Cheapest Card for 1920x1080 with no AA

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paul7799

paul7799

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May 13, 2012
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I've been looking at upgrading my graphics card for a while now, and I just can't quite justify the $250 CAD for a 7850 although they seem to be highly heralded as THE best card for that price, due to OC ability, power draw, temps, performance, etc. However, I REALLY don't wanna spend more than $200 although I can justify up to about $220 CAD, but I'm just weary about that extra little budget jump.

SO, I want to know what the best card I can buy for just under $200 or SLIGHTLY over $200 that can run all modern games at 1920x1080, preferably on max settings, however I DON'T CARE ABOUT AA, which has a fairly large hit on performance. The most demanding games I play/want to play will be/are Battlefield 3, GTA IV with iCEnhancer, Max Payne 3, Crysis 1/2/3 (when it comes out), The Witcher 2, and the rest are older/will be able to run no problem if the above can run well. I would really like to hit an average FPS of over 50, as I've tried running games with FRAPS and not looking at the FPS until I see a visible drop in smoothness, or when I see a visible mark in smoothness, and I found above 50 FPS to be that sweet spot, once it drops around 47/48 it begins to look slightly choppier (obviously not nearly as bad as below 30, but it doesn't feel as nice as that 50 sweet spot does).

TLDR: Need new graphics card to run modern, and future DX11 games at 1920x1080 with average FPS of at least 50FPS, and NO ANTI-ALIASING, due to performance hits. Price: less than $220.

Cards I've been seriously considering: 6870, 7850 (just a tad too high of price, that I really don't want to buy unless it's truly worth it), 560, 560 ti.

Also, I don't wanna upgrade for a couple years, so I'm thinking of exclusively buying a 2GB card, which should help narrow the search.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice.
 
pacioli

pacioli

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The 660 Ti at $300 is going to have a big impact on prices. The AMD cards will go down in price almost immediately while the 560 Tis will be migrating to the 460s price range... $120 to $160.
 
verbalizer

verbalizer

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this possibly....
+1
 
paul7799

paul7799

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May 13, 2012
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Urban Legend, I can't see American links, idk why, but Newegg.com just redirects me to Newegg.ca.

And Big Mack and Pacioli, thanks! I can certainly wait a couple more weeks, and then the 7850 should be PERFECT, because I really want it, but I just can't justify the extra money right now.

Also, Big Mack, the card on NCIX looks really enticing! Thanks for that, I'll definitely consider that, but if you think the price will drop even more, then I'll hold off for a little while longer. And as for that XFX, I've looked at it, believe me, but it's 1GB and I have a feeling that next-gen (just around the corner, especially with Fortnite, UE4's debut) will probably use the extra memory, so I want to stick with 2GB for now.
 
paul7799

paul7799

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May 13, 2012
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Alright thanks guys! I'll just hang in there for a little while longer! I guess I'll OC my current 5670 to the max, and see how she goes, if I ruin it in the next couple of weeks, then I guess it's upgrade time! If not, well I can survive a little longer, it's just that testing the clocks in 5/10MHz increments seems so tedious :(
 
ilysaml

ilysaml

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No AA? So where's the gaming experience?


Best performer of those would be the HD 7850 followed by the Ti, the HD 7850 is a great performer even with a lot of AA enabled, it overclocks great it worth the money.
 
paul7799

paul7799

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Well I've noticed that few games ever need anti-aliasing at 1920x1080, it's just a very crisp resolution that produces a solid picture and imo, "gaming experience". The only time I ever find I need AA, is when looking at fences, wires, etc. thin linear objects. However, I've noticed that the 7850 seems to handle games quite well with FXAA I'm not EXACTLY sure how that's different from multi-sampling (I'll do a search though) but it seems to get the job done with less of a performance hit. My guess, is that multi-sampling is, as the name implies, a re-rendering of the scene, each time smoothing out the edges.

EDIT: Also, I guess at this point, it's quite unanimous (and I've felt this for a LONG time now), the 7850 is the way to go, hands down. I'll just wait a little longer - hopefully by the time september rolls around - till the 660 releases and then the 7850 will drop in price.
 
ilysaml

ilysaml

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I'm not quite sure of what you're referring to, any game without AA doesn't reflect the reality, when you enable AA, AF, shadow,... you get a more clear picture reflects the nature around you.

FXAA is a mode of AA belongs only to nVidia cards, it was better implemented with the rise of Kepler series;
FXAA acts as a post-processor, filtering the image just once (as opposed to 4xMSAA, which renders 4x the resolution and then downscales). This drastically reduces that amount of memory required, and the end-result is top-rate.
Click to expand...
MLAA is similar to FXAA but it crashes with some games, but still MSAA is the best achievement so far for AA till we see what TXAA will bring.
 
paul7799

paul7799

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May 13, 2012
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@ilysaml, well I know for a fact that AMD cards can use FXAA in Battlefield 3, so I guess it's not. Also, yes, I am aware that you need AA if you want the truest-to-life picture. For example I was watching some videos on GTA IV with the latest iCEnhancer 2.1 and it looks like I'm actually watching a movie, and then the odd time you see "jaggies" then you're snapped back into reality that it's a game. So in that respect, yes I understand where you're coming from, but I'm saying, I don't find it necessary because I can deal with some jagged edges as long as I have good framerate. However, I've noticed that I don't care about framerate nearly as much when playing singleplayer games. For multiplayer (as mentioned above) I need an average of at least 50FPS. But for singleplayer I find an average of 50 is really nice for that ultra smoothness, but I really don't mind it as much. So for singleplayer games I sometimes throw on AA and accept the performance hit.

@Urban Legend, ya that's what I've decided upon, although I think I'll just wait for a price drop on the 7850. Cuz I think the 660 will be around 300
 
ilysaml

ilysaml

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Unfortunately I never got to use FXAA with AMD cards, never seen an article stating usage of FXAA with AMD cards, only MLAA that's similar to FXAA even if it's supported by AMD cards, I never seen a difference while enabling it. Best example for this is Max Payne 3 & Deus Ex.

Personally, I can't play without AA and AF that's why everyone upgrade his GPU in a short time.
 
verbalizer

verbalizer

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$30 more gets you a GTX 570
 
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