Potential upgrade questions

[Ws60]

Hello, the recent 'fire sale' on GTX 480 cards mentioned in the deal forum thread has left me with a few questions about their potential worth in my specific situation. Right now I'm running a single Asus GTX 460 1G at stock frequencies that I picked up back in October 2010 for fairly cheap (~$180 with shipping if I recall) and for a time was happy. Then I started having occasional display issues where the display would blank for a second or two then come back with an error about how contact was lost with the card before managing to reinitialize regardless of the cards load at the time; even worse is the fact that it began to happen more often. The last driver update appears to have solved the issue however I'm still leery of its reliability now and quite frankly I've gotten more into gaming since then and its not quite cutting it anymore at my monitor size. In short I don't need to upgrade right now, but if a deal presents itself within my price range I probably will bite; if for no other reason then piece of mind.

This brings me to my question regarding the 480's being marked down recently, much less in light of the looming 6xx launch which may hopefully bring a price drop in the 5xx series. What sort of benefit if any could I see from upgrading to a 480, would I be better off waiting for a 580/570 price drop or just flat out waiting for the 680 series despite rumors of it being a 'mid range' chip? I have no real experience overclocking as a caveat, and I plan on sticking with whatever card I end up with for this potential final upgrade until the next full system rebuild a year or two down the line. If the performance is still good enough I might keep it even then for a bit. I'd also prefer to stay with Nvidia as I have more experience with them and for the better driver support but I'm not unwilling to consider AMD alternatives.

Note: I have no interest in BF3, but I am playing Skyrim quite heavily right now with the HD texture DLC and 2k HD lite texture pack mod among others. Also I can't make use of 3D gaming as at best it doesn't work for me and at worst causes minor headaches.

Price range: $300 or less strongly preferred, however I can go higher if needed. I'd rather pay more for a solid card that I can use for 2-3 years then a cheap one I'd want to replace after only a year.
Goal: Average of between 35-40 FPS at max resolution and settings preferred, with no overclock as a bonus. If the reduction of a few FPS cause a significant price difference I'm willing to go lower, though no lower then 30 FPS.

Specs: (all air cooled)
OS: Win 7 Home Premium 64
MB: M3A79-T Deluxe
CPU: AMD Phenom II 975 Black Edition @ 3.61 GHz
Ram: 8G of DDR2 1066
Drvies: 1x 1TB Western Digital, 1x Optical Drive
PSU: Antec EarthWatts EA650 650w
VGC: 1x Asus GTX 460 1G (Current)
SC: Sound Blaster Audigy SE
Display: 20" Acer X203w LCD, max resolution of 1680x1050@60Hz

 

[silent-circuit]

Consider a 6950 2GB that can unlock, too. They're regularly for sale used with warranty for around $200-225. OCing and unlocking really isn't that difficult, and chances are whichever you buy will already be unlocked for you. For your purposes more video memory (HD texture packs, etc) will be a big help.

These are canned benches and the 6950 is locked in them, but this gives you an idea: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/293?vs=309

The 480 is a little faster in some situations, but it also pulls 50-100+ more watts at the wall under load and is much hotter / louder running than the 6950. The 6950 tends to be a better OCer, so the performance gap can be closed fairly easily in most cases.

 

[teletran8]

660Ti or better when released...

 

[Maximilian144]

As mentioned the 6950, is a great card, and many can be unlocked. Even without getting a version that can be unlocked it is still a solid performer.

 

[Ws60]

Consider a 6950 2GB that can unlock, too. They're regularly for sale used with warranty for around $200-225. OCing and unlocking really isn't that difficult, and chances are whichever you buy will already be unlocked for you. For your purposes more video memory (HD texture packs, etc) will be a big help.

Forgive me for such a newb question, but I assume you mean unlocking a 6950 to a 6970 via flashing the bios ala the old 465->470 trick? I admit the 6950 2G route is tempting and the price is right as the ones I'm seeing are around $300 give or take. Its a route I'll keep an eye on as I have a bit of luxury in not needing it immediately. The last time I rushed into buying a card I ended up with a 9800 GT when I could have gotten an 8800 GT for 1/2 the cost and the same performance if memory serves.

 

[Pitbully]

The unlockable 6950s are hard to come by now. Most of the companies still making the 6950 have moved on to the rev 2 and 3 boards that DO NOT have the bios switch on them and are not unlockable. Unless you can find a 6950 reference board with the bios switch used, your chances of getting a unlockable 6950 are slim. It is a good card though, but for $350 I believe you can get a new 7870 card, which will probably beat both the 6950 and 6970 in most games.

 

[Ws60]

The unlockable 6950s are hard to come by now. Most of the companies still making the 6950 have moved on to the rev 2 and 3 boards that DO NOT have the bios switch on them and are not unlockable. Unless you can find a 6950 reference board with the bios switch used, your chances of getting a unlockable 6950 are slim. It is a good card though, but for $350 I believe you can get a new 7870 card, which will probably beat both the 6950 and 6970 in most games.

That does change things up a slight bit, and it makes sense that they wouldn't want that to be a possible feature.

 

[silent-circuit]

I never recommended you buy one new -- they can be found somewhat regularly used for $200-225 still under warranty, many already unlocked.

 

[Runt.]

I think the card you have right now should be fine for you since your display is only a 1680x1050@60Hz ..
What kind of FPS are you getting right now anyway on Skyrim?

 

[Ws60]

I think the card you have right now should be fine for you since your display is only a 1680x1050@60Hz ..
What kind of FPS are you getting right now anyway on Skyrim?

*The below numbers were checked before noticing the latest driver update that was just released today.*

All else being equal, at max resolution and Ultra settings in vanilla (with HD DLC) I get around 15-20 FPS in the beginning sequence with a bit of a bump in more plain area's. When modded, (2k lite texture pack and SkyBoost included) I get around the same. Both nearly max out the cards vRAM with the former loading the GPU between 80-90% and the latter maxing it out most times at 99%. While I personally consider the FPS playable (I completed Metro 2033 with about the same) its very jerky and I do have concerns about loading the card that hard.

I do understand that by running such settings I'm stressing the card a bit beyond what its intended to deal with and I don't fault it in the least. Aside from the intermittent display malfunction (which after reading more of the forums here I now believe had more to do with a driver bug then a hardware issue), its served me well. In large part it comes down to me now desiring a smoother game play without sacrificing how good a game looks or the resolution is run at. Especially when money was set aside soon as my tax return came in just in case the worries I had over the card failing did actually occur.

On a side note I am considering upgrading when funds permit to an HD monitor of at least the same size if not a touch larger then my current one but that's entirely dependent on funds/sales at the time. For example had I caught that recent one day fire sale on refurbished HD monitors I'd likely have snapped one up.

*Edit*
I admit Neweggs blatant attempt to dump their stock of 480's (again) before the 6xx launch does tempt me a little given my 460, though it'd likely push my 650w PSU a bit hard and run hot. However if I understand things right that a 480 ~= a 570, wouldn't by extension it be 480~=570~=660? Ie be the probable equivalent of the mid-level 6xx series card when it comes out?

Annd it seems we're already seeing the start of a 500 series price drop. Hmm...

 

[silent-circuit]

So long as it's quality a 650w PSU should have no issue with a GTX 480.

Your equivalency theory would work if we were talking about a die shrink like going from the 4xx to 5xx series with minor tweaks (and similarly, the Radeon HD 5xxx to 6xxx series), but if I understand things correctly Nvidia's 6xx series is a completely new or at least substantially different architecture. There's no guarantee that "rule" will follow. If you keep running 1680x1050 however, which is a fairly moderate resolution by today's standards (certainly no 2560x1600, say) the 480 should serve you well for quite a while. That said, it'll also run hot and be really goddamn loud. For that reason alone I wouldn't buy a 4xx or 5xx card, personally.

 

[Ws60]

I admit the equivalency theory was a little bit of a newb stretch on my part given said die shrink. The only reason I'm even half considering a 480 despite the two obvious downsides of heat+power consumption was that at such a price (~$210) they land in the same ballpark as the 6950's I'm currently looking at for better individual performance. Even then its fairly hesitant. Assuming I do end up with an Nvidia card and with the supposed ~$500 launch price* of the 680 in mind, it would probably be one of the 500 series. At least they run quieter and cooler on top of having much less power draw.

The fact I'd have to do some case modding for either of the GTX 480/580 them to fit is fairly minor as the interior of my case is set up..fairly weird despite being a full tower. It has a goofy perforated baffle under the back end of the drive bays that would interfere with longer cards yet aside from acting as a retainer for a plastic bin holding bay mountings that I've long since removed serves little purpose. As is I've been wanting to upsize the tiny 80mm fan ports on the side-top to 120mm for almost two years now

*Personally I'm of the mind that the actual MSRP will end up somewhat less then the rumored price so people will go 'hey thats cheaper then we expected yay!'

 

[silent-circuit]

Were I the betting sort, I wouldn't bet against the MSRP and actual selling price being as high as speculated, if not higher. I still remember $650 8800 GTXs and $800+ 8800 Ultras. Nvidia isn't afraid to gouge when they're on top. The only reason price would be any lower is if they don't deliver on performance.

 

[Ws60]

Were I the betting sort, I wouldn't bet against the MSRP and actual selling price being as high as speculated, if not higher. I still remember $650 8800 GTXs and $800+ 8800 Ultras. Nvidia isn't afraid to gouge when they're on top. The only reason price would be any lower is if they don't deliver on performance.

I wouldn't be surprised if that ended up being the case though I'm certainly hoping otherwise for both AMD and Nvidia users as lower prices are usually nicer for the consumer. Granted the companies have to turn a profit to stay in business on the other hand.

Hmm, it seems 6970's and 6950's are getting harder to find, with most of the cheaper cards being out of stock. The ones that are still in stock are around the same price range as the marked down Nvidia's and even those are going at a decent rate. As I haven't bought very many video cards and despite having skimmed the forums here more then once I don't really have a firm grasp on what the perks/quirks of the various card manufacturers are. How do sat Evga, Asus, Galaxy, MSI, etc stack up against each other? It might end up being the more important choice at this point.