Upgrading my GPU... need some opinions

dr.stevil

dr.stevil

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So I'm currently running a GTX295 on a Q6600 @ 3.6ghz. While it's still a nice system, and can hold it's own in most games (with some settings turned down a bit), I'd like to get something a little newer and retire the old one to my gf's children to play games on.

So with that said, I'm going to grab a friends i7-950 (is this still a worthwhile CPU to get? or would the current i7's be a better choice?) setup and want a GPU that wont break the bank... but also be a nice step up from the 295. With the card being so old, it's hard to find an accurate comparison... especially since the processor I have is old as well.

I was looking at an AMD 7990. It has some really nice performance for the price, but don't feel like shelling out that much cash all at once. I'm also not a huge fan of AMD's drivers either (hate that you can't turn AA off completely at the driver level).

So I started to look at the GTX770. It looks like it offers pretty nice performance as well and in SLI, pretty much performs on par with the 7990... so I have an upgrade path a bit down the road if one isn't enough. However, a friend told me that I'd be better off with a GTX680 and overclocking it, since it uses the same GPU as the 770... just at lower clocks. The 770 does have a 4GB version though but not sure if it's worth it though on a single 1080 display. I am, however, running a 120Hz display and would like to keep my games looking as good as possible at a full 120FPS or as close to that as possible.

Can you recommend something else in the same power level at a lower price point? Or any other opinions/advice? I haven't been following GPU's for the last several years so I'm not too knowledgeable on the current generation.

500 is the most I want to spend right now.... but anywhere from 300-400 would be the sweet spot.
 
right now?

The new Radeons will be out within 2 months. Rumor is Sept. 25.

I would wait if at all possible. Then you can get the new Never Settle gaming bundle with BF4 or see what games nVidia will bundle with their cards.
From what I recall, nvidia typically doesn't drop their prices when AMD releases a new gpu. So don't expect that.

Otherwise, there's some killer deals on the Radeon 7950's for $180-$200 right now. Crossfire two of those for $400 and that would kill a GTX770 for the same price.

oh, and I would not buy a used i7-950. they're hot and they don't overclock nearly as much as a 3570k or 4670k. It's worth it to go with Ivy Bridge or Haswell, imo.
(unless he's selling you a cpu& mobo for $130 total...then I would consider it).
 
J Macker said:
right now?

The new Radeons will be out within 2 months. Rumor is Sept. 25.

I would wait if at all possible. Then you can get the new Never Settle gaming bundle with BF4 or see what games nVidia will bundle with their cards.
From what I recall, nvidia typically doesn't drop their prices when AMD releases a new gpu. So don't expect that.

Otherwise, there's some killer deals on the Radeon 7950's for $180-$200 right now. Crossfire two of those for $400 and that would kill a GTX770 for the same price.

oh, and I would not buy a used i7-950. they're hot and they don't overclock nearly as much as a 3570k or 4670k. It's worth it to go with Ivy Bridge or Haswell, imo.
(unless he's selling you a cpu& mobo for $130 total...then I would consider it).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input. As for the CPU, I think he's giving me a pretty good deal. $500.00 for pretty much the entire system (including 3TB of storage and 256GB SSD) and even throwing in a GTX460. Are the OC/heat problems that much of an issue that I should reconsider? I know it has a really nice aftermarket cooler on it too... so hopefully that would help. If I could hit close to 4ghz, I'd be happy.

As far as the GPU goes, I wouldn't be happy with just a single 770 I don't think... I'd eventually SLi it with another when I have some disposable income (or whatever GPU I go with). I would consider AMD though for the right price. Does AMD have anything current gen (and single GPU) that performs on par with a single 770/780?
 
HD 7950 CFx or 760 GTX but I would go with a i7 3770k instead of i7 950 witht he time you will have a bottleneck with future VGAs
 
Which model ssd is that 256gb drive?

3TB new is $100 (on sale). used is $80 for good condition and still under warranty. $60 is the most I'd pay for a 3TB with no warranty.
Most if not all of the first and second gen ssds don't have TRIM and they have shorter lifespans. The drive could be at 50-70% of it's original performance due to wear. That said, a new 240-256GB ssd would cost around $200, so depending on which ssd it is and the condition, I'd say used value is anywhere from $80-$120.
i7-950 used value with hsf ~$80-$100
mobo ~$60-$80 (remember that a new Z87 mobo that can overclock is ~$100-$150) old generation premium motherboards don't retain value, so it doesn't matter if the board cost him $300 to buy.

Ram how many GB is he giving you? 4GB is worth approx $20 used value.
GTX 460 $50 tops. (and it's worthless to you! When you sell it, pay shipping and deduct paypal fees, you'll get $35 for it)
Case ~$20-$50 depending (but it still won't have usb3, and you can get a new case with usb3 for $40)
dvd drive $10
Win7 = $50
psu = $20 (used, it may not have much life left)
=== $470 to $600 actual used value for system with 8GB===

So my guess is that you're getting a fair price, not a deal by any means.
Remember these are used values, and he'd have to pay shipping costs and paypal fees if he sold them online. A friend would factor that in and reduce the cost even further for you just so he doesn't have to sell it online and have a bunch of parts to ship out to separate buyers. Inevitably, he would get stuck with the case. Also, if he sold it on CL, he'd probably have to let it go for $400.

Negotiate him down to $400 and he keeps the GTX 460. That'd be a good price for buying a system that's based on a cpu 3 generations old. But go run the latest version of CrystalDisk on the ssd to see the drive health. Find out what model drive it is and if it has TRIM enabled.

The Radeon 7970 Ghz or overclocked would be competitive with a GTX 770, according to reviews I've seen. I would defnitely recommend crossfire 7950's right now due to their current ~$200 price per card.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/nvidia-geforce-gtx-770_8.html#sect0
http://kotaku.com/geforce-gtx-770-review-adding-value-to-high-end-gfx-510460270
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6994/nvidia-geforce-gtx-770-review/7
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...sc-edition-graphics-card-review-crysis-3.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_GTX_770/18.html

Most if not all of those reviews are probably not using the latest 13.8 drivers, and performance slightly decreased but they fixed framerate latencies. Hardocp mentioned they are doing a review for crossfire when the new Radeon drivers get updated at the end of August to fix frame latencies in crossfire mode.

And just to give you a rough idea;
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/769?vs=829
This is for crossfire 7970's vs a GTX 770.

Overclocked crossfire 7950's will be maybe 10% less performance than crossfired 7970's.
As you can see, the 2x7950's are much faster than a single GTX770.

The GTX 770 has great performance for a single gpu, but it's $400. The Radeon 7970's have dropped to $300 so that's a very compelling reason to buy it even though it's almost 2 years old. The best bang for the buck in my opinion is 2x7950's at $200 each. It's simply phenomenal performance for $400, and you can be rest assured that AMD's new gpu at $400 will NOT be faster than 2x7950's.

So yeah, unless you get him down on the price, I wouldn't pay $500 for an i7-950 system.
There's been so many combo deals at newegg for $100 off psu & Z87 mobo or cpu/mobo purchase that it really affects used values when the new stuff has these great discounts.

*one last edit:
I think the i7-950 would definitely be a bottleneck especially if you want to maintain 100-120fps in the newest games with high details.
That's another reason why I wouldn't recommend it for you. You sound like you want a premium gaming experience looking at 7990 and SLI 770's on a 120hz screen. The next step for you would be to go with a 2560x1440 27" LCD that runs 120hz.

If you're willing to have some settings turned down a little, I see no reason why a single Radeon 7950 wouldn't be enough.
I played through Bioshock Infinite using a 2500k @ 4.4Ghz and a single 7950 and had most of the game settings on High at 2560x1440 and I was getting consistently 85-100 fps.
 
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I agree with J Macker. I wouldn't bother with anything faster than a GTX460 Ti on such an old CPU. You can find good deals on a 2500/2600K or AMD FX and a used motherboard if you have paitence and need to upgrade on the cheap.
 
awesome, thanks a lot guys. I might reconsider buying that system now. Since going with my C2Q, I really haven't been following the tech scene all that closely. I didn't realize the 950's were that far behind the current gen CPU's.

Perhaps I'll just start piecing together a brand new system and picking the parts up when I see a deal.

As for the GPU... I also thank you. I'll see what AMD comes out with in the next month or two.
 
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