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Purchase Decisions, what do you look for?

smogsy

smogsy

smogsy

Soldato
Joined
9 Dec 2006
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When your going to buy a new Card(s)

what stuff do you look for & what order?
Lets see what we really care about.

Mine
1. Performance

2. Price

3. Power efficiently/cooler design [cool/Quietness]

4. Good OS support Win/unix

5. The Tech Bundle [Shadowplay,Mantle etc]

6. Over-clock ability

7. Brand/Warranty

8. Free games etc

9. Look of the cooler
Click to expand...
 
1. Price/Performance
2. Good driver support
3. Nice o/c

Which is why I went with a 295x2 initially, great value. Poor crossfire support is why I left it behind :(
 
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1. Price/performance ratio around my max budget
2. power consumption / noise / temps
3. brand / additional features
 
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That's about it for me :)
 
I usually always go for value. Ignoring my Titan Blacks most of my GPU purchases over the past few years have been the epic deals OCUK get.

For example I bought the GTX 470 for £179 when it was worth over £250 and the 6970 Lightning rebox for £230 when the actual Lightning card was over £350.

The most recent purchase I made was a Titan Black for my pocket sized rig and I paid £390 for that which was epic bargainage considering it still has 2 years warranty left on it and is right up there with the 980 which costs more and has less VRAM.
 
I buy cards every two years.

I look for at least a 33% FPS increase. I wait for a good deal like the 780ti one. Buying a cutting edge card only when i do a full new build once every few years

I stick with Nvidia because of better driver support, and will happily pay more for it.

Selling the old card before it becomes worthless helps pay a good chunk of the new card
 
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1- Price for performance. This is easily the most important by far for me. Don't care if it is AMD or Nvidia.

2- Drivers. So far I have stuck to single cards and not had problems on either camp.

3- Overclocking. If it gives a nice free performance boost. That is always nice.

4- Noise. Don't want a jet engine as a cooler like my 7800 GT back in the day. Only card I ever had to annoy me.

5- Warranty. Always nice to know a quick replacement will be sorted out in the event things go wrong.

6- Games bundle. Free games is always nice. Can sell them on if they are not games you want, making price for performance even better.

7- Temps. I don't care much for temps when it comes to GPU as long as it does not cause throttling.

8- Power consumption. Thus far I have not needed to care about this. As long as the single card works fine with my 750W PSU it makes hardly any difference to my electric consumption. Not like I game 24/7. I think people over think this.
 
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1. Performance
Yes, within price-performance reason. E.g. not a Titan.

2. Price
Yes, but all cards are over-priced. I do shop around though.

3. Power efficiently/cooler design [cool/Quietness]
Quietness is very important to me (maybe #1 requirement).
Coolness is important too, but as long as it doesn't overheat that's fine.

4. Good OS support Win/unix
I'd only use Windows and the support is generally good.
But I do believe Green drivers are more stable than Red.

5. The Tech Bundle [Shadowplay,Mantle etc]
This doesn't really interest me (beyond DX support).

6. Over-clock ability
I don't overclock my GPU - I prefer it to be quiet.

7. Brand/Warranty
Typically the RMA time is sufficient.
I don't really make a decision based on 2/3 years warranty.. some warranty is fine.

8. Free games etc
Usually not the games I want, so not a factor.
If I see games bundled I assume the card should be cheaper.

9. Look of the cooler
I don't have a window in my case, so not important.
 
1. Price - it'll take something special to get me to pay more than £180

2. Performance - I want a decent jump from what I currently have, still waiting...

3. Memory - Every card I've ever bought has had more memory than the one it replaced, GTA5 has reminded me why I need to do that again

4. Feature support - Mainly when a new DX version comes along

5. Power use - I have a better PSU now and most cards in my price range will never go beyond a 6-pin + 8-pin level of use
 
Performance,
Price,
Looks.

Buying again, now i know how to overclock, Overclock ability would be up there.

If it doesn't look good i don't really want it, unless it's a really good deal.
 
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