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Which video card?

B

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[H]ard|Gawd
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So I recently found a dell computer on the curb and it had an i7-2600 in it and 16gb of ram. Only thing wrong was a dead HD. So i was like sweet, time to upgrade the q6600/8800gt and get back into pc gaming.

Ive ordered a ASRock Z75 Pro3 for it. I already have a 750W silverstone PSU to power it with.

Doing some reading and searching on the forums it looks like a GTX 660 2GB is my best bet. My budget is $250. I will driving a 1080P 23" LCD with it. Is it worth the extra few bucks for a GTX 760 2GB in my case? Will my i7-2600 bottleneck it?

I plan on some Dayz standalone and BF4.

Im not partial to amd or nvidia. Just looks like the 660 is just slightly better than a 7870?

Just wanting to make sure before I drop the scrilla on the GTX 660 since I havent really paid attention to pc gaming for the last 5 years. :)

Thanks!
 
Sweet find. :)
Nvidia vs AMD doesn't matter very much. Either way you'll be ok. Though for BF4 specifically you might be better with AMD because of mantle support. I personally have a 7870xt (similar speed as regular 7870 & 270x) and it plays BF4 smooth on high settings. Don't know much about the GTX 660 so I can't say on that. GTX 760 is a great card but only get it if you need the higher performance, all depends on what games you'll be playing down the road. Just avoid the 280x / 7970 / 7950 since their prices are very inflated.
 
Yeah the 270x is a fair bit quicker in DirectX and looking on Amazon is similar money.
Mantle may be useful but doesnt look like that will be soon, but the 270x is a decent card without considering that, so theres a bonus for later.
 
I just bought the EVGA GeForce GTX 660 FTW 2GB w/ ACX Cooling and love it. I'll eventually migrate this card to my wife's PC someday when I am ready to upgrade again but for now, it runs everything pretty smooth.
 
Nenu said:
Yeah the 270x is a fair bit quicker in DirectX and looking on Amazon is similar money.
Mantle may be useful but doesnt look like that will be soon, but the 270x is a decent card without considering that, so theres a bonus for later.
Click to expand...

Uhm, maybe i'm misunderstanding you, but aside from perhaps BF4 with old nvidia drivers (newer NV drivers increased BF4 performance a ton), the GTX 760 which OP mentioned is quite a bit faster than the 270X. The 760 is something like 15% faster with reference, and even more than that for factory OC'ed models (nearly every 760 is factory OC'ed and a custom design). Unless i'm misunderstanding. The only possible game where 270X comes close is BF4, aside from that the 760 is significantly faster. Unless you're referring to the 270X being faster than the 660, which is the case. I would agree that the 270X is faster than the 660.

I would say it all boils down to the OP's budget. The mining craze seems to have hit some 270X models, but if the budget for OP is 200$ and he can find a 270X at 200$, that is the best bet. If the budget is 250$, hands down no question, the GTX 760 is better overall. Even better still, if you can manage to find a 7870 for less than 200$ that would be a good deal as well, although I haven't seen any as of late.

To the OP: Here is stock 760 reference performance in relation to the 270X (the 270X is a 1.05ghz rebadged 7870 with retooled RAM): http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_760/ And overclocked performance: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_760_HAWK/

The TLDR is the answer depends on your budget. 200$? If you find a 270X at 200$, that's the card. With a 250-260$ budget, the 760 is the best overall. As mentioned, 7870XT at 180$ or less would be a heck of a deal as well, although they're super hard to find nowadays.
 
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Uhhhh........... There are reviews on mantle everywhere. It is out and it is working in BF4.

HOWEVER, on one hand, would think twice about getting a 270X if you want to do gaming. For games like BF4 a 280X is the best entry point. But, if you get the 270X the price point can allow you to get another for crossfire at a latter date if you decide you like gaming. Also later, pricing will be down to the normal levels. You may or may not know that the current pricing is high due to bitcoin & litecoin mining. In the mean time read this article. http://wccftech.com/amd-mantle-api-performance-preview-radeon-r7-260x-radeon-r9-270x-radeon-r9-280x/ . You have waited this long to get back into gaming do not short change yourself and get as much info as possible before making a decision. Good luck
 
xoleras said:
Uhm, maybe i'm misunderstanding you, but aside from perhaps BF4 with old nvidia drivers (newer NV drivers increased BF4 performance a ton), the GTX 760 which OP mentioned is quite a bit faster than the 270X. The 760 is something like 15% faster with reference, and even more than that for factory OC'ed models (nearly every 760 is factory OC'ed and a custom design). Unless i'm misunderstanding. The only possible game where 270X comes close is BF4, aside from that the 760 is significantly faster. Unless you're referring to the 270X being faster than the 660, which is the case. I would agree that the 270X is faster than the 660.
Click to expand...

I was comparing to the GTX660.
 
+1 for the 760, but for $250 add a few more dollars (like 20-30) and you could grab a 680 or 770.. only thing im going to say about the gtx 600 & 700 series is shadow play, awesome in game recording ahah.. I use the "last 5 min recorder" all the time.. I never manual record..
 
I was all set to buy a 760 but last minute I switched to 770 gtx..

I guess its only %20 faster or so.

A tiny $20 off sale was all it took to tempt me ($319).

After I bought it the 760 went on sale $20 to $250.

I'm only going to game 1900 X 1200 @ 60 so I guess I bought overkill.
 
Keep in mind that it's a non k CPU... So a 760 won't be bottle necked by it?

Thanks for all the help! Console gaming has been convenient with a little one running around. But now that she's getting ready to start school it's time get back into a pc.
 
You will be fine with an i7-2600. It's still a great CPU to this day even if not overclocked and won't hinder the 760.

One thing I would mention - If your system doesn't have a SSD that should be the next upgrade to consider after the GPU, as I have seen a lot of old Dell Sandy Bridge systems with platter hard drives and they generally feel extremely sluggish as a result. Once you go SSD you don't go back, it's a big performance difference. Huge performance difference, even if you only put the OS on the SSD. In fact, my brother has a Dell i7-2600 system and we recently added a SSD to it - the performance difference for every day stuff is night and day according to him. Needless to say he's happy with the SSD. So it's something to consider, since I imagine your Dell has a platter HD.
 
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Your i7-2600 is a great CPU and I agree with getting an EVGA GTX 760 SC w/ ACX http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DHW4HXY.

The GTX 760 is really the best bang for the buck in that level of GPU and your 2600 has plenty of performance to handle SLI 760's if you wanted. You could actually do that with your current setup also if you wanted. :)
 
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Nice score, I hope it serves you well!

The GTX 760 was the main video card I was considering for my 2500k, but I ended up getting a Radeon HD 7850 since I got a good deal on it.
 
xoleras said:
You will be fine with an i7-2600. It's still a great CPU to this day even if not overclocked and won't hinder the 760.

One thing I would mention - If your system doesn't have a SSD that should be the next upgrade to consider after the GPU, as I have seen a lot of old Dell Sandy Bridge systems with platter hard drives and they generally feel extremely sluggish as a result. Once you go SSD you don't go back, it's a big performance difference. Huge performance difference, even if you only put the OS on the SSD. In fact, my brother has a Dell i7-2600 system and we recently added a SSD to it - the performance difference for every day stuff is night and day according to him. Needless to say he's happy with the SSD. So it's something to consider, since I imagine your Dell has a platter HD.
Click to expand...

I do have an ssd ! An older ocz vertex 2 that's running in my q6600.
 
Ok so, I have been selling off old hobbies on craigslist and was able to get $400 instead of the $250 I was shooting for.


Knowing that, would a GTX 770 4GB be the best bet for me with my non k 2600, 16gb of ram, and ocz vertex 2 SSD???? I plan on going with a 1440p monitor in the next 6 months or so.


Thanks!
bink
 
bink said:
Ok so, I have been selling off old hobbies on craigslist and was able to get $400 instead of the $250 I was shooting for.


Knowing that, would a GTX 770 4GB be the best bet for me with my non k 2600, 16gb of ram, and ocz vertex 2 SSD???? I plan on going with a 1440p monitor in the next 6 months or so.


Thanks!
bink
Click to expand...

Depends on your gaming.. you should be fine with a 2gb with 1440p, but 4gb has more room to work with.. your CPU is fine, non-k just isn't able to overclock (or not as much), but other then that it'll last your a few more years.. everything else checks out, go for it if you can. Overkill makes you feel good and proud your system can handle most sh** you or others throw at it, aha..
 
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