- Jul 12, 2013
- 35
- 0
- 10,530
I recently had a computer built mainly for photography and am using a 2560 x 1600 display. I chose the AMD 7970 as a graphics card mainly because I use a photo processing app called Capture One (C1) which makes use of Open CL for speeding up image processing, and the company that makes C1 specifically recommends the 7970 and 7950 for this application.
I've never been a gamer, at least not in the past 20 years, but having a capable computer and a card that came with 3 free games, I decided to give it a shot. Turns out that it's pretty fun to occasionally play a game, and even though I don't have much time to do it, my kids like playing on the PC as well. Trouble is that even with my very good graphics card (Sapphire Dual-X 7970 OC with Boost) overclocked to 1200 core/1600 graphics, the frames per second I'm seeing at 2560 x 1600 are less than desirable, and I'd like to upgrade.
My PSU is a Seasonic 660W Platinum series, so I'm thinking that will need to be replaced if I am going to buy another 7970 for Xlink. The alternative would be to upgrade to a GTX780, although if I understand correctly that is only a 20-30% performance upgrade from my 7970, and I'd like to see better performance than that.
I'm also considering the 7990 and GTX690. From what I read, the GTX690 might work with my current PSU but effectively has only 2GB of VRAM which could be an issue when gaming at 2560 x 1600. The other issue is that I still want to use the machine for photo editing, and the GTX780 will probably be a hit when it comes to Open CL performance in C1. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure that none of my Adobe products (Premiere Pro, Photoshop) can use the GPU in any kind of Xlink or SLI setup, which is a real downer.
Putting photography software aside, which of these options gives me the best gaming at 2560 x 1600? The price difference between adding another 7970 (~$300) and switching to a GTX780, 7990, or GTX690 does matter to me, but I can stretch the budget if the results are very noticeable.
PhysX doesn't matter to me. I only have one game that supports it (Batman Arkham City), and that one looks plenty great with the CPU handling the PhysX.
Two last questions if you made it this far:
1) Is it hard to change a PSU? I've never done it before. Had this computer built for me by Avadirect.
2) If I change from a Seasonic 660W to a Seasonic 1000W both from the same Seasonic Platinum series, can I leave all the cabling in situ and just unplu them from the old PSU and plug them into the new one? I read that one should never do this, but I was wondering if this could be an exception. Maybe a question best addressed to Seasonic support.
Final comment: I'd rather not wait to see what the AMD 9970 has in store. Who knows what supply/availability there will be, and one can always wait for the next, better technology. I'd rather go for something that is in stock and available today.
Thanks for any/all advice!
I've never been a gamer, at least not in the past 20 years, but having a capable computer and a card that came with 3 free games, I decided to give it a shot. Turns out that it's pretty fun to occasionally play a game, and even though I don't have much time to do it, my kids like playing on the PC as well. Trouble is that even with my very good graphics card (Sapphire Dual-X 7970 OC with Boost) overclocked to 1200 core/1600 graphics, the frames per second I'm seeing at 2560 x 1600 are less than desirable, and I'd like to upgrade.
My PSU is a Seasonic 660W Platinum series, so I'm thinking that will need to be replaced if I am going to buy another 7970 for Xlink. The alternative would be to upgrade to a GTX780, although if I understand correctly that is only a 20-30% performance upgrade from my 7970, and I'd like to see better performance than that.
I'm also considering the 7990 and GTX690. From what I read, the GTX690 might work with my current PSU but effectively has only 2GB of VRAM which could be an issue when gaming at 2560 x 1600. The other issue is that I still want to use the machine for photo editing, and the GTX780 will probably be a hit when it comes to Open CL performance in C1. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure that none of my Adobe products (Premiere Pro, Photoshop) can use the GPU in any kind of Xlink or SLI setup, which is a real downer.
Putting photography software aside, which of these options gives me the best gaming at 2560 x 1600? The price difference between adding another 7970 (~$300) and switching to a GTX780, 7990, or GTX690 does matter to me, but I can stretch the budget if the results are very noticeable.
PhysX doesn't matter to me. I only have one game that supports it (Batman Arkham City), and that one looks plenty great with the CPU handling the PhysX.
Two last questions if you made it this far:
1) Is it hard to change a PSU? I've never done it before. Had this computer built for me by Avadirect.
2) If I change from a Seasonic 660W to a Seasonic 1000W both from the same Seasonic Platinum series, can I leave all the cabling in situ and just unplu them from the old PSU and plug them into the new one? I read that one should never do this, but I was wondering if this could be an exception. Maybe a question best addressed to Seasonic support.
Final comment: I'd rather not wait to see what the AMD 9970 has in store. Who knows what supply/availability there will be, and one can always wait for the next, better technology. I'd rather go for something that is in stock and available today.
Thanks for any/all advice!
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