Gigabyte N650OC-4GI 4GB or Asus GeForce GTX 650 2GB

mattyvatty

Reputable
Apr 7, 2014
3
0
4,510
Hey All,

I'm about to assemble a new desktop after i-dont-know-how-many years and omg its overwhelming... too many options x(

Please help me choosing my new VGA of which I'll attach two monitors to (and possibly if you reckon i could get a better spec within this budget, specially with ram and motherboard)

I'll be doing urban design projects, which could be as small as a block of a land to big as a whole city!! working mainly with autodesk programs such as AutoCAD, 3ds Max, ... Sketch Up, Google earth, Hec-RAS, Adobe Suit,.. you name it

Note ((( I'm feom down under, Australia, so all prices are in australian dollars which is about 0.93 USD$))) and these are the cheapest prices ive got x(

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($389.00)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U9B SE2 37.9 CFM CPU Cooler ($58.00)
Thermal: Arctic Silver Ceramique 2 Tri-Linear 2.7g Thermal Paste ($4.49)
Mb: Asus Z87-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($168.00)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($180.00)
SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($99.00)
HDD: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM ($92.00)

VGA:
Option1. Gigabyte N650OC-4GI 4GB GTX 650 ($183.00)
Option2. Asus GeForce GTX 660 2GB ($244.00)
Option3. Asus GeForce GTX 650 2GB GTX650-E-2GD5 ($165.00)

Case: Thermaltake Urban S31 Window ATX Mid Tower Case ($88.00)
PSU: Thermaltake SMART 550W 80+ Bronze Cert ($85.00)
DVD: Asus BC-12B1ST/BLK/B/AS Blu-RayReader, DVD/CD Writer ($19.00)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit)
Wireless : TP-Link TL-WDN4800 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($45.00)

Total: $1445.00 (without OS, Monitor, key and mouse)

Thank you in advance
 
Solution


Well, if you have more monitors, there are more pixels to deal with, which requires more VRAM. Without enough VRAM, the card has to resort to other methods of storing the data, which will seriously impact performance.
If you don't have that many monitors, 2GB will be enough.

Also, the 660 card will perform better than the 650...

mattyvatty

Reputable
Apr 7, 2014
3
0
4,510


thx for the answer;
could you please tell me why?
cause 660 has only got 2gb in comparison with the 4gb of 650. in this case ive got to spend extra $60 and get 2gb less... how do you justify that?
 

Redheadsrule13

Honorable
Oct 25, 2013
322
0
10,960


Well, if you have more monitors, there are more pixels to deal with, which requires more VRAM. Without enough VRAM, the card has to resort to other methods of storing the data, which will seriously impact performance.
If you don't have that many monitors, 2GB will be enough.

Also, the 660 card will perform better than the 650. Why?
A whole number of reasons. Clock speeds, memory bandwidth, texel rate, pixel rate, memory speed, shader clock, the list goes on.

There are two important things to note here:
1. The amount of VRAM that a card has is in no way, shape or form, a good indicator of a cards performance.
2. Even if this wasn't true, why would Nvidia be selling a better card at a lower price? The more expensive card would never make any money as everyone would buy the cheaper, better performing card.

Performance comparisons between the two cards:
http://www.hwcompare.com/13458/geforce-gtx-650-vs-geforce-gtx-660/
http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-660-vs-GeForce-GTX-650
 
Solution

mattyvatty

Reputable
Apr 7, 2014
3
0
4,510
Hey Redheadsrule13,
Thx for all the input and amazing sources, helped a lot...
I'm gonna go with the Asus GeForce GTX 660
its almost 2yrs old however has got higher performance and a higher price tag in compare to the new releases such as GeForce GTX 750 Ti, GeForce GTX 750, ...