What was your best purchase GPU this year for 2016 PC gamers?

Both Nvidia/AMD release there best GPU of 2016. My purchase was the Gigabyte GTX 1070 and I must admit, best purchase in terms of performance and well money worth spending, it's incredible! Great on my 2560x1440 monitor, paid $420, yes, it's expensive but figure it should last at least 3 years. So SW, did buy any GPU this year?

Nope I didn't.

Didn't buy one this year. I expect the 980Ti from 2015 to last me at least a few more years.

I grabbed an overclocked RX 480. Though I do have a 4K TV, I didn't want to spring for a GTX 1080, so I figure I'd best be playing at 1080P with the RX 480 8GB perfectly suiting that.

I bought a GTX 970. I'm starting to think it will last me till the GeForce 1100 or Radeon R 500 cards at the very least.

I also bought the Gigabyte GTX 1070.

Nothing here. I still like my GTX970 fine. My only complaint with it has nothing to do with the chipset - it's a Zotac small form factor and the wee fans are noisy as hell when it gets warm (yeah I've re-done the thermal paste and tweaked the fan speeds manually. They are just not efficient). So I'm secretly looking forward to my next upgrade when I can get a better cooling solution, but performance-wise this is still a great card

Im still using my G1 Gaming GTX970 which is clocked at 1.4ghz. Which I bought at the tail end of 2014. Its still doing a good job but Ive been itching to upgrade to a new gpu but AMD RX480 isnt really upgrade but a side grade, and the GTX 1070/1080 prices are a real bummer. So hopefully AMD's next gpu comes out soon to compete and gives us more options while making Nvidia price competitively.

Got a gtx 970 in 2014 won't be needing anything else for a another year or two yet.

I bought a GTX 1080 from EVGA. Their FTW version with their ACX 3.0 cooler. I have it overclocked even further to like 2050 mhz. It has 8 GBs of RAM as well.

I also bought a Acer Predator XB271HU monitor. 1440p144hz IPS display with Nvidia G-Sync. It's awesome. Great combination between the GPU and monitor.

I combined the two with an Intel i7 6700k, OC'ed to 4.6 ghz with 32 GBs of DDR4 3200 RAM. It's a pretty beastly machine.

Two GTX 1080 in SLI.

Still using my 980ti and loving it. Don't plan on upgrading for years.

Swapped out my Gigabyte GTX 980 Ti G1 Gaming for a Gigabyte GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming. Nice boost to my minimum frame rates at 1440p and the extra HDMI ports with the VR Link bracket (Premium Pack) come in handy.

No gpu this year, next amd gpu next coming year or two.

Still got my GTX970 from last year. Will get a new GPU whenever I get a new monitor.

GTX 980, since this is the first time ive built a new computer in about six years. Planning on keeping it until it dies or games start getting too chuggy at 1080p

Built my first rig in about 15 years this year. GPU is msi gtx1070 armor

32gb ram !

I7 6600 liquid cooled

Z170 mobo

1000w PSU.

Had enough of being let down by consoles. Worst console gen there has ever been. I'm 40 and I've never seen worse

@BassMan said:

Swapped out my Gigabyte GTX 980 Ti G1 Gaming for a Gigabyte GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming. Nice boost to my minimum frame rates at 1440p and the extra HDMI ports with the VR Link bracket (Premium Pack) come in handy.

Since this is system wars, I have to make this comment (even as someone with a 980, recently purchased a laptop with a 1070 and still looking to upgrade my desktop...)... PC owners really can't say upgrades aren't a necessity for comparing prices with consoles. As soon as you get a taste of POWAH, you can't stop buying more video cards. The only thing that holds you back is when you need a full system upgrade to get the next PCI-E standard...

Waiting for Vega.

couldn't save enough to upgrade my PC , but my next GPU will be 1070 , no doubt about it - unless Nvidia come up with something cooler -

Nicely beast of a rig there Wasdie! BTW did you had any heating issues with the EVGA 1080 by any chance? I think it was about 2 months ago, I heard EVGA 1080/1070 cards were having heat issues but I didn't read through why though since I don't own nether cards, any problems on your end?

Already upgraded mine last year, Fury X is still running.

Built my first itx build 5 months earlier.. Using the Phanteks Itx evolv, with 6600k i5 with a Corsair h100i2 cooler.. I particularly like the motherboard, the asus z170i pro gaming motherboard.. And for video card I went with the compact EVGA 1060 6g SC for 1080p gaming... The only thing I really wished was that there were actually aftermarket blowers outside of the hybrids.. My temps are not that bad with a max temp of 75 degrees at 2050mhz overclock at max load, but I feel like they could be better.. With builds getting more compact I hope these gpu devs start offering aftermarket blowers, that are superior to the founders edition.

@waahahah said:

@BassMan said:

Swapped out my Gigabyte GTX 980 Ti G1 Gaming for a Gigabyte GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming. Nice boost to my minimum frame rates at 1440p and the extra HDMI ports with the VR Link bracket (Premium Pack) come in handy.

Since this is system wars, I have to make this comment (even as someone with a 980, recently purchased a laptop with a 1070 and still looking to upgrade my desktop...)... PC owners really can't say upgrades aren't a necessity for comparing prices with consoles. As soon as you get a taste of POWAH, you can't stop buying more video cards. The only thing that holds you back is when you need a full system upgrade to get the next PCI-E standard...

The beauty of PC is that the experience scales to your standards and budget. There is a wide range of hardware between casual and enthusiast. Something for everyone.

I don't upgrade out of necessity most of the time. I just like to max games at high frame rates and can afford it. It is tempting for me to get a 1080 Ti next month, but I will probably hold out for Volta as my current 1080 is meeting my needs.

Mine has not yet burst into flames. I should really look into it.

Asus GTX 1080 Strix is the best gpu of 2016 imo. Good temps, low noise, 5-6 extra fps compared to the Vanilla, an overkill for 2k gaming.

Bought the 970 Asus Strix at the end of 2015. Won't upgrade until Canadian dollar becomes an actual dollar, not a peso.

It's as scalable as a heroine addiction. My point is if you're willing to settle for less, consoles are fine. PC gaming doesn't represent this mentality and once you get on it, it either pulls you in deeper or its not really for you..

I went from a 970 to a 980ti earlier this year. But it was time for a fresh build a few months back and I went with the MSI Seahawk 1080 for my GPU. It's pretty great.

All around, my new machine is beast.

-

GeForce GTX 1080 SEA HAWK X

Intel Core i7-6900K 3.2GHz 8-Core Processor

Corsair H115i Liquid CPU Cooler

Corsair Dominator Platinum 64GB (4 x 16GB) DDR4 Memory

Corsair Air 540 ATX Mid Tower Case

Corsair HX1000i Power Supply

Intel 750 Series AIC 800GB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SSDPEDMW800G4X1

MSI X99A GODLIKE GAMING CARBON EATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard

-

Among other things.

my GTX780 is still doing well for me , although i will never forgive NVIDIA for launching GTX780TI 3 months later ....

I probably will make do with a 6 GB GTX 1060. I have no plans to leave 1080p just yet. At the same time, I don't want to spend anymore on my current PC since I may assemble an all new PC next year to replace my FX-8350.

I think at $240, a 6 GB GTX 1060 has pretty good bang for the buck. It'll replace my old 4 GB GTX 770.

I'm buying a 1080 tomorrow. Been using my 760 for a while. Time for an upgrade.

If you don't care about quality... sure, consoles are fine. They are the cheap and simple solution. However, if you do care about quality, they are not a viable option as they don't offer the performance level where you can settle. With PC, you don't have to buy an enthusiast rig to get the proper experience. The hardware available gives people options to cater to their needs as do in-game options. PC is all about scalability and choice. You don't have to become an enthusiast to enjoy PC. There is something for everyone.

How does one play a game like The Witcher 3 at 60fps on console? You are shit out of luck as there is no option for that. You can achieve this on PC without spending a fortune. So, console players don't even get to experience the best game of this generation properly. That is sad. :(

If something is extremely good, isn't it by definition addictive?

Of course not.

I bought a r9 fury off newegg for 260 and it benches similar to the gtx 1070. Oh it came with a 20 buck rebate making it 240 best bang for the buck by far.

You're kind of just ignoring what I'm saying though. Sure you can totally get by with not the top end hardware. But PC is a moving targeting. So every new game that performs lower than expected coerces you into buying it. Theoretically you can get lower end hardware but look at this circle jerk of a thread... every one is upgrading from a 9xx to a 10xx... I went from a normal 580 to a 980.

If someone cared about playing witcher 3 in 60fps, they are an enthusiast. I'm sorry but as soon as you start caring you're getting on the treadmill. If you don't you'll be like most of my friends I tried to get into PC gaming. After helping them get into PC gaming they bought a console to replace it eventually.

Also best experience is subjective, I played morrowind on PC, he played it on console, the way he got into it he got the best experience.

These people chasing benchmarks buying the latest and greatest are the reason people think you need to spend thousand to get great graphics. I just bought a r9 fury on newegg like a week ago for 260 with a 20 buck rebate.

That is 240 bucks for gtx 1070 level graphics. I run the same settings as gtx 1070 owners at 1440p and get the same fps almost but 2 or 3 fps is margin of error in dx 11. In dx12 the gtx 1070 actually is slower in some games. The only issue I have is at 4k there is some frame pacing issues on a couple games with everything almost maxed out.

I don't have a 4k monitor I took my pc to my friends house. My friend is nvidia fanboy and he was so impressed he went and bought 2 of the same card. This is how hermits waste money.

Nah, didn't buy any PC upgrades this year. My 980Tis I bought in June of 2015 are still running just fine.

I am waiting for rysen to drive intel prices down in 2017 and I will buy a new or used cpu/mobo for cheap.

After about two days of using my EVGA SSC 970 on the Acer Predator 165hz monitor I made the jump to a Zotac 1080. Great combo and shouldn't have to upgrade for quite a while. Was going to use the 970 in my arcade build but think I will just sell it while the return is still good.

Bro everyone get's what they paid for, nothing more/less. I'm glad your enjoying your R9 Fury but for me, the gigabyte 1070 matches my newly build this past July, I wanted the best of the best and I had the money to buy it for $420. Sure I could've stay with my current GPU 970 but if I'm going to build a new PC from the ground up, why not go all out? Which I did and my 1070 will last me like 3 or 4 more years before I consider upgrading.

Bottom line: Everyone has there budget rang when it comes to PC builds and no one should have to worry about there budget builds. Do you think I wasted $420? Well I'll let you be the judge on that, whatever you think is not my business, I got what I wanted and know what I'm gonna get out of it for years to come.

Waiting for 1080Ti or Vega equivalent.

Not taking shots at you but at the premise that pc gaming is very expensive. I got a 7.3 TFLOPS gpu for 240 bucks. Yet all I hear is peasants saying you need to spend over 1k for 4k graphics.

You can buy a titan sli rig if that turns you on. Then some peasant will claim you need that to beat the scorpio for example. BTW the 970 is still selling for over 400. Does it still have that memory glitch and is that why you swapped it out ???

For me it was my 1070...

GTX 1070.

nothing for me this year. I still like to think that my 980 SLI from last year is still not outdated. Sooo itching to grab a 1080 for my Vive though...

Waiting for new stuff in 2017 or 2018 to do a serious upgrade

Bought the EVGA GTX 1080 3.0 along with an 800w PSU in case I want to add another card in a few years

Still have my evga 970sc. Dont see any reason to upgrade it for a while especially at 1080p