• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Video card upgrade

D

DFinan

Weaksauce
Joined
Jul 2, 2004
Messages
124
Real torn trying to decide which card to upgrade to be it nvidia or AMD. Currently running and 5870 from AMD. Definitely time to upgrade. I do almost all my gaming on a single monitor running at 1920 x 1080 res. Any suggestions? Lots of good cards to choose from, looking to get somethign I will hold onto for another 3 years or so before needing to upgrade again. Thansk for any advice.

AMD 965 BE
16gig memory
Asus Formula IV motherboard
Thermaltek 750 wat psu.
 
I'm fuzzy on AMD's old chips but it might be time to replace the 965.
Although people around here have been spoiled since the i7 920 so people seem to forget that CPU bottlenecks are real, especially going back that far.
 
Need some questions answered, please:
1. Do you have a price cap you're wanting to stick with?
2. When do you plan to overhaul your system, including a new MoBo and CPU?
3. Are you interested in any brand specific features, like Mantle or PhysX?
4. Do you play any games that may require higher amounts of VRAM, like a severely modded Skyrim or something along that line?
5. Are you wanting to have the capability to crank up the visual settings on certain/all games?
 
good questions here are the answers.

1. I dont really have a price cap at the moment
2. Not sure when I plan on overhauling the system. I keep hoping amd will come out with an updated chip but starting to look like I will switch to intel by the end of the year.
3. Mantle and PhysX are nice features but not embraced enough to make them a big decision maker one way or the other.
4. I do play mix of older games that require less vram and newer titles that make use of large amounts of vram
5. Idealy with one monitor I would like to crank the settings up as high as I can with the processor I currently have. I also want to make sure the card i get will support a newer processor when I decide to upgrade.
 
If you're wanting to buy soon (within the couple weeks), then 290X or 780/780ti. Check as many reviews as you can to see how each performs with some of the specific games you play.

Get the most video card you can without going to a stupid price bracket like the 295X2 or Titan commands. Well, unless you can step into the stupid price bracket realm... :p



Regardless of what you choose, your CPU will be a bottleneck. Granted, you will still see an increase in video performance, but the real GPU performance upgrade will happen when you also get your CPU and MoBo upgraded down the road. I know how this feels: I had an X2 6400+ BE with a GTX 275. I decided to upgrade to a GTX 570 - the most GPU I could afford at the time right when the 600 series came out - which I just took out of my current system earlier this week. I was torn between the 780 and 290X, but I chose the 780 for two reasons:
1. I play many games (older and newer) that do utilize PhysX and I really like the feature.
2. I got a smoking deal on a 780, even better than a 290.

All in all, I feel I would have been happy with either, especially coming from a 570.
 
Last edited:
The R9 290X with custom cooler can be found for as low as $580, which IMO is a really good deal. The 780 Ti used to be the better choice but I guess those days are over now.
 
Is your 965 overclocked? Buying anything in the price range of what people are mentioning here, your cpu will be a serious bottleneck. What I mean is, if you plan on spending 500+ dollars on a gpu, it is usually better to wait until the last possible second to buy it, as GPU prices tend to depreciate much quicker. If you really are going to go with a 500+ gpu don't do it on a 965
 
greybaby said:
Is your 965 overclocked? Buying anything in the price range of what people are mentioning here, your cpu will be a serious bottleneck. What I mean is, if you plan on spending 500+ dollars on a gpu, it is usually better to wait until the last possible second to buy it, as GPU prices tend to depreciate much quicker. If you really are going to go with a 500+ gpu don't do it on a 965
Click to expand...

I'd normally agree with you, but he did state that he plans to overhaul the rest of his system my the end of the year.

A $500 current-gen GPU will still provide a nice performance bump even with a 965. Bottleneck, yes. But that will be alleviated when the new MoBo and CPU are brought in to the picture.

Ideally, I would say wait and do everything all at once. However, it's looking very grim for the next gen GPU hardware to be out by the end of the year when the MoBo and CPU upgrade will happen. Kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.
 
if you're buying now a 770, 780 depending what you're looking to spend. If your gonna wait re-do everything at the end of the year might as well just buy whatever is best and fits your budget at that time, im sure crap will change by then.
 
I'd vote for the 770 or 780. Decent performance for the price, then your next upgrade could be CPU/Mobo/Ram, but the 965 is still a decent chip.
 
All good points and I have spent some time today pricing an I7 4770 and motherboard. Just not sure if I can swing it and a new card at the same time.
 
I'd go for the GPU, then.

Newegg has the Asus DC2 OC on sale for $490 shipped including a free game. Same model I just got. Went from medium-high settings to maxed ultra settings in FC3 with higher frame rates, just as one example. Don't expect that level of an increase until you get a new MoBo and CPU, although you will still see a jump.
 
Yeah I see what you mean. OP, if I was you and I actually had 500 to spend, I'd spend ~300 on cpu/mobo and then get a ~ 200 gpu. This would be a significant upgrade and 200 gpu's don't drop in value nearly as fast as the latest and greatest gpu's. And if you're into gaming, CPU's tend to not need to be upgraded nearly as much as GPU's for optimal performance anyway. A 200 dollar gpu will easily keep pace with games at 1080p.
 
i would second greybaby. I'm not sure how things are in the US, but in the UK GPU prices are dropping, probably as cryptocurrencies are losing popularity.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top