Is an upgrade advisable (Video Card)?

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Phosphonothioic

Phosphonothioic

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Dec 20, 2012
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I'm currently running a single 7950 on my 2560x1440 monitor. It seems to be working really hard when I'm playing Might and Magic X or Simcity and I try to edge all of the settings towards their max. The card's fans are revving very loud throughout my entire session, and I experience some stuttering in MM:X on brightly lit scenes.

I'm running everything in a m-iTX set-up, so I know heat may be an issue. I have a watercooled i5-3570K running at stock, 2x4GB RAM, 1 SSD, and 1 HDD put into a Cooler Master Elite 130.

Elite 130

So, possibly battling heat and a card without enough horsepower.

I'm looking into moving away from m-itx as a failed experiment...but would still like to know if my video card needs an upgrade? I know the 780s would be a great choice, if I wanted to dump $500. Is there a middle ground card that is worth the upgrade?

Other advice?

Thanks!

 
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gopher1369

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What temperatures are you hitting?

Assuming you have decent airflow in that case there shouldn't be any issues using a 7950. I use Mini ITX for my gaming rig and it works fine. My case is a Silverstone Sugo SG05 which is considerably smaller than the Elite 130 and I have no trouble with excess heat.

1440p is a very demanding resolution though, you may well need a faster GPU to push games at that resolution, but not necessarily a different case.

 
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Guest

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A 7950 will push 1440p just fine. Even with good airflow the 7950s do get noisy. Have you thought about an aftermarket cooler replacement?
 
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Phosphonothioic

Phosphonothioic

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I guess that's the meat of my question. The unit is very loud and I worried I was 'maxing' it out.

I've never thought of an aftermarket solution, and I have little knowledge to begin with about it. Your thoughts?
 
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Phosphonothioic

Phosphonothioic

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The way the Elite 130 is set up, the 7950 pulls air directly from the side vents of the case, so intake isn't an issue.

I'm sorry, I should have been a little more quantitative earlier. I don't have temps and I should probably benchmark my unit. It's just the noise...my lord is the card noisy. I bought the Gigabyte Windforce version...sounds like a helicopter (slight exaggeration) during my gaming sessions.
 
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It's a big cooler and may not fit in your mini itx solution but the Arctic Accelero Xtreme 7970 would be my choice unless you want to convert to a water cooling heatsink.

Here's a review on Tom's that you can take a look at. Custom Cooling for HD 7950/7970
 
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