Is it time for a new graphic card?

[Kuimera]

Hello guys,

Wondering if is now a good time for a new card?

I've got an Asus GTX295, we had a good run but more recent games are finally breaking her...

I play at 1080p and I like good quality in my gaming, any ideas for a good card or maybe an SLI / CF setup?

I've got 500/600€ budget atm...

 

[jay2tall]

I'd say it is about time for a replacement if you are an avid gamer. The GTX295 is still a good card, but if you want to stay high end it's that time.

Not sure what options you have in your country for that price. A good single card would be a GTX 570/580 or AMD 6970. A good bang for the buck if you want to do dual cards is (2) GTX560 TI's or (2) ATI 6950's. A less expensive, but still better than single card would be (2) 6870's

Maybe you can confirm prices for these models and let us know. Or provide sites you would purchase from.

 

[shrkbay]

If you want a single card then go for 560Ti SOC/ 6950/ 570/ 6970/ 580 (NOTE: most of 6950 2GB can be "flashed" into 6970 so it beats 570 and 560Ti can be OCed very high so they are more or less as good as 570), i really don't recommend getting CF or SLI cause there are many issues with them, but if you want something better than a single card then go for 6870s/ 560Ti SOCs/ 6950s/ 6970s, all of them perform great in CF/SLI, i didn't place 570s and 580s there, because 6950s are as strong as 570s and 6970s are as good as 580s *they scale better* (avg), minimums and performance depend on game...

 

[Kuimera]

Thanks for the fast reply guys,

I can get the EVGA GTX560 Ti SC 1GB for 263€ each, is it a fair price?

 

[jay2tall]

for all intents and purposes a GTX295 performance is somewhere around a 5850-5870 range... kinda depending on game. The GTX560 is also in this ballpark. You will see very little it any, and possibly less performance from a GTX560.

You are going from the best card Nvidia had to offer 2 generations of cards ago. The GTX 560 is a middle of the road gaming card. I just want to make sure you are not disappointed.

 

[shrkbay]

where do you buy it from? that's pretty much for that card, and i think GIGABYTE SOC is better

 

[jay2tall]

I looked around a little more and a GTX295 outperforms or comes close to a GTX470. Think of it in those terms. The GTX560 Ti is around the same performance as a GTX470. I'm willing to bet the GTX295 will outperform the 560.

 

[KidHorn]

Unless the money is burning a hole in your pocket, I would hang on to the 295 for a while longer. It's not obsolete unless you really want dx11/tesselation/... .

I have a 4870 and it works fine for everything I play on my 1920x1200 display. A 295 is probably 2x better. I could easily afford a new card, but I just don't see a need to get a new card when my old one works fine and with so much competition, when the time comes for a new card in say 6 months, I'll get a much better deal.

 

[jay2tall]

^ I agree as well. Unless you are willing to go highend again, you are going to be disappointed.

 

[ionut19]

I would not bother to upgrade. Why would you buy a card that is weaker or similar in performance with the one you have?
Just wait for the new series to appear and play the games in dx10 for another year or so.

Or buy another dual gpu card from AMD or Nvidia. Eider upgrade or leave it be, not replace with something similar because you want to spend money.

 

[Onus]

What CPU do you have? Have you ruled out a bottleneck? Also, what games? For example, if your CPU is AMD, and the game is Starcraft 2, changing the GPU isn't going to make any difference.

 

[robbiep28]

263 euro for a gtx 560 is a horrible price you can buy them from scan.co.uk for £190 (210 euro)

 

[Kuimera]

You guys are awesome, thanks for all the intel/tips...

Yeah all prices here in Portugal are terrible.. bah!

I do not think my CPU is bottlenecking my card tho, this is my setup:

CPU: i7 950 @ 4ghz (1.25v)
Board: Asus P6T Deluxe v2
RAM: Corsair Dominator 6gb 1600mhz (CL7)
Cooler: Corsair H70
PSU: Corsair HX1000w
GPU: Asus ENGTX295

You guys probably right, maybe I'll wait for the next generation, or if I can find another 295 to add quad sli

I was checking some info on my card, and I just noticed that the 295 have more Texel Rate then the new 590 :X

 

[shrkbay]

yup, your system is not bottlenecking anything, hopefully the new series will come earlier so that you won't need to wait that much

 

[Kuimera]

Do you think my CPU/PSU will manage 2x 295? I found a good deal for another 295 for 150€...

 

[ionut19]

It's not that, but with 4 sli (2x2) the scaling is not that good. I do not know how much power a single gtx295 needs but the CPU will be able to handle 2 of those.

 

[jay2tall]

If I remember, Quad SLI had weird issues and didn't scale well. Just save your $$ and wait for the next gen or get highend in this round. If the GTX295 is manageable, let it live a little while longer. My buddy was running a GTX285 until recently and he could run BC2 at really reasonable settings. So a GTX295 should do pretty well. It's sorta like SLIed GTX260's if I recall correctly.

 

[Kuimera]

I saw this review of two gfx295 and seems it's scales good:

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/nvidia_gtx295_quad_sli/1

Maybe the dude from the review is wrong or something?

He said in there that he started to noticed them fly as soon as he OC is cpu to 4ghz, seems the i7 cpu @ stock clocks was bottlenecking the cards...

Nice fps boost in crysis in there imo

 

[jay2tall]

^
I think it is very game dependent. You will want to check what games you play first to see if it is even worth it.