Video card buying advice

I'm potentially looking at upgrading my video card in the next couple of months, and could use some advice from people here who are a bit more savvy about computer hardware. I've usually only purchased budget cards in the past, which let me play games at medium/high with acceptable framerates, but not amazing, so I'm looking at spending a little extra for something that might last a bit longer. I only have a 1080p monitor and I'm not planning on making the jump to VR/4k anytime soon. I'd ideally like to keep the price under $500 - 600 Canadian and I know that puts me into GTX 1070 territory, but I'm wondering if the extra power is going to be wasted.

What are the specs for the rest of the computer?

How big is your case?

@pdxsonic: AMD FX-6300 with 8 gbs RAM. Will likely also replace later this year.

@blackout62: It's an Antec 300.

The 1070 is often best suited for 1440p at the moment, sure. BUT... If you buy a GPU that's better for a higher resolution, in time it will be best suited to only 1080p as games requirements increase.

A 1070 will last you a good, long while for 60fps gaming - GPU headroom is always a good thing. For now, yeah, it's sometimes wasted on 1080p... Kinda. You can use that headroom for better AA, super-sampling that kind of thing.

Is waiting to see what happens with Vega an option for you? You could wait for buy CPU, GPU and Mobo all at once - because, at the moment, combining a powerful GPU with that CPU is probably going to disappoint you.

Edit: Don't forget about your PSU

@ichthy: 8 GB of RAM sounds low. I'd buy and install some more of that if possible and buy an RX 480 or GTX 1060. The 1070 might be bottle-necked by your current system.

@yabbering_yeti:Yeah I have no objections to waiting either at this point. I'm not in the know with new hardware, but is Vega something that is worth waiting for? Or is it more speculation right now?

I would agree with yabbering_yeti, instead of getting a new video card you could upgrade your system. While still a very functional system your CPU is circa 2011. It might be a wait until late summer, but at that point you could get into Ryzen and Vega. You wouldn't necessarily even need to be into the 'high-end' of either thus you could do it on a decent budget.

Its an option at least. The other side of that option is that by mid-summer a lot of people might be upgrading to Ryzen and Vega themseleves. Those people will be selling off their current gear. You might get a deal, you currently have a six core, so you could snap up a used 8-Core like an 8300 series and a used graphics card too. Again...options.

@yabbering_yeti: I have a 1070 and a 144hz, 1080 monitor. I gladly went for gorgeous 1080 60+ experience and I have yet to feel like I'm missing out on 1440 or 4k.

That said, my CPU is starting to bottleneck now. Games are finally starting to tax my 5-6 year old CPU. I was going to upgrade and build a better PC for VR, but seeing how the content there is a little lacking I decided to just get a decent GPU that'll last me instead.

If you only want to do 1080p, 60Hz, a GTX 1060 or RX 480 in your machine would do it with anything out now and probably for another, uhh, while. The future is hard to predict. After that, you're looking at upgrading more than the just the GPU since like others have said, your CPU is pretty dated. I have a similar CPU (at least in terms of performance: Xeon E3-1230v2) and a 1060 and it runs Dark Souls 3 (the most demanding game I've tried on it) at a solid 60fps, 1080p max settings. I worry something will come out that needs a faster CPU, but it hasn't happened yet! (Hitman comes close.)

1440P is great, less jaggies for sure and best of all is its use for the desktop side of things.

OP I would buy a 1070 with that budget. There's no such thing as too much power unless you are playing only 2D indie games, eventually you'll be thankful to have that extra power lurking around whether you immediately play intensive games or not.

1060 is more suited for your current CPU.

If you plan on upgrading the CPU down the line get a 1070.

The 1070 is overkill for 1080p, especially with a 6300 for the CPU. I'd recommend a 1060 or 480 for now, then put away the money you save for when you're ready to do a more substantial system upgrade.

1070 is good for 1080p in the future as it won't be able to keep up at 1440p for that long (at least at 60fps). If you want a card to last a bit longer i would go with a 1070.