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looking to move from console gaming to PC Gaming Radeon HD 6970 Vapour X question

mattf

mattf

mattf

Associate
Joined
3 Apr 2012
Posts
368
Hi All Newbie Here!

I am currently building a new rig I have a legacy video card from my old PC

new spec will be:
I7 3770K
16 GB Corsair Vengance
120 OCZ agility 3 SSD
1 TB WD Caviar Black 6GBS
MSI Z77A - GD65
Corsair H100 Cooler
COrsair 750 TX
Corsair 650D Case
Sapphire 6870 HD Vapour X 1GB


Will the Video Card hold me back? Should I look at upgrading to a better card?

Games I would like to play are Skyrim, CIV 5, Sports games, maybe BF3

thank you

Mattf
 
Personally I would go for the i5 2500k is a great overclockerthere is no advantage to having a i7 If all you are going to do is game,you don't really need 16gb of ram either 8gb would be fine but if your not on a budget and wish to have it go ahead! Lol but I doubt very much that u will use it tbh.
 
my wife likes to do some video editing so I though get the I7 maybe the I5 3550K would be better? Save some cash

deffo want an IVY Bridge as I have shelled out for the Z77 board

only use one monitor for gaming 1080p 24" and run an extended desktop to a 27" LCD to view videos and media on
 
How much video editing? Because if it's only occasionaly (few times a week( an i5 will serve you fine and then you can add the money saved to a 7950 or something better.
 
few times a week mostly home movies of our son

ok will look at an I5, will the hyperthreading not be used more by upcoming gens of games? I am hoping this build will last 4-5 years
 
Graphics card is much more likely to be an issue in 5 years time than your CPU but who knows what the future holds. A 6970 is a good card but it is going to show its age a long time before a 7950 or higher though. I think the 6970 will start to struggle on new GPU intensive games released in the next 18 months.

A lot of games only use 2 cores at the moment never mind 4 (or more) cores with hyper threading. That said, again, it's difficult to predict the future. It could be games will follow BF3 and their engines can use 4 or more cores. It could be more of the same (some do, some not). Hyper threading has never been that beneficial for games though historically.
 
I should add - what budget do you have in mind?

If you can afford it you could go for an i7 IB CPU and a 7950/7970/680? I was assuming it was one or the other but if not then buy the best you can afford. An i7 isn't going to hurt you and it will help in video editing, it's just if you are on a particular budget you can get better performance/£ if you go with a better graphics card.
 
Budget is not an issue at present it would help towards a video card I could possibly get a 680 but I am wondering weather I could stay with the 6870 till xmas and then get a 680 at a reduced price?
 
mattf said:
Budget is not an issue at present it would help towards a video card I could possibly get a 680 but I am wondering weather I could stay with the 6870 till xmas and then get a 680 at a reduced price?
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I loved my 6870. Best budget card I've ever bought :)

You could do - but that's a wait of 9 months a long time and you will be bottlenecking the rest of your system with it while gaming. The top end cards for both AMD and nVidia don't really offer any value for money at the moment but if you're not that bothered then the GTX 680 would be an excellent choice.

Whether to wait or not is tough to give advice on - you need to be able to predict future price variations as well as weigh up your financial situation. I was in a similar situation to yourself. I upgraded from a C2D E8500, 4GB DDR2 RAM, X48 motherboard and a HD 6870 to the stuff in my signature but whether or not to weigh into the graphics card high end market was the toughest choice. I was torn between a 570, 6970, 7950, 7970 and 680. In the end I went for the 680 and I was glad I did. It's difficult to say it was "worth" £425 but I'm very, very happy with it.

Also bear in mind that the 580's have only just come down in price and they are still retailing for high £200's/early £300's so still very expensive.
 
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ok will think it over, don't want to bottleneck the system and it appears graphic cards are akin to processors and the price doesn't drop that much when the new gen arrives

would the 580 be a good bet? slightly cheaper is there a huge difference in power?
 
Going for an evga gtx 680 ref will up the warranty to 5 years as 10 seems ott. Re the 16 gb again it is legacy from and older system think I'm going for the i7 3770k will look for a 3d 27 inch screen later in the year or early next year
 
mattf said:
I'm going for the i7 3770k
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Yup, go for the i7 over the i5 if you can afford the little extra and want to use your pc for anything other than a glorified ps3. Windows itself will make use of the hyperthreading so it's worth the extra few quid.

I run an i7 and a GTX570 and have to say I'm chuffed with its performance but if I were in the market for an upgrade it'd certainly be i7 + 680.
 
im playing bf3 on ultra settings at 1920x1080 with a 5870 no probs,6870 just has improved dx11 tesselation
 
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