Best deal on a Mid-High range card right now...

I

IIvII

Weaksauce
Joined
Oct 15, 2010
Messages
69
I've been eyeing these cards up:

GREEN CAMP:

-GTX 670 for $210 (after purchase with V.me)

-PNY GTX 770 for $289 (After $20 V.me promo)

-Overstock.com also has the PNY card currently for $311

-EVGA Superclocked GTX 770 about $315 after discounts
Promo Code: EMCWWVP46 (saves $17.25)

RED CAMP:

-Powercooler 7870 $115

-MSI 7870 $130(Now $139)
Newegg 5% promo code: BFSPECIAL5P2

Tiger is also offering a $250 7970 after rebates in their store for black friday.I'd assume they would have a similar sale on their .com page.

-XFX have two very similar 7970 cards on sale for $289. Both found here and here.


I'm not sure what I want to do... argh. Anyone want to offer some suggestions? BTW I'm upgrading from 2x460's, 920i7 and 850w PSU. If you see any great deals please bump this post with them.
Also, if anyone has a new/used card in this range they are looking to sell you are welcome to PM me about it, as long as they are reasonably priced.

Resources:

Tom's Hardware Performance Chart

GPU Benchmark List

Price Performance
 
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Out of those choices...the 770 is by far the best for 300$ IMO. Personally I wouldn't be a fan of 7870 crossfire, keep in mind that AMD still has not resolved eyefinity + CF issues with the 7000 series (if you're using surround). Pretty much, with nvidia you know it will work out of the box so i'd sorta lean that way - the 670 is a pretty good choice as well, but it will be 15-20% slower than the 770. You can offset that difference by selling the 3 free games that are bundled with the 770.
 
I'm open to any card, I'm just trying to get the biggest bang for my buck. The 7870's are a really sweet deal. While the 770 is tempting, it's more than twice the cost of those 7870's, and 2x7870's have been shown to offer comparable or better quality in tests I've seen.
 
The 2 x 7870's are definitely the best short-term deal, no doubt about it. To sum up the difference those 2 x 460's are equal to a single 660 and a 680/770 is a HUGE step up from even that. I'd say long-term the 770/7970/280X are your better bets and bang for the buck. You can start with a single one and get a BIG leap from what you're currently running on two cards and when the next generation cards drop or when you need the extra power, you can pick up another card and SLI/CF them for about $100 since that's what they'll probably be worth by then on the used market.

Really depends on your gaming habits.
 
Right now I run 3 to 4 monitors right now on the 2x460's occasionally. Most of the time I run single monitor when I'm gaming simply because the fps is too low with eyfinity setup.
 
IIvII said:
Right now I run 3 to 4 monitors right now on the 2x460's occasionally. Most of the time I run single monitor when I'm gaming simply because the fps is too low with eyfinity setup.
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In your price range, you should probably just stick to single monitor. Since the cards you've listed are wildly different in price - what games do you want to play and at what resolution?

I agree with xoleras - I wouldn't get a multi-GPU setup with the Radeon's just yet.
 
I play a range of games honestly. I already have three monitors so I'm definetly not going to be satisfied with single monitor use for gaming all of the time. The 460's are certainly playable in eyefinity right now their just lacking some fps.
 
Nauseous said:
r290 is prolly the best bang for your buck video card around right now.
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Is there a specific deal you're referring to?

I'd like to get a 290 if there's an actual deal to be had on one. I'm really interested in any of the top 25 cards on this list, but I'm not looking to spend more than $300, unless it's an amazing savings.
 
I got the non reference PowerColor and its real quiet. I expected to have to mod the card with Accelero or something but won't now. The AMD reference fans usually sound like hair dryers
 
IIvII said:
Is there a specific deal you're referring to?

I'd like to get a 290 if there's an actual deal to be had on one. I'm really interested in any of the top 25 cards on this list, but I'm not looking to spend more than $300, unless it's an amazing savings.
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A single 770 or 280X should be what you're looking at. Remember AMD still has not fixed eyefinity + CF drivers for their 7000 series cards (280X included) so you cannot crossfire them in surround unless you want to deal with significant tearing and frame latency problems. This is apparently fixed on the 290 but the fact that AMD forgot about their 7000 series in this respect makes me somewhat leery. A single card should be fine, though - yet there's always a chance that you could add a second card in the future. And if you do that, nvidia is the better choice for your setup.

With nvidia you never have to worry about this - I personally would get a single GTX 770 for this reason. The drivers are just better by a country mile for surround, and you can get another 770 in the future for added performance.
 
xoleras said:
A single 770 or 280X should be what you're looking at. Remember AMD still has not fixed eyefinity + CF drivers for their 7000 series cards (280X included) so you cannot crossfire them in surround unless you want to deal with significant tearing and frame latency problems.
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This is a STRETCH at best Xoleras..There are plenty of people that have been running mulit-monitor CF setups since the 5XXX series without a SINGLE ISSUE..:rolleyes:

There are SOME people that have issues, but it is far from everyone.

With nvidia you never have to worry about this - I personally would get a single GTX 770 for this reason. The drivers are just better by a country mile for surround, and you can get another 770 in the future for added performance.
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This is also a Stretch..Nvidia has had a TON of driver issues with the 6XXX series, including a release that was killing GPU's..Remember that?

I am so tired of seeing people that have never used an AMD GPU in recent history keep spouting the same FUD about NVIDIA having the best 100000% working drivers while AMD is the opposite. Let it go.

OP, if you can scrape together the extra money, the R9 290 is the best bang for the buck, especially for a multi-monitor setup..[H]ard's recent review said that X-Fire felt smoother then SLI in most cases, and worked just as well in the other cases...AMD moving the X-Fire engine on die really seemed to be a wonderful idea..

I believe that NE still has a 5% off coupon still floating around if you order through their Mobile app..I got my 290 for $388 with 2 day shipping..
 
Having that said,770 is a bit overpriced (in relation to the competition). I feel $300 is a bit much for a 2gb card, and 4gb version of 770 costs the same as 290. I suppose vram is really expensive to produce, if each additional gb adds about $30~40 on the card price.
 
ccityinstaller said:
This is a STRETCH at best Xoleras..There are plenty of people that have been running mulit-monitor CF setups since the 5XXX series without a SINGLE ISSUE..:rolleyes:
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Stop stating that it is FUD. Crossfire + eyefinity has significant issues with frametime/ latency that just doesn't exist with nvidia. There are tons of objective frametime benchmarks proving just that as well, I can link websites if you wish.

In fact, every review of CF here on HardOCP mentions that sli is "smoother" than crossfire on the 7970 and prior GPUs - only recently did AMD decide to fix it on the 290 series of cards. Problem is, they didn't apply the fix to the 7000 series, and that obviously includes the R9 280X since it is a 7970. Stop calling it FUD. It is fact. AMD only fixed single screen resolutions up to 2560x1600, and didn't include DX9 in those set of fixes. Meanwhile, eyefinity + CF is still fucked on the 7000 series cards as well as the R9 270, 280, etc cards. The 290 is the only series that actually works as advertised.

AMD promised a driver fix for eyefinity / CF this fall. That did not happen - they only applied the fix to the 290 and 290X. Again, FACTS. NOT FUD. You should really petition AMD to FIX THEIR SHIT instead of attacking my opinion. Additionally, the OP is going to be using surround - how anyone can recommend AMD over nvidia for surround really is mind boggling to me. For a single screen resolution? the 280X is a great card for single screen - OTOH, for surround? Nvidia has their drivers fixed and working for surround, while CF + eyefinity is broken with AMD 7000 series cards.
 
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I am pretty much in the same boat, looking at 770/7970/280X with 2 DVI ports. Here is whats holding me back from just leaping at the 770's, can I turn off PhysX? I find it incredibly obnoxious, especially in games like Borderlands 2. I want to hop to a video card with 3GB+ since Skyrim is choking my 5850.
 
There are deals for the 290 if you get a coupon from newegg to use as I got mine shipped for $386 but now you can get BF 4 with it at the same price and it really makes anything $300 and over a bad buy as that $86 buys a lot of performance as anywhere from 20 to 30% more..
 
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