Best card to go with i7-3820??

[vaconcamp]

So after some looking around I decided I'm going to build a PC with the i7-3820, but I want to know what GPU would best complement that CPU without neither of them bottle-necking eachother. I was looking at the HD7970 or any card around $300. I'm probably gonna use Windows 8 when I make the computer if it makes any difference. I also want a card that doesn't get too hot. Anyone have any suggestions? Also anyone know which brand makes better GPUs? AMD or NVIDIA?

 

[maxh22]

So after some looking around I decided I'm going to build a PC with the i7-3820, but I want to know what GPU would best complement that CPU without neither of them bottle-necking eachother. I was looking at the HD7970 or any card around $300. I'm probably gonna use Windows 8 when I make the computer if it makes any difference. I also want a card that doesn't get too hot. Anyone have any suggestions? Also anyone know which brand makes better GPUs? AMD or NVIDIA?

A 7970 would be a nice choice!

AMD and Nvidia both make great GPU"s but you should make the decison based on the games that you play.

Some games were made to work better with Nvidia gpu's and others for AMD GPU's.

The radeon 7970 for $300 is a terrific offer

 

[Deemo13]

Is this build just for gaming?

 

[Embra]

What is your budget?? We could recommend a $1000 card if you like.

$300 for a 7970 is a good deal.

 

[geofelt]

So after some looking around I decided I'm going to build a PC with the i7-3820, but I want to know what GPU would best complement that CPU without neither of them bottle-necking eachother. I was looking at the HD7970 or any card around $300. I'm probably gonna use Windows 8 when I make the computer if it makes any difference. I also want a card that doesn't get too hot. Anyone have any suggestions? Also anyone know which brand makes better GPUs? AMD or NVIDIA?

Presuming this build is for gaming, I think you can spend your budget better.
A i7-3820 is a fine $300 cpu.
But, a $230 3570K will perform equally as well, and the underlying Z77 based motherboard will be less expensive.
It would even drive a $1000 GTX690 well. No worries there.

The savings will let you buy a stronger graphics card which is the real engine of gaming.
A 7970 @$300 is a very good price. It competes with a GTX670@380.
You can buy a GTX680, currently the top single gpu card for $480.
For gaming, buy the best graphics card you feel comfortable paying for.

List the rest of your build.
Perhaps there are some other suggestions.

 

[vaconcamp]

Thanks for the reply, I'll think about getting a GTX 680 (there's no rush anyways) but I forgot to mention that I might also wait for the Radeon HD 8xxx series. What do you suggest? I'm sure by the time it comes out I'll have enough money to buy the first one in the series.

And about the 3570k, (yes I'm going to be gaming, and 3D rendering), I'm not going to overclock anything just to be safe (I know that overclocking doesn't really damage your CPU but I heard it decreases life expectancy and I want my computer to last as long as possible) and I heard that usually the 3xxxK series of CPUs only exceeds in performance when overclocked so I don't think I would benefit from having a 3570k instead of a 3820.

BTW I didn't pick the motherboard or case yet, I'm trying to first pick the CPU and GPU and go from there, but I know I'm getting a 2 Terabyte HHD.

 

[geofelt]

I think 8xxx and "son of Kepler" might show up by the end of the year.

The reason Intel makes a "K" suffix cpu is so that it can be overclocked. They just can't guarantee that every chip will reach a specific high limit. It is part luck of the binning, and part how good your cooler is. In fact, I think Intel will sell you an insurance policy if you should damage your cpu by overclocking or whatever.
I don't know of any 3570K overclock that can't get past 4.0 with a trivial oc that does not up the voltage.

As to life expectancy, my take is that a cpu will be obsolete in three years or so anyway and warrant a replacement.

 

[locomoco321]

Drop the 2011 platform, as the chip you are getting is also a quad-core, like the 3570(K). If you NEED hyperthreading, then the i7 3770(K) on Z77 will still be a better value. As for bottlenecking, Ivy Bridge will not bottleneck GPUs unless you are going with SLI/Crossfire at stock speeds (even then it's minimal). Also, what resolution will you be using the card at, as well if it is for video editing, CUDA will help, but for high resolution gaming, the Radeon HD cards are better.

 

[vaconcamp]

Drop the 2011 platform, as the chip you are getting is also a quad-core, like the 3570(K). If you NEED hyperthreading, then the i7 3770(K) on Z77 will still be a better value. As for bottlenecking, Ivy Bridge will not bottleneck GPUs unless you are going with SLI/Crossfire at stock speeds (even then it's minimal). Also, what resolution will you be using the card at, as well if it is for video editing, CUDA will help, but for high resolution gaming, the Radeon HD cards are better.

I'm not looking for the highest performance possible, actually right now I'm using a Pentium E6700 with an HD 5570 (lol) and I'm doing OK. Obviously I can't play games on high resolution which I was hoping I could do with a new build. But like I said I don't want the highest performance in the world I just want a usable and futureproof computer. In the future I'll make 3D models and sell them (might make my own website), and I'll use a lot of subdividing. Usually one of my really high-end models ends up at 100-200k polys. I don't know if that makes a difference.

 

[locomoco321]

I'm not looking for the highest performance possible, actually right now I'm using a Pentium E6700 with an HD 5570 (lol) and I'm doing OK. Obviously I can't play games on high resolution which I was hoping I could do with a new build. But like I said I don't want the highest performance in the world I just want a usable and futureproof computer. In the future I'll make 3D models and sell them (might make my own website), and I'll use a lot of subdividing. Usually one of my really high-end models ends up at 100-200k polys. I don't know if that makes a difference.

What are you main reasons for going with LGA2011? If it's for future-proofing (pretty much impossible after 3 years), then Ivy Bridge will still provide better value. As for performance, the 2M cache extra on the 3820 won't help. Here:
http://ark.intel.com/products/63698 i7 3820
http://ark.intel.com/products/65523/Intel-Core-i7-3770K-Processor-(8M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz) i7 3770K
Ivy Bridge has full support for PCIe 3.0, so already that's a future proof plus on it, as the i7 3820 only supports PCIe 2.0 natively. Ivy Bridge also consumes significantly less power (77W TDP Ivy Bridge vs. 130W TDP Sandy Bridge-E).
The only reason for using LGA2011, is for Ivy Bridge-E, which hasn't even been confirmed, and even then, there will probably be a new chipset for more functionality with it.
I'll be on for a while if you want to discuss it more .