Have phenom ii 965 be need advice on graphics card (s)

[clintk55]

Hi there. I have a phenom ii 965 be and an asus sabertooth 990 mobo sitting around in box collecting dust and figured I'd finally go ahead and build a rig as I'm getting tired of my laptop. My question is with those two items as a base would someone please direct me to a few graphics cards that would work well if I oced the cpu to say 3.6? I've been browsing but I don't have a lot of expertise in this area and id like to have the choices narrowed a bit. Budget prices are nice but not a must as I have that financing deal through best buy. Id like to be able to tackle pretty much every game at high frames but I've read about bottlenecking and don't really want to pay high dollar for something that won't be able to perform at its optimum level. Thanks!

 

[swifty_morgan]

what opsys....32 or 64bit/what ram/monitor and res/power supply/what you will be using the machine for... ???

 

[JKatwyopc]

I would recommend you look at the Radeon HD 6950 or 7850 as well as the Nvidia GTX 560ti or 570. Those would get you into the types of frame rates you would need.

 

[clintk55]

swifty Windows 7 64 bit RAM will be ddr 3 1600 probably 8 gb moniter is tbd power supply will be a 750 watt good brand sorry if this all seems a bit rough haven't put a ton of thought in to it. I looked at the 7850s, would that require more than 3.6 on the overlook to run stable?

 

[clintk55]

Also ill be using it for gaming mostly. Diablo 3 and maybe a few mmos and fps games like battlefield

 

[Earnie]

swifty Windows 7 64 bit RAM will be ddr 3 1600 probably 8 gb moniter is tbd power supply will be a 750 watt good brand sorry if this all seems a bit rough haven't put a ton of thought in to it. I looked at the 7850s, would that require more than 3.6 on the overlook to run stable?

That will run just fine,infact it should run 2 of them fine.I have run a 980 stock/oc and now an 1100t stock/oc and they both ran/run 2 6950's just fine.
I pretty much only play BF3 and using open hardware monitor,either Cpu and both Gpu's are running pretty much 100%.

 

[blazorthon]

Diablo 3 and MMOs aren't heavy games, but BF3 is. Were you referring to BF3 when you said Battlefield or an older version?

Also, I'd overclock that CPU. 4GHz is where I think it should be. Don't get a 570 because it has way too little VRAM nowadays. The same is true for any 6950 or 560 TI that doesn't have 2GB of VRAM. The 7850 is the best option here, but a 6950 2GB or 560 TI 2GB are okay... However, I do not recommend them.

 

[clintk55]

Thanks so much for the input so far guys. BF3 is what I was referring to. Should I worry too much about the Catalyst driver issues that have been popping up?

 

[Rockdpm]

GTX 670. look at my specs bro. we have same system. my 980 at 3.7 is about the same as yours at 3.6

 

[blazorthon]

Don't worry about driver issues. I've worked with 7850s and they're fine if you use recent driver. Since BF3 is important, the 7850 is an excellent choice. Even at stock, the 965 wouldn't be much of a CPU limitation, but a moderate overclock to 3.6GHz (like you suggested) or 4GHz should solve any CPU limitations in all games with the 7850. The 7850 isn't so ridiculously fast that it presents a problem for the Phenom IIs.

 

[Hydroc10]

I'd go with a GTX 670 or an HD7870, your going to need 2gb vram if you want to turn up the textures on BF3 or even Max Payne. You should be able to hit 4.0-4.2ghz on your 965 easily enough just make sure you get an aftermarket cooler. The stock cooler does work but the fan will stress you out even at 48c the fan spins up to 7k. Even at stock clocks that fan will wear on you, I wish I'd taken that advice.

 

[davemaster84]

Any single GPU will work perfect even the ATI 7970 or the GTX 680, even mid end SLI's like gtx 460, 560 or crossfire's like 7950 etc. Only dual cpu beats like the gtx 690 , ATI 6990 or high end Sli's would bottleneck it, so go for the best you can!

 

[blazorthon]

I'd go with a GTX 670 or an HD7870, your going to need 2gb vram if you want to turn up the textures on BF3 or even Max Payne. You should be able to hit 4.0-4.2ghz on your 965 easily enough just make sure you get an aftermarket cooler. The stock cooler does work but the fan will stress you out even at 48c the fan spins up to 7k. Even at stock clocks that fan will wear on you, I wish I'd taken that advice.

The Radeon 7850 has 2GB of VRAM. No 7850 has less than 2GB.

 

[blazorthon]

Any single GPU will work perfect even the ATI 7970 or the GTX 680, even mid end SLI's like gtx 460, 560 or crossfire's like 7950 etc. Only dual cpu beats like the gtx 690 , ATI 6990 or high end Sli's would bottleneck it, so go for the best you can!

You are overestimating the capabilities of the Phenom IIs. It takes an overclock to at least about 4GHz just for the GTX 670 to not be too noticeably bottle-necked by a Phenom II x4 or Phenom II x6 CPU in any CPU intensive games. Anything more than that would be too much for the Phenom IIs. Crossfire 7950, Radeon 6990, GTX 690, and others are too much for them. Two 7950s are between two GTX 580s and two GTX 670s.

 

[Hydroc10]

The Radeon 7850 has 2GB of VRAM. No 7850 has less than 2GB.

IMO the 7850 is not that good of a deal, heck a 6870 has more compute power although is slower in games. So I say get at least a 7870-7950 or GTX670, the OP has a nice motherboard and should be able to get a nice OC the 7850 may be the bottleneck at that point.
I agree though a 7850 would be enough, I won't buy one but I can wait a few months. Peace.

 

[blazorthon]

The 7850 has more computer power than the 6870 and regardless of that, its compute power has zero effect in most current games anyway. The 7850 also has far greater tessellation performance. You people are suggesting these overly high end cards for this system when it won't even run at high enough resolutions and such to justify these cards and the CPU would be a bottle-neck. The Phenom II x4s have trouble in BF3 MP with anything better than a 7850 or 7870. You're all also spreading outright lies about these hardware components. The 6870 does not have more compute performance than the 7850, the Phenom IIs are not as fast as some of you claim, and I don't even know why you brought up compute performance anyway.

 

[Hydroc10]

The 7850 has more computer power than the 6870 and regardless of that, its compute power has zero effect in most current games anyway. The 7850 also has far greater tessellation performance. You people are suggesting these overly high end cards for this system when it won't even run at high enough resolutions and such to justify these cards and the CPU would be a bottle-neck. The Phenom II x4s have trouble in BF3 MP with anything better than a 7850 or 7870. You're all also spreading outright lies about these hardware components. The 6870 does not have more compute performance than the 7850, the Phenom IIs are not as fast as some of you claim, and I don't even know why you brought up compute performance anyway.

Look on amd.com at the specs for the HD7850 1.76 TFLOPS compute power as compared to the HD 6870 2.0 TFLOPS compute power. I did not suggest the OP buy a 6870 over a 7850. There's a cream that will help with that painfull burning when you sit, I'm sure you can find it at your local pharmacy. Enjoy!

 

[blazorthon]

You know nothing about compute if you think that maximum theoretical SP TFLOPS is equal to performance. The VLIW5 architecture of the 6970 usually maxes out at about one fifth of it's maximum compute performance because VLIW5 is a bad architecture for compute (it never hits 100%) whereas GCN is designed specifically for compute and can easily reach 100% efficiency. Would you like me to explain exactly why this happens? Next time you want to argue about something that you know nothing about with a computer engineer, you might want to try not say something so blatantly ignorant. Enjoy.

Also, if you don't believe me, then why don't you look at the GTX 580's compute TFLOPs and then think about why a card with lower TFLOPS than many of AMD's Radeon 6000 and 5000 cards is several times faster than those AMD cards in real-world compute performance. Those maximum AMD TFLOPS are theoretical numbers that will never be reached, but the GCN Radeons can easily hit their maximums. GCN is an architecture designed for supreme compute performance and in that regard, it succeeded greatly.

 

[Hydroc10]

You know nothing about compute if you think that maximum theoretical SP TFLOPS is equal to performance. The VLIW5 architecture of the 6970 usually maxes out at about one fifth of it's maximum compute performance because VLIW5 is a bad architecture for compute (it never hits 100%) whereas GCN is designed specifically for compute and can easily reach 100% efficiency. Would you like me to explain exactly why this happens? Next time you want to argue about something that you know nothing about with a computer engineer, you might want to try not say something so blatantly ignorant. Enjoy.

Also, if you don't believe me, then why don't you look at the GTX 580's compute TFLOPs and then think about why a card with lower TFLOPS than many of AMD's Radeon 6000 and 5000 cards is several times faster than those AMD cards in real-world compute performance. Those maximum AMD TFLOPS are theoretical numbers that will never be reached, but the GCN Radeons can easily hit their maximums. GCN is an architecture designed for supreme compute performance and in that regard, it succeeded greatly.

Sir if you'll reread my statement I wrote I didn't think the 7850 was that great of a value and mentioned the TFLOPS then finished the sentance by saying that the 7850 was faster. I stand by my opinion that the 7850 is not a good value. For some reason you felt the need to add "You're all also spreading outright lies about these components". WTH is that all about? You tried to put words in my mouth and go on to pontificate how isignificant compute power is which I had already agreed that although the 7850 had less TFLOPS performance it was faster in games. These are facts. This is all about you dude. I never even contradicted you. Get over yourself. The OP asked for advice on cards and 3 of us gave our advice, nobody on this thread spread any lies. What was accomplished with the 7850 was great but the card is over priced IMO. Read the whole thread again. If your offended by my opinion about the 7850, well fine. But to say I'm spreading lies and then go on to write a manifesto about things that are not even being disputed is laughable at this point. I gave my source "amd.com" about the TFLOPS however pointless that may be this is fact. I repeat nobody spread any lies and you sir should be ashamed of yourself for insinuating such. To be honest this whole thing has become a joke and makes both of us look foolish. I don,t do flame wars and can only assume you are the proud owner of a 7850 or not, Have a nice day.

 

[blazorthon]

That the 7850 is faster in games has absolutely nothing to do with compute performance. The GTX 680 is far inferior to the Radeon 7950 in compute performance, yet the 680 beats the 7950 in most games. These are the facts. Compute performance and gaming performance are two very different workloads and are not very related, so by saying that the 6870 has inferior compute performance (wrong), yet loses in games, does not imply that the 7850 is better at compute at all, at least not to anyone who knows much about GPGPU compute. How is the 7850 overpriced?It is right behind the 6970 in gaming performance, but is cheaper and uses far less power (saving more money) and not only that, but it also overclocks better and comes with free games. I'm not ashamed of anything. You took a number of which you don't even understand and used it to say that the 6870 is faster at compute than the 7850. That is a lie and I called you out on it.

 

[swifty_morgan]

swifty Windows 7 64 bit RAM will be ddr 3 1600 probably 8 gb moniter is tbd power supply will be a 750 watt good brand sorry if this all seems a bit rough haven't put a ton of thought in to it. I looked at the 7850s, would that require more than 3.6 on the overlook to run stable?

forget about "optimized" anything. If you want the 7850 get it.It should work fine with the rest of your system. It won't be "optimized" and your processor won't push it to the nth......... but.................... and don't get a card with less that 2gig of vram.

To the guys above in the war............... thanks for messing up the thread.

 

[Rockdpm]

Yea, the Radeon vs Geforce will never end. One company has its ups just like the other has its up. No one will ever be a CLEAR winner for anything. Blame the market not argue over a matter that will never end

 

[blazorthon]

Wrong. Completely wrong. The Radeon 7950 and 7970 are the fastest single GPU cards for compute in the consumer market. The 7800 cards beat the GTX 480 in single-precison badly, although they don't win in dual-precision (which is arguably more important, but that's not the point).

In single precision, the closest single GPU Nvidia card to the 7970 is the GTX 680 and the 7970 is about 50% ahead of the 680 in that. The closest single GPU card to the 7970 in dual-precision is the 580 and the 7970 is about three times faster than the 580 (about five to six times faster than the 680 in dual-precision). The 480 is behind the 580 in both single and dual precision. The 7970 is the fastest compute single GPU card overall.

 

[blazorthon]

You don't know what you're talking about. The 480 doesn't even come close to the 7970 in single nor dual precision compute performance.

 

[blazorthon]

Yea, the Radeon vs Geforce will never end. One company has its ups just like the other has its up. No one will ever be a CLEAR winner for anything. Blame the market not argue over a matter that will never end

AMD is a clear winner for compute in the consumer cards. I'm not saying that they win everything (they don't come close to winning everything), but the Radeon 7950 and 7970 win in compute and there's no consumer competition for them. Quadro and Tesla cards are all that can fight the 7900 cards in compute and even then, the 7950 and 7970 beat many of them.