Best GPU for PhenomII 955be @1440x900 res? (HELP)

rockazs · Apr 30, 2013

Hi guys, im having problem on which gpu to choose for my build.

here's my specs:
mobo MSI 760gm-p23 (fx) AM3+

phenomII 955be 3.6ghz (planning to reach 4ghz when my aftermarket cooler arrives)

1440x900 res. monitor

RAM 8gb 1600mhz (running @1333mhz)

HDD 300GB

700w PSU

GPU choices:
GTX 660oc, GTX 660ti(asus direct cu-II, HD7850oc, 7870oc or the HD7950 3gb?

so which of these cards would fit BEST for my system?
i am really aiming to get the gtx660ti or hd7950 this week but which of this 2 is the real beast? =)
btw my problem is im afraid that any of these beasts will bottleneck my system

i really need an expert advice! thanks in advance

hizodge · Apr 30, 2013

HD 7790 or GTX 650 Ti Boost will serve you well at that resolution. If you're going to upgrade your monitor resolution, get the HD 7950. Oh and get a 1TB HDD, 300GB is way too little storage.

Traciatim · Apr 30, 2013

rockazs :

Just as an FYI, I am running a 3.8Ghz 965BE and recently upgraded a 6870 to a hand-me-down 7850 and didn't notice any difference at all since the CPU was so slow it was causing all the problems anyway. Just thought it might be goo info to have here.

fatboytyler · Apr 30, 2013

If you have to plans to upgrade your system anytime decently soon, then the 7950 hands dominates the 660Ti hands down. However, if you do not plan on upgrading then the 660Ti/7870 will do fine (Although of these two the 660Ti likely wins in most cases).
With that CPU, you'll likely bottleneck the 7950 in several situations. So like I said, if you plan to upgrade the whole system soon then thats the way to go. If not, then the 660Ti

rockazs · Apr 30, 2013

hi thanks for the quick replies!
@fatboytyler no i dont have plan on upgrading the system mate i wanna stick with this for now ,maybe just the monitor nextmonth..
so which one is the best bet HD7870 or GTX 660ti? and which brand would u recommend?for OC'ing etc..
i wanna hear more thoughts

bigpinkdragon286 · Apr 30, 2013

If you're considering the HD 7870, you should also consider the Tahiti based version of it:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131484

It's much faster, and costs about the same. On a personal level, I decided to avoid the 6 series from NVidia since they decided to artificially tank their compute performance on the consumer cards.

Traciatim, I think a big reason you didn't get a significant boost going from a 6870 to a 7850 is because there isn't a significant difference in performance between the two cards, however what you will notice is the GCN architecture does very well when a title uses compute resources, such as Civ 5, vs the older VLIW architecture of the 6870. You can see for yourself here:

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-HD-7850-vs-Radeon-HD-6870

coozie7 · Apr 30, 2013

@ rockazs: Even at 4GHz, the CPU is going to restrict a HD7950 quite significantly, only take that route if you REALLY, REALLY want to use a lot of AA to artificially load up the card and, thus slow it down.
There's little difference between the HD7870 and GTX660Ti, each is faster in one game or the other, but neither is really faster overall.
Overclocking is not going to be an issue, I doubt you'll get any useful benefits by doing so.
Even at 1920x1080 (upgraded monitor) I'd be looking at the GTX650Ti/GTX660/HD7850 as being the upper end of cards for your system.
Have a read here:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-graphics-card-review,review-32671.html

It's not Truth but close enough.

david cassar · Apr 30, 2013

I would get a gtx 660 since it has significantly dropped in price and with the new drivers it has been able to catch up with the hd 7870.

Traciatim · Apr 30, 2013

bigpinkdragon286 :

Except you would think there was some detectible difference. I couldn't detect any difference at all in my FPS numbers in the games I play. If you look at gaming reviews the 7850 is pretty consistently 20% faster or so, that should be plenty noticeable visually, and certainly by fraps.

fatboytyler · Apr 30, 2013

7870 and the 660Ti are similar is performance. The 660Ti has a slight advantage in most situations, but you won't notice a difference. Go with whichever one is cheaper!

fatboytyler · May 1, 2013

byogamingpc :

Yes, but will he be able to fully benefit from it? Or will the CPU bottleneck at those speeds.

bigpinkdragon286 · May 1, 2013

At his intended 1440 x 900 resolution, I strongly suspect the CPU will be the bottleneck.

david cassar · May 1, 2013

bigpinkdragon286 :

if he overclocks it to around 3.8-4ghz the bottleneck would be very very minimal

Traciatim · May 1, 2013

david cassar :

I disagree completely. As I said before, going from a 6870 to 7850 was completely meaningless (though it was a hand-me-down card from my main rig anyway, so didn't matter) . . . and I'm 1080 gaming on my 3.8Ghz 965BE, so I'm pushing 60% more pixels which are essentially entirely GPU dependent.

david cassar · May 1, 2013

Traciatim :

david cassar :

I disagree completely. As I said before, going from a 6870 to 7850 was completely meaningless (though it was a hand-me-down card from my main rig anyway, so didn't matter) . . . and I'm 1080 gaming on my 3.8Ghz 965BE, so I'm pushing 60% more pixels which are essentially entirely GPU dependent.

What?! I have a 955 be overclocked at 3.8 ghz and a gtx 660 i am not getting a bottleneck at 1080p.

bigpinkdragon286 · May 1, 2013

I'm going to lean toward agreement with Traciatim on this one. Was actually wondering why you would have swapped a 6870 for a 7850, but as a hand-me-down upgrade from another rig it makes sense, as I still feel the difference between the cards doesn't justify the expense of the 7850. If a 965 BE is bottlenecking at the CPU with 3.8 GHz and 1080p, there's no way a 955 BE is going to outrun more powerful cards.

However, there's always a bottleneck, and it's up to the OP to decide where that will be.

bigpinkdragon286 · May 1, 2013

Is anybody really comparing bananas to bananas here? Whether you're bottlenecking the graphics card or the CPU can depend on the application you are running on them, not to mention you're comparing AMD to NVidia.

Traciatim · May 1, 2013

bigpinkdragon286 :

Yeah, a awhile back I upgraded the kids machine from a 5770 to a 6870 because my machine was a 7850 and theirs was noticeably slower (and I founda good e-bay open box deal thing). I recently upgraded my main machine to a 670 now, so the 7850 went in their machine, and their old 6870 will now go in the TV machine (which has the 5770 now) . . . and now what to do with the 5770?

Anyway, the point remains, in Rift, Planetside 2, Sims 3, Dirt3/Showdown, Dungeon Defenders... no noticeable difference from the 6870 to 7850. The only one I measured with fraps was Planetside 2 where I did 10 minutes of fighting at medium settings, 10 minutes at high settings, then swapped out the cards and did the same 20 minute stretch. I realize that the battles are different because it's an MMO, but the numbers I ended up with in fraps were within a couple of percent of each other . . . and well within what I would consider normal variation if I didn't change any hardware and just ran the test twice.

In fact, the only reason I swapped out the cards was for someone on this very forum that was wondering the difference to a similar machine as my kids machine . . . and it was the kick in the pants I needed to actually do the swap because I was telling them the 7850 was quite a bit faster. It had just been sitting on the desk by the kids machine for over 2 weeks since I was being lazy

david cassar · May 1, 2013

Traciatim :

bigpinkdragon286 :

Yeah, a awhile back I upgraded the kids machine from a 5770 to a 6870 because my machine was a 7850 and theirs was noticeably slower (and I founda good e-bay open box deal thing). I recently upgraded my main machine to a 670 now, so the 7850 will go in their machine will get the 7850, and their 6870 will now go in the TV machine (which has the 5770 now) . . . and now what to do with the 5770?

Anyway, the point remains, in Rift, Planetside 2, Sims 3, Dirt3/Showdown, Dungeon Defenders... no noticeable difference from the 6870 to 7850. The only one I measured with fraps was Planetside 2 where I did 10 minutes of fighting at medium settings, 10 minutes at high settings, then swapped out the cards and did the same 20 minute stretch. I realize that the battles are different because it's an MMO, but the numbers I ended up with in fraps were within a couple of percent of each other . . . and well within what I would consider normal variation if I didn't change any hardware and just ran the test twice.

In fact, the only reason I swapped out the cards was for someone on this very forum that was wondering the difference to a similar machine as my kids machine . . . and it was the kick in the pants I needed to actually do the swap because I was telling them the 7850 was quite a bit faster. It had just been sitting on the desk by the kids machine for over 2 weeks since I was being lazy

Now i do beleive your bottleneck because all of those games are cpu heavy.

Traciatim · May 1, 2013

david cassar :

Traciatim :

Now i do beleive your bottleneck because all of those games are cpu heavy.

As are pretty much any large scale PC games. It's pretty much only console ports that aren't since the core game is still designed to run on the slow console CPU's and they just crank up texture packs and a few flashy effects so those games just scale up with video card pixel pumping power.

rockazs · May 2, 2013

hi guys thanks for the helpful replies.
anyway, what if i just get the HD7950 then upgrade the processor right away to fx-6300 or fx-8350?(im not really sure if my mobo supports x8's^^)
and what is the best amd processor to handle this hd7950?
OR is it better to just stay with my current cpu(955be)? and then buy a gtx 580 or a 660ti?
which of these options would give a better performance(fps) and less lags in game?

pls kindly help me out here u.u

david cassar · May 2, 2013

rockazs :

Lag differs in many ways. Amd cards are currently suffering from high latencys which can create lag but the single cards aren't as bad as crossfire. I would reccomend you get a fx 6300 and get a decent cpu cooler such as the hyper 212+ and overclock it. Your motherboard does support piledriver cpus: http://www.msi.com/product/mb/760GM-P23--FX-.html#/?div=CPUSupport

coozie7 · May 2, 2013

Check the motherboard makers site, they'll have information on what processors your motherboard supports. Be aware, some upgrades WILL require a BIOS update.
Check Toms CPU charts to compare what you have with what you want.
The 955 is n't a bad CPU, just a little long in the tooth by computer terms, being a BE it should have an unlocked multiplier so you might be better off getting a half decent cooler and jumping on the overclocking wagon rather than splashing out on a new CPU or CPU/MB.
The GTX580 is comparable to the 660Ti in performance but you'll probably find the 660Ti is cheaper and much easier to find. Either will do well at 1920x1080 and should pi"" all over any game out there at 1440x900.

Best GPU for PhenomII 955be @1440x900 res? (HELP)

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