$300-400 to spend, where would be best?

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M

Miganto

Honorable
Sep 4, 2013
2
0
10,510
Approximate Purchase Date: This week (the closer the better)

Budget Range: (e.g.: 300-400) no rebates (buying within England and prices are near enough 1:1 here compared to US, but no rebates)

System Usage: Gaming

Are you buying a monitor: No

Parts to Upgrade: CPU/RAM/GPU

Do you need to buy OS: No

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: I will be buying from Overclockers.co.uk, however any normal American sites will do and i'll compare.

Location: UK

Parts Preferences: Value per performance

Overclocking: Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

I am upgrading as i've recently aquired a few new games that are starting to feel sluggish. My most recent was Rome 2 Total War and i'd like to get the most bang for my buck for this type of game specifically. I am thinking of just upgrading the GPU and increasing the ram to 8GB. I believe the 7950 boost or 760 are good for the price range, however will my cpu be too much of a bottleneck then? If so, would a 7850/650 Ti boost be more appropriate (i'm not sure if that's much of an upgrade over what I already have)

Currently have:

i5 750 @2.67GHZ
4GB Ram
64bit OS
Radeon HD 5850 1GB

Thank you
 
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ssddx

ssddx

Titan
May 27, 2009
17,054
5
74,965
your cpu, while now starting to get dated, is most likely not the limiting factor here.

your ram while at the minimum end of the spectrum is also likely not the culprit.

you can get a 7970ghz for about $350. this leaves you $50 to do whatever with. if you find a sale you could pick up 2x2gb sticks of ram and be using 4x2gb for 8gb total if you wanted. edit: or if you had one 4gb stick get another 4gb stick... but dont know why you would be using single channel to begin with....

a 7950 boost is about $100 cheaper but quite a bit farther down the line in terms of performance. in total you would spend about $300 vs the 400 maximum if you included $50 for ram as i said above however its not as future proof.

take a look at anandtech.com gpu 2013 benchmarks... for the price the 7970ghz is hard to beat. lesser performing nvidia cards have the same price.

if you bought a good card now you may be able to use it in the future if you upgraded your core parts (mobo,cpu).

realize that if you buy a new cpu you will want to get a new mobo as well which doesnt leave as much room for a new gpu which i say is the most important upgrade you could do right now.
 
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M

Miganto

Honorable
Sep 4, 2013
2
0
10,510
Thank you for the replies guys. Ssddx, I looked at the price/performance graph at toms hardware:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-8.html

and the 7950 boost is close to the 7970 yet ~$100 less. Is this incorrect?

Edit - i've just found out that 'ghz' is an actual different model and a good 10%+ better than the standard, definitely worth considering. I would definitely like to upgrade to 8 (i do have 2x2GB atm) due to other factors, but if the 7970ghz is 'that good', i can extend the budget slightly.
 
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ssddx

ssddx

Titan
May 27, 2009
17,054
5
74,965
honestly i've been disappointed in TH benchmarks for a good year or two. they used to be my go to guide however its not as easy to navigate as it once was and doesnt seem as comprehensive.

have a look at anandtech.. http://anandtech.com/bench/GPU13/583

you can pull up different games at different resolutions and it will show you the respective FPS numbers

bioshock 1080p ultra
7970ghz 74.4 7950boost 60.6
battlefield 3 1080p ultra
7970ghz 74.4 7950boost 58.5
crysis 3 1080p very high
7970ghz 40.4 7950boost 33.1

yes the 7970ghz is about 10% better than the normal 7970. the normal 7970 is better than the 7950.

not counting shipping costs you should be able to get both the 7970ghz and 2x2gb of ram for about $400-420 on newegg. if you shop around on different websites or get a better deal you may be able to do it for less.

i would go with an upper middle end gpu (like the ghz) simply because its going to last you a bit longer. once the next generation of games comes out all current cards are going to be crushed so at least you will be able to play on low or medium (as opposed to very low or not at all).

all i can do is throw the numbers at you and give you a recommendation.

of course you could go with nvidia (i always use nvidia) however its not as cost efficient per performance right now. thats why i did not mention any nv cards.
 
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