VeeshanVault

I'm finally looking to buy a video card for the system I built several months back. It's an i5 3570k w/ 8 GB ram and 64bit Win7. Been using the onboard accelerator for a while, which does most of what I want, but I always had the intention of putting a video card in it. That time is now...ish. I'm looking for a card that can run on a single 1080p setup and play newer games on high-max and hopefully be immediate future-proof.

I'm looking for something in the GFX 660 to 760 range. I don't know much about the differences between ATI and nVidia's latest cards, but I'm open to either.

Wondering what people think about any specific cards in this range, what manufacturers to trust/avoid, and whether or not I should spend the extra $$ for a 3GB or 4GB card.

Thanks

At 1080p, you can get away with going <$200 for a great gaming experience, IMO. You did miss the train on the outgoing amd cards, though. the 7950 and 7970 fire sales were amazing deals on some high end shit that would last 4+ years at 1080p. 7950's for less than $200 and 7970's for $220. Now they are "old" and back up to $400+. Makes no sense.

Anyways, here's an anand article about the new amd gpu's that tests them and all the others in your range, at 1080p on a ton of games. Make your choice based on the type of games you play most, is what I would say.

Going by their results, best bang is 270x over the 760.

Cool thanks for the input. Will have to do some research on those AMD cards.

If you are still looking, and have a Fry's near you...Here's two super cheap options that are totally worth it.

http://www.frys.com/product/7717348?sit ... IN_RSLT_PG
http://www.frys.com/product/7382474?sit ... IN_RSLT_PG

Thanks. Says unavailable atm, but I added my email for notification in case they get more in.

Those are (were) pretty good prices. $100 for a 660 3GB FTW is crazy. So it makes sense they sold out. That almost seems like a misprint! If I would have seen this post when they were still in stock I would have picked up one for my second PC.

Yeah, they are in store only...so you got to live near a Fry's for those two deals, Sadly. I have a microcenter near me, so I'm sort of set. They barely have GPU deals there though...they are just the best cpu/mobo place.

One is 12 miles away from me. But I checked availability and there were none.

Nice chart showing current video card hierarchy:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gam ... 107-7.html


My GTX 670 appears to be still solid. As with CPU's, not much has happened recently with video card performance. GTX 670 and upgrading to 18GB of RAM are some of the few things I've done to my PC over the past 4+ years. (oh and upgrading original SSD to faster SSD) and adding the 8-bay SATA Hard drive tower. My Antec 180 case has lasted even longer from the build two years before the i7 920. Great case but it's due for an upgrade simply from aging fans, etc.

Probably around Nov 2014/Jan 2015 I'll put together another current PC upgrade thread with performance charts, etc like last time in 2009. Target upgrade price (sans displays) $2K.

I'm still running dual 7970's in my Alienware so I won't need a new PC for years. This one is 5+ years old now and runs everything at 5760 x 1200. (I upgraded video cards after my last one died in a storm along with my power supply)

I don't even look at the tech until it's time to buy again.

Fairweather Pure wrote:I'm still running dual 7970's in my Alienware so I won't need a new PC for years. This one is 5+ years old now and runs everything at 5760 x 1200. (I upgraded video cards after my last one died in a storm along with my power supply)

I don't even look at the tech until it's time to buy again.

5 years? what CPU you have? That's before the last worth while upgrade to i5/i7 CPUs. Now that would be worth upgrading. Seems i7 920's are the the sweet spot for not having to upgrade the past 4 years. before that, there's a significant drop in CPU performance. I assume you upgraded to an SSD as well or you may not think you need to upgrade but just don't realize how much freaking faster SSDs load apps and games.

Winnow wrote:5 years? what CPU you have? That's before the last worth while upgrade to i5/i7 CPUs. Now that would be worth upgrading. Seems i7 920's are the the sweet spot for not having to upgrade the past 4 years. before that, there's a significant drop in CPU performance. I assume you upgraded to an SSD as well or you may not think you need to upgrade but just don't realize how much freaking faster SSDs load apps and games.

My system came with a SSD (pricey at the time). Since I can run everything in 5760x1200, I don't need to upgrade anything. I can squeeze another 2 years out of this rig, easy. I probably will too.

Fairweather Pure wrote:

Winnow wrote:5 years? what CPU you have? That's before the last worth while upgrade to i5/i7 CPUs. Now that would be worth upgrading. Seems i7 920's are the the sweet spot for not having to upgrade the past 4 years. before that, there's a significant drop in CPU performance. I assume you upgraded to an SSD as well or you may not think you need to upgrade but just don't realize how much freaking faster SSDs load apps and games.

My system came with a SSD (pricey at the time). Since I can run everything in 5760x1200, I don't need to upgrade anything. I can squeeze another 2 years out of this rig, easy. I probably will too.

That's great. I upgraded my original SSD because the originals are much slower than the recent cheaper SSDs and the originals had issues with slowing down over time due to trim not being taken into account etc and if you got yours 5 years ago, it's older than my original which came nowhere near my current SSD's performance.

When you say that your system runs everything in 5760x1200, I'm curious what kind of settings and FPS you're getting. Running everything could mean at 1 fps or a solid 60fps. I run 3 monitors but game one one monitor and I experience FPS issues from time to time in windowed mode on maxed graphics settings. Not to call bullshit or anything but curious what kind of RAM and performance you're getting on high graphics quality settings. If you're playing games that have the equivalent of PS3 visuals then nevermind. It probably looks awesome when compared to what your Nintendos put out. You also didn't mention what CPU you have. I'd be curious. There are straight forward charts that will show it's performance.

What Winnow is trying to say is: If you had to describe your current video performance would it be more like the XBO or the PS4.

Aslanna wrote:What Winnow is trying to say is: If you had to describe your current video performance would it be more like the XBO or the PS4.

I forgot this thread. Anyway I ended up with a MSI 770 TwinFrozr and can play everything I want at 1080p with max or just below max settings. This for me is huge, since I was used to playing low to medium settings on many games for over a decade. Or simply not being able to play new games at all. Yay for quality dedicated graphics!

I can't believe at 1080p a 770 can't max everything!

Need to get a new card for the wife, fan succumbed to kitty fur

Won't run with a non -spinning fan but surprisingly a 5750 will function with one barely spinning.

Aabidano wrote:Need to get a new card for the wife, fan succumbed to kitty fur

Won't run with a non -spinning fan but surprisingly a 5750 will function with one barely spinning.

Aren't those fans replaceable? If the card still performs fine it seems a waste to replace it due to bad fans.

Possibly could but it's a glued on fan/heatsink assembly, haven't had any luck replacing one so far.

just had to replace my computer this month. The new dell came with an underpowered nvidia card. I have always had ati cards because of the bang/buck thing. But, since the tower already had geforce software on it, I decided to stick with a nvidia card. Ended up getting the 2GB gtx 750 because I was worried about dell and their underpowered power supplies. Performace is damn fine for single screen 1080p gaming. And it does it sucking so little juice (stupid low power of 55W). It didn't even need a 6 pin plug-in , which hasn't happened in a long time.
The nvidia software and driver support is also a lot better based off of my experience. Take it for what it's worth, but I was damn impressed.

yeah, I think that's the only Maxwell desktop GPU...so that would be the low power part, and the performance part

Current nVidia 970 card is having some serious performance issues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spZJrsssPA0

Plus, Freesync will be better than G-sync.