Recommended upgrade from Radeon 7770?

JayseFace

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Aug 9, 2013
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I have an i5-3570k processor with 8gb of ram, running windows 8. My motherboard is ASRock's Z77 Extreme 4. My current video card is a Radeon 7770, and I'm looking for an upgrade. What would be the best card to get? I'm looking to spend no more than $200. I'm not familiar with nVidia. The cards i'm contemplating right now are the r9 270 for $209 on amazon, or a geforce 660 or 760. Recommendations?
 
Solution
You realize the 270x is faster than the gtx 570?
http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-270X-vs-GeForce-GTX-570

Let the man go for the single card he wants to go with.

Yes drivers and everything for crossfire have improved immensely, but, if you are running the same fps on 2 cards as you are on one, the gaming experience is better on the single card no matter who you talk to. Frametime variance suffers from dual card solutions, and even that varies heavily between gaming setups of the same configuration.

Yes, price/performance, the crossfire is best, but has budgeted for higher, and so can get better performance from an single 270x..


As far as the two 270x cards that were linked, the gigabyte is a freiking amazing deal, but is not as...
Yeah I recommend getting another HD 7770 and running them in Crossfire. That's the best value you'll get for under $200 because it will continue to leverage the power of the card you already own. You'll see a much bigger performance increase than any single card you could possibly buy for the same $$$. Otherwise, the ASRock Z77 Extreme4 was a waste of money. You might as well have bought a cheap single-slot motherboard if you just want to run one card.
ASUS HD 7770 2GB - $135
 
Crossfire is fine, but is slightly inefficient and may not run equally well in all games, as they are not all designed to work fully with crossfire or sli, and do not all scale equally. The board you have was certainly not a waste of money if you decide to go for a single card solution, as the board has many great features besides being sli and crossfire capable
 

JayseFace

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Do these have the loud fans? Which version should I buy?

http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-GDDR5-2GB-2xDVI-Graphics-GV-R927OC-2GD/dp/B00GWSYVUY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389740324&sr=8-1&keywords=r9+270

http://www.amazon.com/Asus-R9270-DC2OC-2GD5-ASUS-Graphics-Cards/dp/B00GWV0ZD8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1389740324&sr=8-2&keywords=r9+270
 
From techpowerup.com:
"The Radeon HD 7770 CrossFire offers excellent scaling with the current drivers, which could only go up as drives mature and get optimized for more games. 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 (or 1920x1080) will be two resolutions people will find themselves typically gaming at, with HD 7700 CrossFire. Overall, taking into account all resolutions we tested at, the HD 7770 CrossFire offers performance somewhere between the HD 6950 and HD 6970. However, if you look at just the two resolutions we mentioned a little earlier, you will see that this setup offers higher performance than the HD 6970, and offers performance close to NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 570."
HD 7770 Crossfire value and conclusion - Techpowerup
Basically, they're saying that if you game with one monitor at 1920x1080, you can expect higher performance than the HD 6970. That means you'll have the power of a Radeon HD 7870 underfoot for $135. I don't care what anyone says, no card under $200 can match that. Incidentally, I've been running Crossfire for nearly 6 years with my twin XFX HD 4870s and now with my twin Gigabyte HD 7970s. I've had no problems with it and think that it's a great gaming solution.
 

Teejers

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If you can get a GTX760 for around $200 then you've found a great deal. The GTX760 is a rebrand of the popular and powerful GTX670.

The R9 270 is a refresh of the HD7870. The older HD7870 only slightly outperforms the GTX660.

To answer your question, for $200 straight up, go with the R9 270. Going Crossfire with another HD7770 will offer a significant boost in raw frame power; however, as another commenter stated it has its issues. Things like frame pacing haven't been completely ironed out by AMD drivers and a single more powerful graphics card is more efficient/suitable for most gaming applications.
 
You realize the 270x is faster than the gtx 570?
http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-270X-vs-GeForce-GTX-570

Let the man go for the single card he wants to go with.

Yes drivers and everything for crossfire have improved immensely, but, if you are running the same fps on 2 cards as you are on one, the gaming experience is better on the single card no matter who you talk to. Frametime variance suffers from dual card solutions, and even that varies heavily between gaming setups of the same configuration.

Yes, price/performance, the crossfire is best, but has budgeted for higher, and so can get better performance from an single 270x..


As far as the two 270x cards that were linked, the gigabyte is a freiking amazing deal, but is not as good as the asus one.

BOTH are much better than the reference cooler, so you would not be disappointed by going with the gigabyte one
 
Solution

enemy1g

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The r9 270 is a rebrand of the 7850, not the 7870. That being said, I found a 7850 for my third PC for $129 about 3 months ago, so paying ~$200 for a rebrand is a little crazy.

My vote goes to getting a GTX 760 if you can (my friend purchased two for $205 each). The 760 will out perform the crossfired 7770s, and you won't have to deal with scaling issues, whether or not a game supports crossfire, and the like.
 

JayseFace

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Aug 9, 2013
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Those are 270s, not 270x's. Is the Gigabyte version still a steal or should I just pay $260 for an asus 760?
 
Well it's down to what you are willing to pay vs the performance you will get. the 760 is a little faster than anything else you are looking at, but obviously it is also more expensive. If you do choose to go with the 760, i recommend the msi gaming, as it is usually the cheapest but still fairly good quality (aftermarket cooler)