Saudi Arabia: GPU for new build, crazy prices

[Forde3654Eire]

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: April 2012

USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Racing Simulators/ Gaming: Rfactor and Rfactor 2, Iracing 2.0, FIA GTR2, BF3 and MW3, GTA4, Need For Speed Most Wanted all the way to Hot Pursuit 3.

CURRENT GPU AND POWER SUPPLY: None, I'm building a new computer to replace my 10 year old Pentium 4.

OTHER RELEVANT SYSTEM SPECS: I'll be getting a H61 / H67 motherboard and i3 2100

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: None

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Saudi Arabia

PARTS PREFERENCES: Neutral

OVERCLOCKING: Maybe

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Maybe

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1080, 1920x1200

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: I'm in Saudi Arabia, don't have many GPU choices. Radeon 5770 is $80, the next GPU after that is GTX 560 for $213. I'm fine with lowered detail settings at 1080p, I don't mind 720p.

I could get 2 Radeon 5770s. H67 board supports CrossFire (but its 16x4x... that a problem?). Will performance be better (or at least comparable) to GTX 560?

The GTX 560 is $133 more than the Radeon 5770. Considering price and the performance gain... is it worth it?

 

[Forde3654Eire]

Anyone at all? Here are the prices for GPUs here, please help me decide:

Radeon 5770 $80
GTX 550 Ti $150
Radeon 6850 $215
GTX 560 $215
GTX 560 Ti $300
Radeon 6950 $400

I'm building a budget desktop and would like a bit of gaming power in the mix. I'm aware the prices are ridiculous, except for the 5770. I'm just wondering if the performance of the GTX 560 / Radeon 6850 is a lot better that it would be worthwhile the price. If its just a gain of a few FPS, I'd rather stick with the 5770.

 

[Forde3654Eire]

1. 16, 4 CFX is no good, performance hit is too much IMO,
2. get P67 boards if you want CFX, they're pretty cheap now if you can find them
3.Have you walked around Jeddah? I doubt options are so limited...even in Saudi Arabia
4. 2* HD5770 should have performance around a GTX560, but CFX doesnt scale well in all games.

1) Alright, good to know. I'll stay away from the H67 seeing as the 16x4x Crossfire is no good.

2) The few I found are quite expensive. Motherboards here are priced purely based on chipset, regardless of features and so on.

H61: $60
H67: $90
P67: $130
Z68 / Z77: $180

3) I live in Jeddah, believe me, they are limited...

4) Seems like the GTX 560 is a better pick... still, how does a single Radeon 5770 compare to a GTX 560? If the FPS drop is only about 10 - 15 (heck even 20) FPS, then I'd rather stick with the 5770.

with that kind of pricing, I think I would get 2*HD5770s and a P67 motherboard with at least 2* PCI-E lanes at *8

I'd probably be able to find a well-priced P67 if I look hard enough. Any particular brands to choose? Most boards here are Gigabyte, with the odd Foxconn and Intel here and there.

 

[Energy96]

Can you not have things shipped to you from Newegg?

 

[Forde3654Eire]

Can you not have things shipped to you from Newegg?

Newegg doesn't ship internationally. Amazon, ebay etc are all out of the question, customs into the country is very expensive and the GPU will most likely be confiscated.

No online stores within the country, have to choose from what's available locally.

 

[Energy96]

"Dictatorship" for the lose. Time to move to a country with a little more freedom in my opinion!

 

[Forde3654Eire]

"Dictatorship" for the lose. Time to move to a country with a little more freedom in my opinion!

Not very helpful. Can we stick to the topic?

 

[Forde3654Eire]

See the HD6790, well......that card is about 10% faster than a HD5770

IMO, your option would be to either get a nice P67 borad and CFX 2*HD5770 or a nice H61 or cheap H67 coupled with the GTX 560

Dual graphics seems to be the way to go, especially with the crazy prices of the higher end GPUs here. I'm pretty sure I can find a couple of 5770s or a couple of GTX 460s.

I'm assuming getting them second-hand is ok? Boys here with the rich daddies will still abandon a good system, just to get the latest and greatest... such is the case of my friend with the Radeon 5770. Used parts would still be... well, fairly new.

Does the board have to be a P67? They're expensive and I won't benefit at all from the OC'ing feature, because my CPU is locked. Suppose I find a H61 / H67 with 16x and 8x PCI-e slots? I hear the performance loss due to the 8x is negligibe.

 

[Forde3654Eire]

For me, it all depends on the pricing of the boards and the graphics cards. If I find a reasonably priced P67, I'll add 2 graphics cards, probably used ones (as long as their combined price doesn't surpass that of a single GTX 560 / Radeon 6850).

 

[dalauder]

1. 16, 4 CFX is no good, performance hit is too much IMO,
2. get P67 boards if you want CFX, they're pretty cheap now if you can find them
3.Have you walked around Jeddah? I doubt options are so limited...even in Saudi Arabia
4. 2* HD5770 should have performance around a GTX560, but CFX doesnt scale well in all games.

1. Where'd you hear 16x/4x CFX has a performance hit? I'm under the impression that more than 4x for PCI-e 2.0 is useless for anything weaker than a GTX 560Ti or so: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/08/25/gtx_480_sli_pcie_bandwidth_perf_x16x16_vs_x4x4
So if you could link your source, that would be helpful.

OP, how much are two 5770's? I know the first (used) is $80. But how much is the second?

 

[dalauder]

1) Alright, good to know. I'll stay away from the H67 seeing as the 16x4x Crossfire is no good.

4) Seems like the GTX 560 is a better pick... still, how does a single Radeon 5770 compare to a GTX 560? If the FPS drop is only about 10 - 15 (heck even 20) FPS, then I'd rather stick with the 5770.
.

1) I question greghome's claim. I'll concede if he can post some links to validate his statement. So far all I have is my link above that indicates a 4x pci-e lane doesn't bottleneck any of the cards we're discussing.

4) A single GTX 560 stomps a 5770 pretty handily: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/43366-nvidia-geforce-gtx-560-1gb-review-11.html
Considering the 5770, is the GTX 550Ti's equal, it looks to me like the GTX 560 gets about 50% better framerates. Whether that means 10 or 20 fps entirely depends on the title. If the 5770 can play at 30 fps, that would mean the GTX 560 will play at about 45 fps. Of course, the exact performance improvement depends on the title.

Can you not have things shipped to you from Newegg?

Newegg doesn't even ship to Guam, which is in the U.S. and serviced by the US Postal Service for the same rates as Hawaii and Alaska.

 

[dalauder]

IMO, your option would be to either get a nice P67 borad and CFX 2*HD5770 or a nice H61 or cheap H67 coupled with the GTX 560

I like the H61 with GTX 560 option.

It really is a nice fps boost and, considering he listed (in an earlier thread) that it's $62 for a Gigabyte (Channel Well, same as Corsair VX550) 550W PSU or $93 for a 720W, I like the path to a single card system. That's simpler with less compatibility issues anyways.

Although my favorite choice is merely a 5770 and then an upgrade on the GPU in late 2013 or so and, possibly, a CPU upgrade at the same time.

OP, how much is a single used GTX 460 1GB? That card is phenomenal when overclocked--like a bit better than stock GTX 560Ti performance. You'll want to start a thread on that if you get one.

 

[nforce4max]

well, talking about freedom.
I believe Somalia is neither a dictatorship or democracy, but it's the freest country in the world, considering it's in a state of anarchy

I got to say that I hate the world we all have to live in, the world is one big open air prison. Man is born free but every ware he is in chains.

 

[dalauder]

I got to say that I hate the world we all have to live in, the world is one big open air prison. Man is born free but every ware he is in chains.

Alright, somebody go start a thread about freedom and link it. In the meantime, let's get back to talking about hardware.

 

[Energy96]

I got to say that I hate the world we all have to live in, the world is one big open air prison. Man is born free but every ware he is in chains.

Some places are still more free than others which was my point previously. There has to be a decent balance otherwise you have "Somalia". Americans have increasingly more bullshit laws to abide by but at least for now it is still one of the more free and better places in the world to live a more civilized life. Not sure how long it will last with the average American becoming dumber and more oblivious to the world around them every year but there are only a very small (and getting smaller all the time) number of other places in the world where people can live better.

Sorry for the thread hijack, I just wanted to clarify my point.

 

[dalauder]

I'll be honest with you, I dont have benches of HD5770 CFX on x4 lanes, but you have to know AMD GPUs are hit harder in most situations when using X4 instead of X8 or X16 compared to Nvidia GPUs

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-p67-chipset-gaming-performance,2887-6.html

http://media.bestofmicro.com/6/9/284049/original/image010.png

I wasn't looking for 5770's. What you linked was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.

 

[Forde3654Eire]

There are no used graphics cards available here folks. I'll either have to choose the $215 GTX 560 or go with the $80 Radeon 5770.

According to Anandtech's bench, I calculated an average 20 FPS increase from the 5770 to the GTX 560 at 1680x1050, and 15 FPS increase at 1920x1080

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/538?vs=543

For the 6850, averaged to 10 FPS increase at 1680x1050 and 7 FPS increase at 1920x1080.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/538?vs=539

Apparently, the GTX 560 is the winner in these benchmarks. However, I am not prepared to fork out an extra $133 for a small increase in FPS.

I'm trying to put as little money as possible into this build. Throwing in an extra $133 for 15 - 20 FPS just doesn't make sense to me. I am not pushed at all about full 1080p gaming, the Radeon 5770 suits me fine. I want to make it clear that I'm not after super-high FPS and resolution, just smooth gameplay.

I went to one of these gamer places to try out the beefy computers with the GTX 560. In all honesty, I noticed absolutely no difference between the quality of 1680x1050 and 1920x1080 on the 24" screen. High resolution is starting to come across to me as nothing more than just something to brag about.

Watching Battlefield 3 gameplay on Youtube filmed at 1280x720 blew my mind away! I thought it was 1080p till I saw the description!

Note: I found i5 2300 for as low as $165. That's only $40 more than the i3 2100. Is this a better investment than the GTX 560? Will the i5 2300 give me better FPS than the i3 2100, both with Radeon 5770?

Note: Which investment will best help me reduce the effect Fraps has on FPS while recording?

 

[Forde3654Eire]

As of now, I'm happy enough with the 5770, but since I won't be building for at least a month, I'll wait and see if the GTX 560 goes down in price. $213 is a stupid price for the 560. I hate the idea of being ripped off. If it goes down near to US prices I might get it.

Note: If I do go for the GTX 560, which brand should I choose? Most of them here are Gigabyte (not so good reviews on Newegg).

By searching Newegg, it seems that the Radeon graphics cards are more overpriced than their Nvidia counterparts. For the time-being, this particular GTX 560 seems to be the least overpriced of the bunch here in Saudi Arabia. It's $180 in the US, $213 here

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125383

The Radeon 6850 is definitely ridiculously overpriced. $160 there, $213 here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125353

If I won't benefit from the i5 2300 in gaming, then I don't want it. Simple as that.

Still in the end, I'm inclined to stick with the i3 2100 and 5770. I'd rather save the $130 than blow it away on a few extra FPS.

 

[dalauder]

That works pretty well (the i3 and 5770).

 

[dalauder]

I'm closing this tab in my browser. PM me if you come back.

 

[Forde3654Eire]

Thanks for all the help guys. I'll check back in 3 - 4 weeks when I'm close to buying the parts.

 

[Forde3654Eire]

Just a small clarification I'm looking for guys. I've been researching CPU bottle-necks. If I understand correctly, the whole idea is that if a CPU is not powerful enough, it won't allow the GPU to perform to its full potential.

This seems to be a significant concern when considering dual graphics solutions: dual GPUs are more prone to CPU bottle-necking than single GPUs.

So:

1) I completely rule out dual graphics solutions

2) How low can I go on the CPU before bottle-necking starts to become a problem? Consider the following GPUs and name the minimum you would go on the CPU to run it to its full potential (considering nothing else in the build is changed).

i) Radeon 5770 (I'm thinking Pentium G620 is enough, correct me if I'm wrong!!!)
ii) GTX 560 and Radeon 6850

Please note that I'm only concerned about graphics performance here. My current 10 year old Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz Prescott does everything else I want just fine and I'm perfectly happy with it... I'm assuming the modern G620 is better than it in every way.

Thinking ahead I do realise quad cores are becoming more prevalent in games. I'm thinking of going with an inexpensive AMD quad core that won't bottleneck my gaming with Radeon 5770 (Athlon II X4 / Phenom II X4 or unlocked from X2 or X3) and keep me future-proof with the 4 cores versus 2 on both G620 and i3 2100.

 

[hesham555]

You can just try to buy it from other websites that can ship to saudi arabia, I am sure you will find quite few and sometimes even cheaper.

 

[Forde3654Eire]

There will be a new shipment of AMD Athlon and Phenom CPUs to suppliers here in a couple of weeks. I'll let you know the prices.

 

[GamersAreTheBest]

oh man i feel your pain , i live in Gizan or Jizan whatever you want to call it and the computer stores here don't even have a single lga 1155 board , can you even imagine it ! i currently have an amd fx 8120 @ 4ghz ( a *** cpu , lags and throttles even with the latest bios update) , a ga990fxaud3 , 6950 , 850 w psu and 12 gb of corsair vengence memory . since i consider this setup as a huge fail , i waited for ivy bridge to be released , when it was released which is i guess today ,it is no where to be found on this country .Egypt on the other hand is a hole different story , when the nvidia gtx 680 was released in the US it was in stock in Egypt as well . SAME FREAKING DAY ! . Even the prices were like 200 riyals difference , come on .
So you might say " ok , buy your hardware from Egypt " , but did you consider warranty , i can't ship a hardware back and forth when/if the item gets defected.