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770 series GTX cards

funt

funt

funt

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1 Nov 2013
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256
I'm looking to upgrade from my 2GB 560Ti and have been looking at the 770 range but am stumped as to which one to buy or if i should even buy one at all ....

I have about £280 to spend on a graphics card and would obviously like as much bang for my buck as possible but the clock speeds vary a fair bit so i feel like i'm gambling on which one to buy.

I have looked at the GTX 680 2GB found here http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-213-MS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=2255

I have also looked at the following 770 cards found here http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-189-OK&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1750

here http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-202-MS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1750

and here http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-219-EA&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1750

But i am unable to make the choice with at least some informed opinion as to what i'm buying or even if i should.

I have an 850w power supply with 1 6pin and 1 6+2, i was told that a 6+2 is the same as an 8pin, is that correct? sounds a silly question as i CAN do basic maths but didn't know if the 8pin was a totally different cable. So i chose cards that in theory would have accepted my 6 and 6+2 pins to power it.

Any advice from the knowledgeable would be appreciated, or if you have your own recommenadtions for my budget that would ok too

thanx
 
Telling u this right now u buy a 770 , u are making a big mistake for the future if are gaming, eaither save up and get a 780 or go down and get a 760 if u really want nivdia, or get a 7970 which is your best option!
 
Why is it a mistake? I've heard lots of good reviiews on the 770, most say it's better for BF4 than the 7970. My power supply is modular and only came with the 6 and 6+2 only.
 
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I assume he's saying it'd be a mistake due to only having 2gb of ram and a limited memory bus if you got a 4gb variant.

It is hard to disagree with him though. Up to the 780, AMD have price - performance sewn up IMO (and I'm a Nvidia owner). The 7970 is ridiculous value for money.
 
Providing your not going to be running at super high resolutions then 2GB would cope with new titles such as BF4. Obviously the more GPU memory you have on your card you more your future proofing yourself.

Yes you could get a 4GB 770 but then if you saved up a bit more you'd be able to get a 780 instead.

The 7970 is a brilliant card and with some overclocking could match the 770 (it already beats the 770 on memory bandwidth out of the box) however as you've already said you only want Nvidia.

The 770 beats the 680 - http://www.hwcompare.com/14636/geforce-gtx-680-vs-geforce-gtx-770/
 
I heve the 770's I they are very good, I came from a Xfire 6970 setup to a single 770 and was blown away how smooth game play was and powerful too.
My main games are BF3 and now BF4 :) so many good deals out there it's hard but also great for you ;) I have the Gigabyte windforce 3 fantastic card highly recommend though I wish I bought at the new price :(
 
Its an Antec i don't know the exact model as i peeled the stickers off quite a while ago for aesthetic reasons. I don't have anything against AMD but i have had good experiences with Geforce and would like to continue using them. I am aiming to play games at 1080p only.
 
If you must go Nvidia, save up and go GTX780.

As said above...games are already close to, if not already exceeding 2GB usage, and the narrow bus size hurt performance very noticably in memory intensive games such as Metro or other games using SuperSampling.
 
I don't think i could stretch the extra for a 780 and it would probably mean buying a new PSU as well, taking the cost well in excess of £400, for a casual pc gamer that seems a tad excessive to play my 1080p games.

Would a 4GB 770 be a better choice? There are a couple that are within my means, as i have seen tables that show the 2GB 770 beating the 3GB 7970 in a lot of games surely the 4GB version would be a bigger improvement? If so why would i want to buy a 7970 for a similar price, what are the benefits of NOT buying the 770 4GB over the 3GB 7970?

Some other questions...

Why are the 680 and 670 series still £300 in some cases? are these cards not overpriced and out of date?

The free games from Nvidia, how would i receive these? are they given through something like my steam account? as i'd like to give them away should i buy a GTX card.

Sorry for the questions but i just want to be sure i am not throwing the thick end of £300 away, last time i upgraded after just 2 weeks i felt like i could have done better and don't want that same "****! i just wasted a stack of cash" feeling again. I want to remain a loyal GTX user but i also don't want to be sorry for doing so..
 
funt said:
I don't think i could stretch the extra for a 780 and it would probably mean buying a new PSU as well, taking the cost well in excess of £400, for a casual pc gamer that seems a tad excessive to play my 1080p games.

Would a 4GB 770 be a better choice? There are a couple that are within my means, as i have seen tables that show the 2GB 770 beating the 3GB 7970 in a lot of games surely the 4GB version would be a bigger improvement? If so why would i want to buy a 7970 for a similar price, what are the benefits of NOT buying the 770 4GB over the 3GB 7970?
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Because the 7970 is actually faster?

Most reviews you've seen is most likely comparing the 770 to 7970 launch day drivers performance, but AMD's drivers has now came a long way and vastly improved the performance on the 7000 series comparing to launch.
Also, the 770 seem to pull ahead only because it has a boost clock for bumping the GPU speed while only load; if you overclock the 7970, the 770 cannot match its performance, even when it is overclocked.
 
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I'm not a hardcore PC head so overclocking doesn't really matter to me as much. I was just in a thread about the 280x and 290 non x series ... are these cards more suitable to my needs? That Toxic 280x looks very well priced, how would that perform against the cards i linked earlier and the HD7970 recommended to me?
 
It Furmarks at around 470W total system draw (based on Anandtech's benchmarking testbed). That PSU should be more than enough.
 
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