Which Graphics card for 1440p gaming? (£250/$300+ budget)

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fastestlouigie1

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Nov 24, 2013
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I have a PC that I upgraded around 2 years ago. It has an I5 (2500K) on an Gigabyte (XFire) motherboard, with 8gb Corsair Vengeance ram, and 160gb Samsung SSD/1TB 7200RPM drives. Power is supplied by a Corsair 650TX.
My graphics consist of a single MSI R9950 Twin Frozr MkIII GPU and a 27" Dell U2711 (1440P) monitor. This lot runs Windows 7 (64 bit).
I want to upgrade the GPU but I'm not sure if I should be looking at another R6950 (one of my cards is up on E**y for around £45 currently!) or looking at something much more sophisticated/up-to date. I want to be able to play the latest games (BF4, MMO's, Shogun2, COD/Ghost etc.) at max settings at 1440p. My budget will vary according to answers-I have £200 now but will wait if I need to. I have plenty of old games I can play whilst waiting to save funds if need be but I'd like to sample some of the latest gaming goodies when I can!
 
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quilciri

quilciri

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Mar 16, 2012
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A second 6950 is ok if you can be patient. AMD's frame-pacing isn't 100% yet (frame pacing is necessary when running 2 video cards. Without it, each cards simply pushes frames as fast as it can which results in overlapping frames that the user can't see. This makes the framerate appear much lower or "choppy" to the user experience).

AMD's driver have improved steadily in the last 8 months, and they will likely catch up to nvidia's solution within the year.

However, if you can't wait, I suggest a single card solution such as:

MSI GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card (£191.60 @ Scan.co.uk)

or

XFX Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (£203.70 @ Aria PC)

and possibly selling your 6950 :)
 
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fastestlouigie1

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Nov 24, 2013
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Thanks quilciri, the hd 7970 looks good (3 free games which look good as well!)-is the gtx 670 as powerful? I was thinking along the lines of a 3gb card to "cope" with the high resolution of my Dell U2711, or do I not need as much for this?
I could push to £250 tomorrow if I wanted to get a long-term solution and to this end, I have been reading up on the R9 r280x, which seems to be a sweet spot for 1440p gaming at the moment. I looks like a rebadged 7970 but cooler and about up to 5% faster. Anyone have any xp with these cards?
 
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quilciri

quilciri

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Mar 16, 2012
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The 7970 is a slightly faster card than the 670. The 280x is essentially a rebranded 7970 ghz edition, which is nothing more than an 8% overclock on a regular 7970 (stock 925mhz)

If you want to stay with a single GPU, 7970 all the way. If your motherboard supports SLI and you think you may want a second card downthe road, consider Nvidia.

2gb, 256-bit is enough for 2560x1440. I'm currently running a pair of 670's on a potalion 2710QW (a 2560x1440 monitor) with the overlord circuitboard, overclocked to 108Hz. I use two because I'd like most eye-candy on while still averaging 100+ fps. I use Nvidia for multiple GPU builds because AMD's frame pacing isn't up to snuff yet, but with a single GPU AMD is (usually) the better deal.
 
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