Should I upgrade my AMD 7850 graphics card?

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Astralv

Astralv

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Hey there

I have 4 years old Ivy Bridge build with AMD 7850 graphic card. I am giving this rig to a friend. We are not gamers, we doing audio production. He will be using this computer with 2 monitors and can run them off onboard video card if he has to. I have an option to take the graphic card out and place it in the new rig.

Electronic music production can be demanding on the graphic card when opening many software synths. Each of them is individual program that opens as independent window on the screen. Some time I can run up to 10 different windows. Some of them have animated meters and graphs, waveforms responding to sound, so they also move. Not as much as video game, but soft synths can be CPU demanding and I have a feeling- graphics demanding as well.

I have AMD graphics cards on 3 of my builds, but this time I want to try NVidia.

I can spend up to $250. Probably could spend more if I have to if there was an advantage.

Would you recommend to take out my 4 years old AMD 7850 and put it in to the new rig or would you recommend to buy new graphics card?

If you recommend to buy new, please, recommend which one to get under 250-270$.

One condition is that I use KVM switch for 2 monitors- DVI-D and 2 more monitors run from motherboard graphics. So the card would have to have at least HDMI and DVI.

I know that AMD graphic card can work at the same time as onboard card, but somebody had issue to run onboard card with NVidia.

Thank you.
 
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Palewing
If you want nVidia at around 250, then that leaves one simple option: GTX 1060 6GB. It is more than twice as powerful as the 7850(in a few circumstances it is actually 3x as powerful). And it has DVI, HDMI and 3 Displayport.

I'd say go for it, if the money is not a problem. It is overkill if you don't intend to game or work with other things accelerated by the GPU where you can notice the difference, though.
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Palewing

Palewing

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If you want nVidia at around 250, then that leaves one simple option: GTX 1060 6GB. It is more than twice as powerful as the 7850(in a few circumstances it is actually 3x as powerful). And it has DVI, HDMI and 3 Displayport.

I'd say go for it, if the money is not a problem. It is overkill if you don't intend to game or work with other things accelerated by the GPU where you can notice the difference, though.
 
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Astralv

Astralv

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Astralv

Astralv

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So it has 3 DP ports, DVI and HDMI- how many monitors can it support at the same time?

And if you know- will it work with motherboard graphics card enable? or is it up to BIOS settings? Somebody the other day said- it is either on board or dedicated card one at a time. I currently use 4 displays on 2 graphics cards.

I went on and bought the Gigabyte one. And soon as I paid for it, I found Asus in black with Aura RGB lights. I have Asus motherboard and always had Asus graphics cards. So I almost wanted to cancel my order for the Aura lights, even through it was 25$ more. But I could not cancel it. And then I noted that Asus numbers were not as good as Gigabyte's. Crazy. thanks.
 
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Palewing

Palewing

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The card is supposed to be able to handle 4 screens at once. And in theory, if you have the on-board graphics "always enabled" in the bios, you can use it to connect monitors as part of an extended desktop. But it won't be necessary in this case anyway.

You might still be limited to 4 displays in total, with what you have, unless you get something like this http://www.club-3d.com/index.php/products/reader.en/product/mst-hub-1-3.html. Then you could run even more than 4 monitors at once.
 
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Astralv

Astralv

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That is interesting- I have been struggling with monitors because I need 3 monitors in duplicate mode and one in extend mode. Best I can get is 2 in duplicate and 2 in extend mode.

My biggest problem is KVM switch. I use 2 computers- one for music production only, another for everything else. Both custom builds. The piece of **** Linkskey KVM switch never works. It just can not handle switching mouse and keyboard. It fails almost every time. The company told me it is all me, not them and it was past warranty so I bought another one, and it has the same problem. I am so tired to reach behind the monitors to unplug and reset them.

I need good KVM switch that supports dual monitors, and it is not possible to find. I think nobody making them now days.
 
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