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GTX 770 upgrade vs AMD system

X

XenatR

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 13, 2012
Messages
183
hi guys,

currently my system is
Phenom 955 BE @ 3.6Ghz
Gigabyte 78LMT-USB3
Samsung Green VLP 2x4gb
MSI HD 7770


i only play games and want new parts to play Battlefield 4 well.


£350 budget, 2 options i have so far:

1) MSI GeForce GTX 770 Gaming ~ £328

2) FX-8350 + 7870 Tahiti ~ £330


which of these, either simply a gfx upgrade, or a better processor and gfx card, would yield better results.

currently i play a lot of online Battlefield 3 64players
 
If you're not planning on upgrading the monitor anytime soon, I'd recommend going for option 3 if BF4 is the main game you're going to be playing: the FX-8350 plus GTX 660 TI. BF3 was a pretty heavily multi-threaded game to the point that some of the older AMD Phenom II X6 six-core CPUs were able to catch up to some of the Intel quad-core Core i5 CPUs. You're also playing at a resolution where the CPU matters a bit more than it would at 1920x1080. So with that mind, I would recommend upgrading the CPU to the FX-8305 as BF4 should still continue the trend of being heavily multi-threaded. Therefore you should see decent gains alone from the CPU upgrade.

As for the video card, AMD cards tended to get shafted a bit with BF3 as Nvidia cards tended to outperform them in BF3 even if that AMD card was faster in many other games. So assuming that DICE continues that trend of favoring Nvidia cards over AMD, I'd recommend the Nvidia GTX 660 TI. However, if you're planning on playing numerous other games out there besides BF3 or BF4, I'd go for the HD 7870 Tahiti card then.

And you are, of course, planning on upgrading your PSU right?
 
Danny Bui said:
If you're not planning on upgrading the monitor anytime soon, I'd recommend going for option 3 if BF4 is the main game you're going to be playing: the FX-8350 plus GTX 660 TI. BF3 was a pretty heavily multi-threaded game to the point that some of the older AMD Phenom II X6 six-core CPUs were able to catch up to some of the Intel quad-core Core i5 CPUs. You're also playing at a resolution where the CPU matters a bit more than it would at 1920x1080. So with that mind, I would recommend upgrading the CPU to the FX-8305 as BF4 should still continue the trend of being heavily multi-threaded. Therefore you should see decent gains alone from the CPU upgrade.

As for the video card, AMD cards tended to get shafted a bit with BF3 as Nvidia cards tended to outperform them in BF3 even if that AMD card was faster in many other games. So assuming that DICE continues that trend of favoring Nvidia cards over AMD, I'd recommend the Nvidia GTX 660 TI. However, if you're planning on playing numerous other games out there besides BF3 or BF4, I'd go for the HD 7870 Tahiti card then.

And you are, of course, planning on upgrading your PSU right?
Click to expand...

Wow thank you for your informative post! I feel the
660Ti may be out of budget considering yes, i am also looking at power supplies!

I was considering the 7870Tahiti cards, which i can pick up, new, for approx £160, against the 660Ti which is £200 :/
 
Hmmm... with that much of a difference in price, yeah, stick with the HD 7870 Tahiti cards then.
 
If you are not in a hurry you could wait the at most 1 month and see if the 760ti pushes down prices more.

Also if the upgrade is mainly for BF4 the other thing you can consider to stretch the budget is right now the rumor is AMD will actually bundle BF4 in the next bundle. So depending on how much you were planning on paying for it that could be a rather significant amount in your case.
 
Wait for B4 to come out. Read reviews on Video card performance and make a choice a that time. Cards will only go down in price over time. No need to buy blind if that's the game you are targeting
 
FalconLX said:
Wait for B4 to come out. Read reviews on Video card performance and make a choice a that time. Cards will only go down in price over time. No need to buy blind if that's the game you are targeting
Click to expand...

thing is, i will be buying the parts on credit and paying off over a year. the minimum spend is £300 to be able to do this, so i cant just buy processor now, then gfx later, i really need to do all my upgrading now
 
The 7870 Tahiti runs BF3 pretty nicely when overclocked.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Club_3D/HD_7870_jokerCard_Tahiti_LE/31.html

I imagine that BF4 will support multi-core CPUs better than most of todays games too so I would definitely go for the second option if you are only looking at BF4.

Otherwise the 770 is a damn sweet card, and if you can wait out buying a cpu, you shouldn't be bottlenecked by too much for too long.
 
Danny Bui said:
As for the video card, AMD cards tended to get shafted a bit with BF3 as Nvidia cards tended to outperform them in BF3 even if that AMD card was faster in many other games. So assuming that DICE continues that trend of favoring Nvidia cards over AMD, I'd recommend the Nvidia GTX 660 TI. However, if you're planning on playing numerous other games out there besides BF3 or BF4, I'd go for the HD 7870 Tahiti card then.
Click to expand...

Not true actually. At first it was, but that changed late last year. 7970's edge out 680's for example in bf3. Battlefield 4, from what I read, will be a part of amd's newer never settle bundle something later this year.

FX-8350 + 7870 tahiti (which is neck and neck with 660 ti's, with good oc headroom) is your best option, op.
 
tonyftw said:
Not true actually. At first it was, but that changed late last year. 7970's edge out 680's for example in bf3. Battlefield 4, from what I read, will be a part of amd's newer never settle bundle something later this year.

FX-8350 + 7870 tahiti (which is neck and neck with 660 ti's, with good oc headroom) is your best option, op.
Click to expand...

i think ive confused myself again..

another option ive added in my mind is just a cpu upgrade to Haswell + motherboard, possibly keeping my gfx for now

the reason i thought this is because my big concerns are minimum fps scores in games, which intel seems to do better in! i could care less about how high the fps can go.. i have a 60hz monitor anyway

your opinions? lol the more i think the more confused i get.. there are just so many options
 
tonyftw said:
Not true actually. At first it was, but that changed late last year. 7970's edge out 680's for example in bf3. Battlefield 4, from what I read, will be a part of amd's newer never settle bundle something later this year.
Click to expand...
Yes but it still took quite awhile for AMD's drivers to catch up and actually overtake Nvidia. At least Nvidia had fast drivers to begin with. With that said, if AMD keeps up with releasing good drivers almost as fast as Nvidia, then yeah, AMD should still be a good choice for BF4.

XenatR said:
another option ive added in my mind is just a cpu upgrade to Haswell + motherboard, possibly keeping my gfx for now

the reason i thought this is because my big concerns are minimum fps scores in games, which intel seems to do better in! i could care less about how high the fps can go.. i have a 60hz monitor anyway

your opinions? lol the more i think the more confused i get.. there are just so many options
Click to expand...
While the Haswell would provide a pretty decent performance over your current Phenom II CPU and possible FX CPU, I don't think it'll be worth the cost of upgrading considering the hardware pricing in your country.
 
It is up to you, xenatr. You can either just pop in a new cpu (8350), without making drastic changes while still getting a nice performance boost. Or buy a new cpu + mobo (haswell) and get new features, but deal with the hassle of re-installing os, apps, and other things.

Another thing to factor in, do you plan on overclocking if you were to buy an 8350? I would not trust your current motherboard for aggressive oc's (4+1 phase).
 
tonyftw said:
It is up to you, xenatr. You can either just pop in a new cpu (8350), without making drastic changes while still getting a nice performance boost. Or buy a new cpu + mobo (haswell) and get new features, but deal with the hassle of re-installing os, apps, and other things.

Another thing to factor in, do you plan on overclocking if you were to buy an 8350? I would not trust your current motherboard for aggressive oc's (4+1 phase).
Click to expand...

hmm a good point, but luckily as i have a fresh install currently, it wont take long to install the other programs!

well, i got my Phenom 955BE to 3.6ghz (after that it just isnt stable at all, regardless of voltage.. no idea why though.. could be cpu? it is a c3 stepping)

if i could get the 8350 to around 4.6ghz i would be quite satisfied.. im not even sure if an extra 0.2 or 0.4ghz extra would yield that much more fps in games anyway???
 
Depends. Battlefield 3, unfortunately, is the one major multiplayer FPS right now that is more CPU-bound than GPU-bound. I've been trying to hit an elusive 120fps on my system only to find out that my CPU isn't enough to do it (i5-3570k @ 4.6 GHz).

The 8350 will outshine the i5 in BF3, and every MHz counts. Graphically, it's a relatively light game; if you have a 7870 or 7950 you could hold 80+ fps in single player. But in 64-player multiplayer you'd be hitting minimums of much less than that if your CPU isn't up to par.

Are you playing at 60 hz or 120 Hz? At 60 hz, you could probably get by with the i5 haswell too, I don't remember getting below 60 fps in MP.
 
I was just playing BF 3 last night with my HD7950Ghz max out in ultra on a 64 player .. smooth as silk .
 
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