What are my best options for upgrading GPU?

[jared426]

Hello everyone , I'm looking to upgrade my graphics card. I'd like you opinion on what my best options are. Here's the situation. I just bought a 24 inch 144hz monitor and as of right now, I'm only interested in playing the latest games; maxed out detail at 1920x1080 resolution. I'll mainly be playing FPS games 80% of the time. In the future I may add another monitor. I was considering a 7970 GHz edition at first, then once the price goes down getting another one and crossfire them. But I'm also interested in Nvidia and what they have to offer. I was looking at some info about the upcoming 7xx series and the GTX 770 and the GTX 780 look appealing. Right now I'm running a single Sapphire HD5850 Toxic 1GB card, so quite a few cards would be considered an upgrade for me. But I want to be prepared for upcoming titles like BF4 and be able to play at 144hz on my new monitor. I need some help with upgrading my card. I don't know whether to wait or not. My current PC specs are posted below and my budget is $900. Any suggestions ?

AMD FX-8350 (4.0GHz) | ASUS M5A99X Evo R2.0 | Antec Kuhler H²0 920 | Sapphire HD 5850 Toxic 1GB | G.skill Ripjaws 1866 (8GB) | OCZ Vertex 4 128GB GB SSD | 1TB WD Black | Corsair AX750 |

 

[wa1]

I Would say patient, wait for the new NVIDIA card, make your decision after they launch their new card, maybe some high-end card will drop it's price..

 

[Secks]

I'm in a similar situation and I agree with wa1. I'm planning on waiting for the purported 780 release date of May 23rd to see what price point they come in at, and how that affects the nvidia hierarchy. Hopefully I can get two 780s without feeling too guilty, haha.

 

[huilun02]

I'd wait for the new cards to make current cards prices drop. If you can't wait, get GTX 670 SLI. Performs as well as a GTX 690 and beats the Titan. Cheaper than both.

Whatever you do, don't do AMD Crossfire.

 

[freedom7]

Nothing at all wrong with crossfire here it runs smooth all the time ... as for the Nvidia cards im not sure that's the right move ... I would either go for twin 7950 and OC it as this will OC to match the 7970 or go for twin 7970 if you see a good price or maybe the new 7990, the AMD cards are a lot cheaper than there equal Nvidia card and in most cases beat them.

Also depending on your MB I would OC your 8350 to at least 4.4 Ghz.

 

[tadej petric]

Get gtx 770 and later SLI it.
Dont cf AMD GPUs; even AMD CEO said that it doesnt function normaly.

 

[huilun02]

Hopefully AMD fixes the Crossfire microstutter issue soon. The problem goes beyond visible stuttering that you can observe. Crossfire produces a lot of runt and dropped frames (frames that are either too small or not shown in time, but are reported) such that the actual frame per second your monitor can produce for you to see, is actually nowhere near what FPS counters like Fraps are reporting.

The problem is evident in FCAT testing and although it is an Nvidia method of testing, holds true and is not a marketing gimmick at all. I am not an Nvidia fanboy as well. AMD cards are great for single card solution and kicks Nvidia butt in terms of pricing and value. Which is why Nvidia is releasing the 700 series to fight off AMD in the price/performance war.

I'm using a 7950 and it overclocks like a boss, totally worth the money. As for what the jared426 is concerned, he is trying to reach 144fps in BF4 so I would preferably suggest something that can achieve 144 real fps or if not, something close.

 

[jared426]

Hopefully AMD fixes the Crossfire microstutter issue soon. The problem goes beyond visible stuttering that you can observe. Crossfire produces a lot of runt and dropped frames (frames that are either too small or not shown in time, but are reported) such that the actual frame per second your monitor can produce for you to see, is actually nowhere near what FPS counters like Fraps are reporting.

The problem is evident in FCAT testing and although it is an Nvidia method of testing, holds true and is not a marketing gimmick at all. I am not an Nvidia fanboy as well. AMD cards are great for single card solution and kicks Nvidia butt in terms of pricing and value. Which is why Nvidia is releasing the 700 series to fight off AMD in the price/performance war.

I'm using a 7950 and it overclocks like a boss, totally worth the money. As for what the jared426 is concerned, he is trying to reach 144fps in BF4 so I would preferably suggest something that can achieve 144 real fps or if not, something close.

Yes, being able to use my monitor to its full potential is a necessity.

 

[jared426]

Also wondering if I should upgrade my motherboard, it looks like I can only run crossfire/sli in dual x8. But a single card runs in x16. Will I see a significant performance drop if I were to crossfire/sli in x8 mode ?

 

[Secks]

Not anything noticeable. GPUs don't saturate bandwidth yet, so the difference is pretty much negligible.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/6.html