I am currently building a new computer on a budget that is intended for casual gaming (among other uses). For a variety of reasons I won't go into here, I narrowed down my choice to the Geforce GTX 950. I believe that if I'm patient enough, I can pick up this card for $125-130 sometime in the next month or two. However, a coworker is upgrading his PC and monitor setup and offering me his used Radeon HD 7970 adapter for $100. My question is, which one should I take?
Reasons I see for choosing the Radeon HD 7970
* Much better specs
* Cheaper
Reasons I see for choosing the GTX 950:
* Has a warranty
* Will hopefully last longer before dying (though I've never had a graphics adapter die on me before it became obsolete)
* Much lower TDP (90W vs 250W, though that is at load. I am much more interested in idle TDP, but can't find consistent values for either card).
* Only slightly worse frame rates in actual games vs the 7970 (from the few comparisons I could find online)
* The reviews for the 7970 seem to recommend a Core i7 to get the gpu's full potential, but I am getting a Core i5-4460.
I also plan to use whatever graphics adapter I get in a passthru configuration in KVM, if that impacts anyone's opinion for some reason.
Reasons I see for choosing the Radeon HD 7970
* Much better specs
* Cheaper
Reasons I see for choosing the GTX 950:
* Has a warranty
* Will hopefully last longer before dying (though I've never had a graphics adapter die on me before it became obsolete)
* Much lower TDP (90W vs 250W, though that is at load. I am much more interested in idle TDP, but can't find consistent values for either card).
* Only slightly worse frame rates in actual games vs the 7970 (from the few comparisons I could find online)
* The reviews for the 7970 seem to recommend a Core i7 to get the gpu's full potential, but I am getting a Core i5-4460.
I also plan to use whatever graphics adapter I get in a passthru configuration in KVM, if that impacts anyone's opinion for some reason.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram