Any recommendations for a new video card?

[Flatlander]

I currently have an ASRock Z97 Killer motherboard with an Intel Core i5 4690K, 16GB DDR3, and an AMD Radeon R9 390 Series PCIe video card. I'm starting to run into issues with newer games and would like to replace the video card with something newer. Any suggestions/recommendations, or at least good review sites to check out?

Thanks!

[Krom]

I'm gonna come right out and say you should build a whole new PC.

Just a video card isn't going to cut it even if for example an entry level nvidia RTX 4060 Ti is roughly 4x faster than a Radeon R9 390. I would be extremely wary of plugging a recent PCIe 4.0 video card like that into a 10 year old CPU/Motherboard combination. Your PC might not even have the UEFI firmware needed to use such a video card, and although a 4060 Ti 16GB card is less than half the power consumption of a R9 390 a 10 year old PSU is a major ticking time bomb that could blow the whole thing if the connected load changes that much.

[Flatlander]

Understandable, but I really don't want to build a new PC right now - maybe in a couple of years. I built this one around the end of 2015 and it has worked great with no issues. I'm not looking for a fancy new video card, just something a bit more capable than what I have now. I can certainly replace the PSU also, if necessary.

[Krom]

Also you might want to be more specific defining "newer games" and "issues". Just low frame rates/tearing/stuttering but it does play? Or straight up unsupported/rendering glitches/requires a newer driver version than your end of life GPU has?

What monitor/resolution/refresh do you have and what connection does it use (HDMI/DVI/DisplayPort)? Something to keep in mind is newer video cards only have HDMI and DP, DVI is dead, VGA is super double extra dead. A lot has changed in monitors in the last 9+ years, and it is definitely worth investigating new stuff like variable rate / high refresh (which requires even more performance from the CPU and GPU). Although a newer VRR display will also require a more recent video card to support it, so you will still need that new GPU.

If the games you are having issues with do run, it may be worth investigating where specifically the bottleneck is first. Compare the average and minimums across high and low resolutions to identify where the CPU limit is as well as the GPU limit. If a game hits the same minimum frame rates at 800x600 as it does at 1920x1080 and it is the minimums that are bothering you; a new GPU likely won't help.

[Flatlander]

The game is Life is Strange: Double Exposure

System requirements:

MINIMUM:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows® 10 / 11 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i5-2400 / AMD FX-6300
Memory: 12 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960, 4 GB / AMD Radeon RX 470, 4GB
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 25 GB available space
Additional Notes: 1080p @ 30fps. SSD Recommended.

RECOMMENDED:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows® 10 / 11 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i7-7700K / AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Memory: 12 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super, 8GB / AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, 12GB
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 25 GB available space
Additional Notes: 1080p @ 60fps. SSD Recommended.

I'm running Windows 10 Pro 64 bit; also have DirectX 12 and several SSD hard drives. I don' think this is a UEFI motherboard.

Error message when the game starts is attached (there are no newer drivers). It runs, but is laggy in the game menus. I haven't actually tried playing the game beyond that. I might be able to get it to run better by adjusting some graphics settings, but I thought I would at least look into replacing the video card. My monitor is fairly new, just bought it a few months ago: Asus TUF Gaming VG1A series connected via HDMI.

[Krom]

A couple things to note then, if your monitor has VRR (g-sync compatible) support, then if you get a nvidia GPU you will need to plug the monitor in via display port. Nvidia does not do VRR over HDMI. AMD GPUs will do VRR over HDMI but it is not as good or reliable as the DP implementation. (AMDs generally works better over DP too.)

For AMD, I would look for something like a 7700 XT 16 GB or better.

For Nvidia, an RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB would work (beware there are also 8 GB variants).

All the nvidia RTX 4060s are PCIe 4.0 x8, and may be hamstrung by older PCIe versions (2.0 or 3.0).

I would avoid any new GPU with less than 12 GB of VRAM in this day and age, 16 minimum would be for the best going forward for the next couple of years. There are potentially better cards than 7700XT or 4060Ti 16 GB, but they quickly run into the $800+ range and we are already well into stretching the limits of what I would spend for or install on that motherboard.

[Flatlander]

Thanks, that gives me something to work with.

[Flatlander]

I ended up getting a Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT with 12 GB, working great so far.