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Amature Question; Mhz or Gb?

Howitzer

Howitzer

Howitzer

Associate
Joined
10 Mar 2010
Posts
1,077
Location
London, UK
Hey all,

I'd just like an oppinion. I'm not in a rush at all, but very much would like to upgrade for Rome II next year.

Basically there's a huge range of cards out there, but when you look at any guidline price there are two main differences I see: Faster speeds or more VRam...

What's better?
For example for around £200 you can get 1100Mhz 2GB or 800Mhz 3Gb...

I'm looking more for smooth performance than minute details that get missed in the thick of a game, so I would assume the speed was better. Is that right? Or does it all depend on the game or the rest of the system?

Please bare in mind I'm not particularly comfortable in OCing GPUs lol. I've only just learned how to do the CPU!

My set up that it would go into is in my sig.

Cheers in advance :)
Howie.
 
As said before, you can't just base it on those numbers when comparing two different cards.

You need to read reviews and look at benchmarks for the two cards in question.

If comparing two 7850's it would be easy to say the one with 1100mhz is better value than the one with 850mhz. But with two different cards you cannot do that.
 
You're better off asking for a card based on a budget and what games you play. Your question is too generic and not answerable.
 
Martini1991 said:
To go further on from Dave, the second number denotes its position in a line up (Higher is better), the first number denotes the series.
Click to expand...

It's a minefield of numbers :p

Rusty0611 said:
You're better off asking for a card based on a budget and what games you play. Your question is too generic and not answerable.
Click to expand...

Agree, op needs to answer:-
Budget, PSU, CPU, screen size, games played?
 
I don't think memory size is exactly comparable either as I remember hearing something about AMD having better memory compression so technically needing less?
 
Haha, sorry peeps! I had no idea it was so generic, I figured the numbers showed the 'grunt' of the part :P

I'll be looking at around £200ish +/-£50 or so.

650W psu, i7 3.8gb (original, not sandybridge).

I play at 23" 1080p. This has been my max limit according to the choices that are given to me by the screen/games - if this is changeable depending on GPU all the better!

I currently use a HD5850 which has been fantastic so far, I'm just worried it might start to struggle over the next year or so...

Mainly a Total War player (Empire, Rome, Napoleon) but I dabble in CoD, BF3, Civ 4/5 etc. Looking to be able to play Rome 2 & Black Ops 2 nicely :)

I also make the odd film here and there with Sony Vegas so if the GPU can out-perform my CPU then I can use that in the rendering process instead.
(I had figured the CPU would do better than the current GPUs on the market but now that I know my knowledge is floored I'm not so sure!)

Thanks for all the interest! Sorry I was so vague. If you need more info let me know :)

Cheers,
Howie.
 
I'll add my opinion.. because it's a bit different.

Say you decide on buying a 7950.

You'll see a range of cards - something like this:

- stock speeds and stock cooler
- small overclock, custom cooler
- large overclock, custom cooler
- large overclock, water cooling

I'm not entirely convinced that the overclocked cards are stable. If they are, then fine - but you pay more for a higher overclock - and then might find that your card can't even run that speed.

But you don't want the stock cooler either, because all custom coolers offer an improvement in temperatures - which itself helps stability - but also an improvement in noise.

If you can get a card at stock speeds with a custom cooler, I'd buy that - but typically you can't - so I tend to lean towards small overclock and custom cooler.
 
Tom's Hardware Guide do a regular roundup of what the best value graphics card is at any particular price point- you might disagree with a few of their decisions, but it's a handy starting point to get an idea of how the market looks at any given point in time:

August's Edition

Just take a look at the latest version of that when you're ready to buy your graphics card, and see what the latest consensus is.
 
nVidia's only easy to recommend card out of the current range is the 670. The 660Ti below it is horrendous value for money as it is grossly overpriced and the 680 - while being a superb card - is difficult to recommend as it is very expensive over the 670 and performs within 5-10%.

There's no doubt AMD have a better range of cards and this is due to their aggressive pricing which is partly down to them getting to the market first.

If you have the money, the 670 is an excellent card. However, due to the mentioned price cuts AMD currently offer greater value for money although of course by invoking the term 'value' you're introducing a degree of subjective analysis.

I have 2 680's so arguably two of the worst value for money cards out there really. However, this was the last consideration really and the least important to me. So it's all relative really to your own situation.
 
Wonderful stuff there, thanks very much :)

Always learning eh!

From the above I'll keep an eye on the 7950 range then, and will watch it over the next few weeks/months.

Cheers!
Howie.
 
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