's gay as shit but I enjoy it. I ask because although I know recording is mostly CPU-intensive, the only times I really see frame drops are when I'm trying to record a higher-end game on maxed out graphics settings. Will this card be better at that than my current setup?

A much bigger selling point is quite a big deal to me as I'm trying to keep this below $300. Thanks.
Gotcha. I've got a 750W PSU so I'm not too worried about electricity, but hey, a lower electric bill is a lower electric bill. Thanks.

You should notice almost no performance impact while recording.

$600 is 1080 territory.

Depends if you can hold out 2 weeks or or so. GTX 1070 will undoubtedly be more powerful than a Rx 480 but will cost about $300 for the 8gb version. The 1070 will offer about 40% more power for $100 more.

Alright cool. I guess I also should've done this much earlier, but here's my current build.

Should be fine for another five years.

what's with all these bait GPU threads?

Kek the baseline 1080 is selling for $800+ bucks and the 1070 is selling for over $550 bucks You cannot find a cheaper one since all the price gouging and the fact that Nvidia will not sell anymore on their store.

Dont listen to people suggesting 1070's Nvidia has a bad tendency to underperform whilst under heavier loads. As the first replier stated get an RX 480 , its very power efficient, performs like a badass, has 8GB of VRAM and is cheap. Youll save yourself 100 bucks for a future upgrade. And as for your question of why its cheap, its because AMD are competing for a larger market share.

>40% more performance
More like 10 percent more performance on Novidia titles (spoiler: Nvidia optimized games are generally shit)

>Nvidia shills get nervous when asked to suggest something less than $300

Op here. It isn't bait. If anything, your comment is bait and I'm falling for it. What exactly is 'bait' about this? Did you even look at the image I posted above where it lists my current GPU setup? Oh no, you're right, this was all a huge conspiracy where I CrossFired two old 7870s just so I could make a GPU thread on Sup Forums, and sit here asking for more information on BOTH the AMD cards and the NVidia cards. You caught me.

I just noticed that this image says my Crossfire is disabled, yet I know it isn't (pic related). Is that just a speccy issue?

>paying over $400 when 1080p is still the sweet spot
>he fell for the "nvidia is directx 12 ready" meme

OP here. Thanks for the input everyone. As of right now, I'm leaning towards the RX480, we'll see if I am patient enough to wait until the end of the month.

Pretty sure its already been confirmed the 8 GB version of the 480 will cost 249$