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Reccomend me a balanced GFX card.

Hellcat

Hellcat

Hellcat

Associate
Joined
10 Jan 2009
Posts
143
Location
UK
So, as the title suggests I'm after a graphics card what won't either cause a performance bottleneck, or be massively over-spec for the rest of my PC.

The last high-end card I bought was a 4870x2 which was a while ago, and I've not kept up with the developments of todays cards. I'd appreciate a suggestion of something fairly quiet, although if it was quiet while doing video/desktop work I could put up with it getting louder while playing games since I'd have a headset on.

Spec of the rest of the PC is in the sig. Thanks guys!
 
GTX970 such as the G1 Windforce that is on offer and includes two free games looks like a nice deal to me and is quiet.

Its a bit over 300mm long so you may have to slide the HDD cage out.
 
I appreciate the quick (edit: and very helpful) replies, but here are the obligotory n00b questions.

Are the AMDs fairly linear in model and performance? i.e. 290 > 285 > 280 etc?

Is the R9 > R7 because of it being newer and smaller chip process?

The CPU is limited to 3.3Ghz in turbo and since games are typically single thread that's about the limit for what I would need to match against. £230 isn't a crazy amount to spend on a decent card, but if I could save without seeing a big drop in performance then I could be spending on elsewhere - SSD perhaps at last?
 
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Considering what you have at the moment (6850) anything like a GTX960/770/R9285 is going to blow it away.
 
VincentHanna said:
Game really are moving away from being heavily reliant on single threaded performance.

You can thank the Xbox One/PS4 for that.
Click to expand...

That would be a good thing, I have some spare!

stulid said:
Considering what you have at the moment (6850) anything like a GTX960/770/R9285 is going to blow it away
Click to expand...

Tell me about it. I nearly cried when I had to turn down all the GXF settings when my x2 died and I had to long-term borrow a friend's discarded 6850. Birthday just gone and the wife is asking what I would like... :D
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I wasn't fussed on getting a new game, so stuck with AMD for now. The Vapor-X 290 seemed the best balance between speed and noise - I've tried to keep the volume down so a quiet GFX card would be nice.

Now the awful wait for delivery!
 
ginjaninja said:
there seems to be a preoccupation these days with cpus bottlenecking gpus.....the best value gpu i would say is considered irrespective of cpu...
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I don't think it's stupid to take into account the rest of your system when buying a GFX card. No point putting a R9 295 X2 into a system with 2GB ram and an Atom processor. You probably won't get much more FPS than if you used a R7 series card.
 
Hellcat said:
I don't think it's stupid to take into account the rest of your system when buying a GFX card. No point putting a R9 295 X2 into a system with 2GB ram and an Atom processor. You probably won't get much more FPS than if you used a R7 series card.
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yes, but its a bit disingenuous use an example of a gaming gpu coupled with a non gaming cpu...

I would have thought that the best value GPU is still the best value GPU (for a gaming system) even IF an upgraded CPU yeilded more FPS in future...nothing from the GPU's value is taken away...assuming there hasnt been a radiclal shift in form factor/bus connection.

With the advent of more multithreading of more of the pipeline, this will only be more the case with advent of DX12 one presumes.
 
ginjaninja said:
yes, but its a bit disingenuous use an example of a gaming gpu coupled with a non gaming cpu...

I would have thought that the best value GPU is still the best value GPU (for a gaming system) even IF an upgraded CPU yeilded more FPS in future...nothing from the GPU's value is taken away...assuming there hasnt been a radiclal shift in form factor/bus connection.

With the advent of more multithreading of more of the pipeline, this will only be more the case with advent of DX12 one presumes.
Click to expand...

I obviously used extreme examples to show a point. If due to some bottleneck, be it disk, memory or CPU or a combination of them all, I wouldn't get more FPS out of a 290 than a 280 then not much point buying the pricier 290. If there wasn't any bottleneck however, and I could get another 10/20 FPS going for the pricier card then I might think it's worth the extra ££. I agree with you that a card doesn't lose any actual value, but if there is a bottleneck then you're not getting the true worth from the card. YMMV.

Anyway, 290 OC Vapor-X arrived, and installed. Harribo demolished. Had to go for PXI-E #2 (or is it #3?) due to the card taking up some space above its slot and interfering with the bottom of the H80i radiator. I had to also remove a HDD cage from the case as it's a very long card. With a bit of dremel help perhaps I'll be able to fit it back in to help with controlling the airflow.

First impressions. Very big, very quiet, very fast. I've gone up from Medium to Max graphics settings in WarThunder and FPS have jumped from 40-60FPS to 160-190FPS.

Need to decide between a new SSD, or a bigger & higher-res monitor.
 
i dont think your cpu Xeon (E5-2670) would bottleneck any graphics card.
You can compare benchmarks of 290s with faster cpus/cores and yours to confirm for this one. as long as game engine is not cpu limited
 
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