Budget build. Using old case. Spent $180 (combined) on psu, cpu, mobo, and ram (specs below). Want to splurge a bit on gpu. Looking at high end of the mid-tier cards. Can always to sli/xfire in a few years if i want.
7970 or 660ti are tempting. Don't know it's worth it for my cpu. 660 or 7850 are fine, if that's a smarter choice.
PARTS PREFERENCES: HDs seem more balanced? Looks like GTXs require choosing between texel rate and pixel rate, due to huge discrepancies in bus-widths, texture units, memory, etc.
eg: http://www.hwcompare.com/13162/geforce-gtx-570-vs-geforce-gtx-660-ti/
It feels like I have to choose between AA, AF, resolution. Hard to anticipate where I'm going to feel it. Maybe it's worth it to sacrifice texture units, if even a low-ish texel rate is sufficient for high/max AF on most games, which would allow me to get better bus-width or memory, and therefore AA or resolution, etc... That would mean that it's actually an advantage for the nvidia cards to be "unbalanced". How would I know? Thoughts?
SPECS:
old gpu: ati x800 xt
psu: bfg650
cpu: i3-2100 (dual 3.1 gHz)
mobo: biostar tp67b+
ram: (2x4g) Patriot Viper 3 Extreme Performance Black Mamba PV38G160C9K 8GB Memory Module Kit
APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: next few weeks
BUDGET: 150-250 (but i'm slickdealing, so pretend my budget is 200-300?)
USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: gaming, photo editing, watching movies
OVERCLOCKING: Maybe
MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1080, might upgrade for photo editing
PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: slickdeals (newegg, tigerdirect, fry's, etc)
7970 or 660ti are tempting. Don't know it's worth it for my cpu. 660 or 7850 are fine, if that's a smarter choice.
PARTS PREFERENCES: HDs seem more balanced? Looks like GTXs require choosing between texel rate and pixel rate, due to huge discrepancies in bus-widths, texture units, memory, etc.
eg: http://www.hwcompare.com/13162/geforce-gtx-570-vs-geforce-gtx-660-ti/
It feels like I have to choose between AA, AF, resolution. Hard to anticipate where I'm going to feel it. Maybe it's worth it to sacrifice texture units, if even a low-ish texel rate is sufficient for high/max AF on most games, which would allow me to get better bus-width or memory, and therefore AA or resolution, etc... That would mean that it's actually an advantage for the nvidia cards to be "unbalanced". How would I know? Thoughts?
SPECS:
old gpu: ati x800 xt
psu: bfg650
cpu: i3-2100 (dual 3.1 gHz)
mobo: biostar tp67b+
ram: (2x4g) Patriot Viper 3 Extreme Performance Black Mamba PV38G160C9K 8GB Memory Module Kit
APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: next few weeks
BUDGET: 150-250 (but i'm slickdealing, so pretend my budget is 200-300?)
USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: gaming, photo editing, watching movies
OVERCLOCKING: Maybe
MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1080, might upgrade for photo editing
PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: slickdeals (newegg, tigerdirect, fry's, etc)
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