New Graphicsd card for new build

[jrohnkohl]

I am building a new machine and am looking to purchase a graphics card in the next 30 days

Build:

Processor - I7-980
MOBO - Gigabyte GA-x58-UDR3 V 2.0
Ram: 3 -G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL9D-8GBSR (24 GB total)
PSU - 750W unsure make yet
Looking at new 21" LCD

It looks like AMd is having serious long term cash flow issues so not sure that they are the best choice for cards and legacy help. What video cared do you reccomend in the sub 350.00 range? Is it worth going higher price ?

I play FPS like COD as well as Diablo 3 . I also use this for video transfers and photo editing.

Thanks

 

[vinaykumar5320]

Have you already purchased the CPU and Mobo?

Anyways, IMO, the best GPU in the 350$ price range should be: GTX 670

Here's a good option:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127675

 

[willard]

If you look, you can find the HD 7970 for around $380. A bit outside your budget, but it's considerably faster than the GTX 670, and when overclocked is roughly equal to an overclocked GTX 680.

 

[jrohnkohl]

Have you already purchased the CPU and Mobo?

Anyways, IMO, the best GPU in the 350$ price range should be: GTX 670

Here's a good option:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127675

I have pruchased the Mobo and CPU.

 

[vinaykumar5320]

Yes, as willard mentioned, if you plan to spend a little more, you can get the top-of-the-line Raedon, i.e., HD 7970.

 

[andrewcarr]

For only being $10 more than the 670 it is definitely a worthwhile upgrade to get the 7970.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202008
As for the long term for AMD I wouldn't worry much at all their graphics cards are at the moment better than NVidia's (because for the same performance the AMD is cheaper). AMD is also releasing their cards in a shorter time frame. It's mainly the AMD CPU's that are having trouble.

I also have one AMD card and one NVidia at the moment and much prefer the AMD software over NVidia's (although that's personal preference).

Also I hope you picked up that CPU and motherboard very cheap as currently Intel is two generations ahead of that model. If it's a great deal maybe keep it but if you can return it and get a socket LGA 1155 and an Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge CPU that would be better.

 

[envy14tpe]

If you look, you can find the HD 7970 for around $380. A bit outside your budget, but it's considerably faster than the GTX 670, and when overclocked is roughly equal to an overclocked GTX 680.

OP is looking at 21" monitor. Tell me, what 20" monitor needs a 7970. Haha. At most, a 660. If you wanna run a 7970 you better have at least a 24" monitor with 1920x1200, or a 27" monitor; otherwise ...wasted money.

 

[mohit9206]

lol you dont need 670 or 7970 for COD or Diablo 3.
assuming you are gonna play at 1080p and max settings you dont need anymore than a 7870 for those games. just save up some money rather than buying an overkill card spend extra on a better cpu like 3570k and Z77

 

[envy14tpe]

lol you dont need 670 or 7970 for COD or Diablo 3.
assuming you are gonna play at 1080p and max settings you dont need anymore than a 7870 for those games. just save up some money rather than buying an overkill card spend extra on a better cpu like 3570k and Z77

Thank you for adding common sense. Why drop more than $300 on 1080p?
If 2560x1440 then I can understand buying a 7970, otherwise it's a bone headed decision.

 

[jrohnkohl]

Thank you for adding common sense. Why drop more than $300 on 1080p?
If 2560x1440 then I can understand buying a 7970, otherwise it's a bone headed decision.

thanks .. thats why I put the monitor size I was getting. So is the best choice then a 7870? Different cpu is not an option as I have already purchased that.

 

[sam_p_lay]

That's a cool processor! Overkill maybe, but cool How much was it? As for graphics card, the GTX660 is a bit cheaper than the 7870 and will deliver near enough identical performance, but the added benefits you get with nVidia hardware (FXAA, TXAA, adaptive v-sync, PhysX etc).

What people say about the 7970 vs GTX670 is totally false - they're neck-to-neck. Initially, the GTX670 was faster, but major performance improvements from the Catalyst drivers helped bring the 7970 up to GTX670 performance. It's certainly not faster though. The 7970 GHz Edition and GTX680 are both a bit faster, but not different enough that you'd be able to tell the difference. I can post benchmarks to back that up if required - would be very interested to see benchmarks showing the 7970 outperforming the GTX670 (and I mean a full article / benchmark suite, not an individual title).

As for what is overkill, that really depends on how long you want your purchase to last. A lot of people will advise not buying any more than the minimum to play current games smoothly at your current resolution. I personally always buy a something a bit faster for the knowledge that it will handle next year's games too, and the year after. I don't really want to be spending all that money to then be needing to replace it any time soon. That being said, GTX660 should keep you playing at high settings for a couple of years to come.

 

[jrohnkohl]

That's a cool processor! Overkill maybe, but cool How much was it? As for graphics card, the GTX660 is a bit cheaper than the 7870 and will deliver near enough identical performance, but the added benefits you get with nVidia hardware (FXAA, TXAA, adaptive v-sync, PhysX etc).

What people say about the 7970 vs GTX670 is totally false - they're neck-to-neck. Initially, the GTX670 was faster, but major performance improvements from the Catalyst drivers helped bring the 7970 up to GTX670 performance. It's certainly not faster though. The 7970 GHz Edition and GTX680 are both a bit faster, but not different enough that you'd be able to tell the difference. I can post benchmarks to back that up if required - would be very interested to see benchmarks showing the 7970 outperforming the GTX670 (and I mean a full article / benchmark suite, not an individual title).

As for what is overkill, that really depends on how long you want your purchase to last. A lot of people will advise not buying any more than the minimum to play current games smoothly at your current resolution. I personally always buy a something a bit faster for the knowledge that it will handle next year's games too, and the year after. I don't really want to be spending all that money to then be needing to replace it any time soon. That being said, GTX660 should keep you playing at high settings for a couple of years to come.

Sam- Thanks! I am going to look at the GTX660ti 2MB.

 

[sam_p_lay]

Glad I could help Have fun with it!

 

[envy14tpe]

@jrohnkohl. You should consider 23" monitors if you are gonna buy a 660ti. A 660ti is best for 1080p. Also, there really aren't many 21" monitors. Usually 20" @ 1600x900 or 22" @1920x1080. So ic you want a 660ti, the minimum screen size should be 22".

 

[macleody]

660Ti has a 192 bit memory bus, so if you're doing high textures it won't do well. Keep that in mind.

 

[jrohnkohl]

@jrohnkohl. You should consider 23" monitors if you are gonna buy a 660ti. A 660ti is best for 1080p. Also, there really aren't many 21" monitors. Usually 20" @ 1600x900 or 22" @1920x1080. So ic you want a 660ti, the minimum screen size should be 22".

Envy thanks . So if I went with a 23" the 660ti would be fine ? If I stay with 22" or 21" what do you recommend?

 

[envy14tpe]

Envy thanks . So if I went with a 23" the 660ti would be fine ? If I stay with 22" or 21" what do you recommend?

At 23" the 660ti is great. I play BF3 on Ultra with 2 or 4xAA @60fps.
I think 23" is a great size. Most prices for 22" are almost the same as 23" monitors.
Also, at 23" their are more choices.

For good image quality and good response times: Dell and Asus.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236059
If you can get this one on sale:
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Displays/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&sku=320-2807

 

[sam_p_lay]

660Ti has a 192 bit memory bus, so if you're doing high textures it won't do well. Keep that in mind.

MacLeody the memory bus width thing is a myth. I've explained this before elsewhere so I'll just post a link, see the 2nd post:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/378279-15-gtx660-7850-7870

tl;dr? 7800-series cards have no significant bandwidth advantage over GTX660 and GTX660 Ti as a result of the bus width.

 

[willard]

OP is looking at 21" monitor. Tell me, what 20" monitor needs a 7970. Haha. At most, a 660. If you wanna run a 7970 you better have at least a 24" monitor with 1920x1200, or a 27" monitor; otherwise ...wasted money.

This is just confusing the issue. Screen size has absolutely nothing to do with it, as you well know (at least I hope you don't think screen size has an impact on GPU load). Resolution is what matters, and it does not correlate perfectly with screen size. I've got a 21" 1080p monitor sitting right next to me. I know a guy with a 22" 1920x1200, and I've see plenty of shitty monitors with lower than expected resolution for their size. Hell, I've seen countless 27" 1080p monitors. I even own one.

And I disagree that a 7970 is only useful for resolutions greater than 1080p. The 7870 may be able to get close to max settings on most games today at 1080p, but what about next year or the one after? What if he gets a new monitor and wants to run at a higher resolution?

There is value in not needing to worry about increasing system requirements, and in the time saved by not needing to upgrade. It's up to the builder to decide if they want to pay the premium to for it, probably around $50 wasted over buying a cheap card now and upgrading it in a year or two to get to the same power level as a top of the line card today.

What people say about the 7970 vs GTX670 is totally false - they're neck-to-neck. Initially, the GTX670 was faster, but major performance improvements from the Catalyst drivers helped bring the 7970 up to GTX670 performance. It's certainly not faster though. The 7970 GHz Edition and GTX680 are both a bit faster, but not different enough that you'd be able to tell the difference.

You've got it a bit off. Initially the 7970 was neck and neck with the 670, then driver improvements around the 7970 GHz edition launch put it between the 670 and 680 (it actually beat the 680 in several benchmarks). Later firmware updates and further driver improvements have it closer to the 680 than 670. The 7970s also overclock better than the 670/680, so if you're into that the 7970 is very, very close to the 680's performance, for about $75 less.

 

[sam_p_lay]

Post some links to articles/benchmark suites backing up your claims. And don't just pick individual benchmarks that back up what you're saying - link to the whole article.

 

[sam_p_lay]

See I can back up my claims:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/radeon-hd-7990-devil13-7970-x2,review-32563-7.html

On average, we see the GTX680 delivering 4% more performance than the 7970. We're talking about tiny differences anyway - GTX670 is only 6% behind the GTX680 on average. I'm sure you can do the math here. GTX670 is for all intents and purposes every bit as capable, and for less money.

 

[andrewcarr]

I agree with willard on this one sam.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition-review-benchmark,3232.html
As you go towards higher resolutions and 4x MSAA or more the 7970 outperforms the 670.
For more proof lets look at the extreme preset chart for Crysis 2 DX11.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2012-vga-gpgpu/07-Crysis-2-DirectX-11-C-Extreme,2951.html
The 7970 is outperforming both the 680 and 670 in quite a few cases.

Seeing as I wanted a 3 monitor setup for gaming this is the reason I chose two 7970.

 

[sam_p_lay]

The 7970 GHz Edition is a different card and it's more expensive than the standard 7970 - it's not what we're talking about here. And it's not a case of agreeing or not agreeing - it's really not a matter of opinion. The benchmarks I posted were carried out with the new Catalyst drivers (making them more accurate and relevant, and giving an advantage to the Radeons) and the GTX680 was still faster on average. You can't look at the numbers in that article and tell me the GTX680 doesn't have a framerate lead of 4%.

I'm sorry if you're regretting your purchase, but it doesn't change reality. These four cards are all so close anyway that it's a stupid thing to argue. For all intents and purposes they're the same, and the GTX670 is the cheapest of the four.

 

[andrewcarr]

But I wasn't talking about the 7970 GHz I only used that article because it has the 680, 670, 7970 and 7970 GHz edition cards in the article for comparison.

I'm not regretting that purchase in any way.

I listed the second thing as proof since the drivers were updated and tested more recently for the DX 11 (which is more viable for most newer games) version of Crysis. Also I value overclocking and my cards are running at GHz speeds but were significantly cheaper.

I also saw the article you listed and have read the entirity of it.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7990-devil13-7970-x2,3329.html
But it doesn't even list the 670 so I didn't use it where the article I posted has all of the cards in question.

Lastly I'm not denying that the 680 is normally faster than the 7970 I'm just saying that the 7970 is a better purchase than a 670 and worth the extra $10 when you buy it.

As for him the 7870 would be the best bet at 1080 (I've gotten into an argument with someone saying that a 50'' TV at 1080 is more demanding than a 23'' 1080 monitor ) which is what resolution the monitor (from about 20'' to 27'') you buy will most likely be.

 

[sam_p_lay]

Yeah I did think that about the 7970 GHz - it's not really a new GPU, effectively just an officially factory-overclocked model. I guess that's not a new practice though, and it gives you the added little bit of speed without voiding warranty. Glad to hear you're pleased with the purchase The price difference here between the 7970 and GTX670 equates to $45, so maybe more worth considering. Plus the GTX670 gives you TXAA, FXAA, adaptive v-sync, PhysX etc.

As for screen size, I think the problem is people trying to boil down resolution into screen size to make things simpler and less 'technical' for people who don't know what their screen resolution is. Misguided though, because then some people begin to think it really is the physical size that matters. I think envy14tpe was aware that not all displays of a given size are the same resolution, but maybe trying to not confuse matters. +1 to Willard about future-proofing - I keep seeing people recommending graphics cards that are the absolute minimum required to run only today's games at the OP's current resolution - bit short-sighted. More spend in the short term saves money in the long run (assuming warranty doesn't expire after two years and then your card dies 4 months later like mine just did!).