New Graphics Card

[Shockattackr]

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: 2 weeks
BUDGET RANGE: under 500 CAD ish

USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: GAMING ie BF3 and Skyrim and many others

CURRENT GPU AND POWER SUPPLY: currently have a EVGA Geforce 560 Ti (1 month after I regret buying) and I am using a Cooler Master Silent Pro 700w modular PSU with 2x 6pin+2pin connectors
OTHER RELEVANT SYSTEM SPECS: i5 3570k on an Asus P8Z77 - V (allows 3 way SLI)

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: Doesnt really matter, Wont order anything online unless its a huge difference in prices (vs Canada computers Pick up)

PARTS PREFERENCES: Nvidia

OVERCLOCKING:Maybe
SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Depends on the Card reccomended

MONITOR RESOLUTION: what ever my 32inch tv puts out but im also looking at dual screening in the near future

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: Must be awesome

 

[Ironslice]

EVGA GTX 670 FTW: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130787

Amazing card, will annihilate anything you throw at it and has an awesome price/performance ratio. Already overclocked to perform slightly better than a stock GTX 680.

 

[Shockattackr]

But my concern with the 670 is that the 660 is coming out in 16 days, I have seen reviews and it "appearently" smashes the 670 in performance

 

[blazorthon]

The 660 TI smashes the 670 in performance? That's extremely unlikely. It should be a good ~20% slower based on the memory bandwidth drop alone. I'd question the authenticity of these reviews considering that the 660 TI isn't out yet even if they didn't show such unlikely performance. It might be able to catch the 670 if it has a more than 30% higher memory frequency advantage (highly unlikely that it would be stable that high) to match it in memory bandwidth (important for Kepler because of how extremely memory-bottle-necked the Kepler GPUs are), but even then, beating the 670 is almost assuredly out of the question, especially the 670 can also be overclocked.

 

[Shockattackr]

thats why i said "appearently" i dont believe it, but at the same time who the hell knows, they havent come out yet so there is no absolute truth to what i have seen.

But if there is other suggestions, If I were to go SLI which cards would you recommend on me buying? and if i should buy a new PSU to go with it. Money isnt a problem, i just want to see my options

I am open to AMD cards as well

 

[blazorthon]

I'd recommend going AMD if multi-GPU is on your mind. However, unless you intend to do something like dual 7950 or dual 7970, then it would probably be a better idea to start out with a single, top-end card in most situations. AMD often beats Nvidia significantly at very high gaming workloads with the 7900 versus the GTX 670 and 680 because AMD doesn't have a memory bottle-neck.

 

[Shockattackr]

but will that work on my board? Im new to SLI/Crossfire

 

[Shockattackr]

I have looked at some Bench marks and I am leaning towards getting a 670 instead of a 7950. This way i can give my Little brother a huge upgrade from his 6770 with my 560 ti

 

[blazorthon]

I apologize for taking so long to respond. Yes, they would work in your board. All boards that support SLI can support Crossfire in one way or another. Any board that can have two AMD video cards generally supports Crossfire.

The problem with the Kepler cards is that they perform worse relative to the Tahiti cards as the workload increases (especially resolution and AA/AF) because of the huge memroy bandwidth difference. Games can easily show jsut how memory-bandwidth bottle-necked the Kepler cards are. They still perform excellently even when they are in workloads that they're not suited for, but they don't perform as well as AMD's Tahiti cards do.

That the 7950 is also cheaper than the 670 is not helping Nvidia's case right now. Nvidia's cards use a little less power, so if that's very important to you then maybe you'd rather go Nvidia. If you don't go for high resolutions and/or very high AA in GPU-bound games, then you probably won't see much memory-bandwidth bottle-necking at all, but that issue will get worse as time goes on. How much worse, well, I can't predict the future all too well, but I can say that it will undoubtedly get worse. Mult-GPU setups exacerbate the issue, hurting the future-proofing of Nvidia's cards even more.

This isn't to say that the GTX 670 isn't a great card. It is one of the fastest graphics cards available today. Just be sure that if you want it, you know what deficiencies it has just as you should know the deficiencies of the AMD cards (mainly the higher power consumption with Tahiti) if you choose one or two of them.

 

[Shockattackr]

7959 : http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_557_558&item_id=045410

670 : http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_557_559&item_id=049454

and i am playing on a 32" TV that like 2 foot from my face (roughly)

I was also looking into if i got 2x each card which would run smoother and faster

 

[blazorthon]

You might be able to get a 7970 at that price instead of a 7950. There are much cheaper 7950s than that. Assuming that the 32" display is a greater than 1080p display, the AMD setup would generally win in most games at settings appropriate for their performance. Either way, be sure that you have a power supply that is adequate for these cards. You'll probably be best off with at least an 750w PSU for either setup. I recommend buying a Corsair PSU or if not, then a Seasonic or Antec. There are some other good brands, but these are reputable brands that I have experience with multiple models of and I can say that they are generally superb companies for PSUs.

 

[Shockattackr]

the 7970's are 450+
and for say Modular Power Supplies what would you recommend?

 

[blazorthon]

Corsair has some modular power supplies. This won't make a difference in power delivery, but would make wiring the PC more convenient. This does mean increased cost for the increased convenience.

 

[Shockattackr]

I know *** all about PSU, so if you could link say a nice Corsair that would be awesome

 

[blazorthon]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139030

Is $100 with the MIR too much money?

 

[Shockattackr]

that looks nice and cheap with the price

--- First Edit----
What would some other similar Products step up to that? im trying to find something thats close to Fully modular

----Second Edit-----

I am at home now, My Native Screen Resolution is at 1360x768

 

[Shockattackr]

Sorry for the Bump but I am also going to be looking for 2 new monitors, DVI/HDMI required something like 22 or 23 inch screen maybe bigger, If you guys could help i am trying to get rid of my 32 inch tv thats sitting on my desk

 

[blazorthon]

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=58&name=Power-Supplies

This is where I usually look for power supplies. You could take a look if you want to compare many models.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007657+600315663&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&IsNodeId=1&Subcategory=58&description=&hisInDesc=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&AdvancedSearch=1&srchInDesc=

This is a list of the fully modular PSUs. They are even more expensive than the modular versions which are already more expensive than the non-modular versions. I'm not sure if I'd be able to recommend any of the fully modular PSUs that are cheaper than the $160 Seasonic PSU.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151087

Even then, $160 is a much harder price to justify for a 750w PSU than $100 is IMO. Your money, you do what you want with it, but I think a standard modular PSU should be good enough.

I'm not experienced with different displays much at all (lol, I still use some CRTs from the mid 90s most of the time), so I don't think that I could give a great recommendation on a new display beyond just going to newegg, Ebay, and maybe a few other sites and choosing the cheapest model that meets high standards at a low price. That's probably not the best method.