Best replacement under $400

[mcox3178]

Hello,

I have Sapphire 6850 that I use to play Guild Wars 2. I currently get approximately 35-38 FPS on High settings and am looking to upgrade to something that i can use to play everything on Ultra maxxed out. Is the 7970 the best bang for the buck? I want to keep the cost under $400

Thanks!

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System Information
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Time of this report: 8/5/2012, 17:38:31
Machine name: BUCK-PC
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.120503-2030)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model: Z68AP-D3
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2120 CPU @ 3.30GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.3GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 8110MB RAM
Page File: 2486MB used, 13729MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: 144 DPI (150 percent)

 

[MC_K7]

Depends on the games you'll be playing, some newer games prefer quad-core CPUs and yours is dual-core, so I don't know if it makes sense to buy a 400$ GPU. That being, said the i3-2100 offers very good per core performance, so for games that are not heavily threaded it should offer very good performance. I don't know about Guild Wars 2 though... From what I could read it performs well with dual-core, going to a quad-core can give you a 10% boost or something, but nothing too drastic. So I'd say yes, go for a 7970 if you can afford it.

 

[stickmansam]

I would say if you are worried about cpu limits (7970 will be hled back by cpu)
then sell the i3 for $70 so you have $470
(before u sell, update bios to support ivy)
buy a cheap ivy i5 3470 for like $170 and spend the money for gpu either on a 7870xt or 7950 or wait for 7970 to drop to about $300

 

[mcox3178]

I would say if you are worried about cpu limits (7970 will be hled back by cpu)
then sell the i3 for $70 so you have $470
(before u sell, update bios to support ivy)
buy a cheap ivy i5 3470 for like $170 and spend the money for gpu either on a 7870xt or 7950 or wait for 7970 to drop to about $300

I was under the impression that the i-2120 was good enough to play all the top of the line video cards at least for a little while longer. Will upgrading my cpu make as much of a difference as just getting a better card?

Thanks

 

[stickmansam]

If you're playing MMO's like bf3 64 man multi, some MMO's like Plaentside 2 and Guild wars 2 then the full potential of a 7970 will not be unleashed

Add additional bit of performance to the i5 sicne the 3470 have higher IPC and I believe they disabled the i5/i7's turbo which also will bump their performance (3470 can clock to 4.0ghz on the z68/z77 chip sets using turbo method)

You will be better off with a 7870XT/7950 + i5 than an i3 + 7970
The 7870xt/7950 already perform close to an 7970 enough anyways

 

[mcox3178]

Best answer selected by mcox3178.