Graphics card options ±£900 budget

srobrien · 4 Mar 2013 at 20:53

Hello, if someone had around £900 to spend on a GPU setup what would give the biggest bang for the buck, single GPU or SLI/Crossfire?

Cheers

chaparral · 4 Mar 2013 at 20:58

If wanting to spend around £900 for the best performance
SLI GTX 680 or crossfire 7970 GHZ

Or a much cheaper bang for buck option
SLI GTX 670 or crossfire 7950

Castiel · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:02

With that kind of cash you are in Titan territory. Bang for buck however would probably be crossfire 7970s.

Doomedspeed · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:04

Using the whole budget: Titan

Bang for Buck: 2 X 7970's

srobrien · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:04

Castiel said:
With that kind of cash you are in Titan territory. Bang for buck however would probably be crossfire 7970s.

Would the titan be better than 680sli?

Castiel · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:05

srobrien said:
Would the titan be better than 680sli?

Not as far as raw power, but it wouldn't have the scaling issues. It depends on what you want for your money.

panyan · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:06

Doomedspeed said:
Using the whole budget: Titan

Bang for Buck: 2 X 7970's

+1

srobrien · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:07

How stable is the sli/crossfire, i've heard about jerky movement whilst running it, I suppose that would be a benefit of the titan.

chaparral · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:10

srobrien said:
Would the titan be better than 680sli?

I think you find a GTX 680 SLI setup would destroy a titan in most games at most settings..

Titans are really best suited for setups where you have 2 titans in SLI running a 3 monitor very high Resolution setup..

Jas1222 · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:12

chaparral said:
I think you find a GTX 680 SLI setup would destroy a titan in most games at most settings..

Wouldn't the 2GB limit be a drawback anything above 1080p?

Doomedspeed · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:12

srobrien said:
How stable is the sli/crossfire, i've heard about jerky movement whilst running it, I suppose that would be a benefit of the titan.

It depends on what cards they are, what motherboard you have and how the stars are aligned..

There's no way of telling, It's just luck. It can work really well but there are issues with scaling and some drivers holding the performance back. Some modern games still don't support SLI/Xfire.. A bit of a mess sometimes.

Though if it's right, FPS is a good 70% better than using just one card..

eggcup · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:13

Jas1222 said:
Wouldn't the 2GB limit be a drawback anything above 1080p?

Not even close

HankScorpio · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:13

7970s aren't really value for money, seeing they can be up to and over £100 more than a 7950 when they're only slightly faster and overclocks can make up for this.

Crossfire 7950s and add waterblocks if you want to spend all the money.

srobrien · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:14

Thanks for all the feedback, food for thought..it's a lot of cash to spend so want to make sure it's the right choice.

setter · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:14

Personally, if i had £900.00 id be going with sli gtx 670's or xfired 7950's. Would leave some cash for an upgrade of my cpu along with selling the one in sig.

Gregster · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:16

chaparral said:
I think you find a GTX 680 SLI setup would destroy a titan in most games at most settings..

Titans are really best suited for setups where you have 2 titans in SLI running a 3 monitor very high Resolution setup..

Not sure on destroy but agreed on the rest

As for the OP's question, 2*7950 is the best 'bang per performance' at the moment. For around £460, you will have 2 very fast cards. Put the other £440 towards water cooling for a quiet, satisfying build

pgi947 · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:19

£900 = 7970 Trifire, that or a pair of 7970's and waterblocks.

whyscotty · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:26

HankScorpio said:
7970s aren't really value for money, seeing they can be up to and over £100 more than a 7950 when they're only slightly faster and overclocks can make up for this.

Crossfire 7950s and add waterblocks if you want to spend all the money.

^^^
This

blackninja · 4 Mar 2013 at 21:50

Bought 3 x 7950 last week and will WC them if I keep em. No complaints about performance or stability yet and with 2 I can almost max Crysis 3 with everything set to very high except for lower levels of AA to get 50+ fps ... not sure if I really need a third card just to get more AA though

Sold 2 Crysis codes and have 2 Bioshock to sell as well as keeping one of each for myself - bargain really for what you get! Each card clocked is pulling around 300w at the wall though so that is pushing it a bit for me but will see!

I expect that will last me a while ...