• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Upgrade Options (£400) Budget

Kellogz

Kellogz

Kellogz

Associate
Joined
3 Nov 2009
Posts
207
Location
UK, Norwich
Hello there been a while since ive been in a situation where i can consider an upgrade but hey ho.

Anyways over last few days ive been looking on ebay at the current going rates on the 6950, a card that i have had for a while now and noticed i could pretty much get back what i paid for it over a year ago right now. That being said i am now questioning if i was to do this what could i upgrade too and what will benefit me. By selling the card it would not increase the budget i allowed an extra £100 if i was to sell it.

This is my current rig:

Samsung S27A750D 27" 120Hz 3D Widescreen Ultra Thin LED Monitor
Cooler Master HAF 912 Plus Case - Black
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge)
Corsair XMS3 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz
MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
XFX Pro 650W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
HIS ATI Radeon HD 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II

Im looking to upgrade it further, i would love to push the FPS in games such as BF3, Dota 2, Hon, Diablo 3, Tera to a higher mark. So my natural instinct is saying to upgrade my GFX card currently. Ive used ATI my whole life and i guess as a kid was always a ATI fanboy and cursed the thought of a Nvidia due to there old price ways. But i am now looking at both maufactures and being a bit more open minded.

Im currently looking at these options and would love some pro and con replys.

1. buy 2 x 6050's http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-299-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752 £300

2. 1x 7970 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-297-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=938 £335

3. 1x 680 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-093-GI&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=2255 £420
 
Hello mate,

Pretty nice rig you have, just wondering why you hadn't considered trying to locate another HIS 6950 like you have and xfiring that rather than selling and buying another pair?

I'd then use the rest of the money to buy an SSD, one of the single best purchases I've ever made. You won't want to install every game on it, maybe just the few you play religiously but will make Windows a pleasure too.

EDIT:
Oh and the Sapphires' aren't on This Week Only any more so you'll be looking at £340 for a pair of them from OCUK.
 
Last edited:
KraniX said:
Hello mate,

Pretty nice rig you have, just wondering why you hadn't considered trying to locate another HIS 6950 like you have and xfiring that rather than selling and buying another pair?

I'd then use the rest of the money to buy an SSD, one of the single best purchases I've ever made. You won't want to install every game on it, maybe just the few you play religiously but will make Windows a pleasure too.

EDIT:
Oh and the Sapphires' aren't on This Week Only any more so you'll be looking at £340 for a pair of them from OCUK.
Click to expand...

Just checked my mobo, seems i cant support the crossfire must have been my old board so i would have to look at a new mobo also if i considered the 6950. Also to add i actualy had a browse to find another one of my cards and its been pretty hard to locate one. The reasons for me leaning towards the single card slightly more is mainly due to the fact in a few months i could consider a second of either the 680 or 7950s in cross or SLI.
 
Last edited:
Ah that's a pain.

Well for the other two you can see the benchmarks from Anandtech here, the best advice is to look at the types of games you play and buy based on that really, BF3 seems to favour Nvidia cards across the board but the 680 is pretty pricey in comparison.

If you like AMD/ATI as an alternative what about a 7950 for around £260? I've not looked into it properly but sure you must be able to overclock it a bit. Had a quick look on Guru3D and they have it performing at almost 7970 speeds without touching the voltage and outperforming it when doing so.
 
Thanks everyone for all the replys, Ive been researching as much as i can all day about the 3 cards. After some winding down i took the 670 out of the equation. Im down to 2 cards now.

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 680 WindForce 3x OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

or

VTX3D HD 7970 X-Edition 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

I dont want the value factor too come into the equation as there both in budget. I would like to know which in your own oppinions or reviews, will be the better performer out of the box as i am not confident enough to try overclocking yet. (Keep putting it off worried ill blow £800 down the drain if i touched it :D).
 
if you take value and OC out of the equation then it's purely down to personal choice between nvidia or AMD

they are both excellent cards and each will beat the other in certain games

if you are not going to OC then the windforce will probably be marginally the faster of the 2 out of the box, but whether that scant few FPS is worth £100 or not is entirely up to you (the 680 auto overclocks itself anyway so will probably boost to higher than the rated number on the spec sheet which is already 100mhz more than that 7970)
 
Kellogz said:
Thanks for the reply angry :)

Something just poped into my head, would my current monitor have any problems with either of the cards?

Samsung S27A750D 27" 120Hz 3D Widescreen Ultra Thin LED Monitor
Click to expand...

funny, there was nothing angry about my post :confused:

and nope, no problem, both the cards you selected have display port, though the 7970 has a mini display port so you'll need a mini to full size cable on that one, or a normal to normal for the nvidia card
 
andybird123 said:
funny, there was nothing angry about my post :confused:

and nope, no problem, both the cards you selected have display port, though the 7970 has a mini display port so you'll need a mini to full size cable on that one, or a normal to normal for the nvidia card
Click to expand...

I think he thought your name was angrybird not andybird, I did too, lol!
 
KraniX said:
I think he thought your name was angrybird not andybird, I did too, lol!
Click to expand...

oh haha! your right! i did think it was angrybird! my appologize Andy! :) and thanks for the info, leaning to the Nvidia never had one but looking at the benchs it does better in the games i play lets see if the misses can allow to jusitfy £100 more for more FPS :P
 
Nickolp1974 said:
And where does it say he does not want to OC???
Click to expand...

Kellogz said:
I dont want the value factor too come into the equation as there both in budget. I would like to know which in your own oppinions or reviews, will be the better performer out of the box as i am not confident enough to try overclocking yet. (Keep putting it off worried ill blow £800 down the drain if i touched it :D).
Click to expand...

Oh but he did...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom