7870 dead. Best band per buck for £200

Marine-RX179 · 11 Jul 2015 at 10:30

genicide said:
Sorry Marine, did you mean you wouldn't recommend the zotac?

Depending on your how much you are willing to spend really. If it was me, I'd rather spend a bit more and get something like with Gigabyte for example if I was dead set on getting 970.

But at that price, I'd actually look at the AMD R9 390 8GB as well, as I wouldn't have to worry about running out of memory and get stuttering.

genicide · 11 Jul 2015 at 10:30

Ah oh, thanks for that.

Were you trying to say earlier that you wouldn't recommend the zotac card?

genicide · 11 Jul 2015 at 10:32

Are MSI good?

I had a MSI 5850 which was rock solid and then my MSI 7870 which has just failed

Marine-RX179 · 11 Jul 2015 at 10:40

genicide said:
Are MSI good?

I had a MSI 5850 which was rock solid and then my MSI 7870 which has just failed

The thing is most of the time that graphic card "fails", it is usually the case of the memory dying instead of the GPU dying, so it could happen to ANY graphic card, regardless of AMD or Nvidia as the memory part are actually picked by manufacturers (that make cards for both).

So really it's all down to pot-luck and it can be pretty random that graphic card would die at hardware level. But good cooling solution on the cards will increase the odds of the graphic card not failling, as it will allow the components to operate at lower temps.

My MSI 5850 Twin FrozR is still running fine in my dad's HTPC at the moment as well.

genicide said:
Ah oh, thanks for that.

Were you trying to say earlier that you wouldn't recommend the zotac card?

I wouldn't say Zotac is bad, but other brands such as MSI, Gigabytes, Asus etc not only make graphic card, but they design and make lots of mainstream and high-end motherboards as well, so they in a sense would have more experience and expertise on the custom design of PCB such as power phase etc for the graphic cards.

genicide · 11 Jul 2015 at 10:44

yeah, it's been a great little card ( if a little noisy )

I need the fps in WoW...the raids kill the fps and Kazzak reduced my 7870 to about 8fps

Marine-RX179 · 11 Jul 2015 at 10:50

genicide said:
yeah, it's been a great little card ( if a little noisy )

I need the fps in WoW...the raids kill the fps and Kazzak reduced my 7870 to about 8fps

For your issue with WOW, it would be more of the case of the CPU not keeping up in raids rather than the graphic card. That is usually the case for most mmos.

Also, are you using a SSD or still using a HDD?

Actually can you post the full spec of your system?

genicide · 11 Jul 2015 at 10:54

P8P 67 m pro motherboard
8 GB ram
i7 2600k
Crucial M4 SSD with WoW on my old Zertex 60GB SSD

genicide · 11 Jul 2015 at 10:55

I have definitely noticed a drop in fps in Tanaan since I had to put the 5850 back in

Poneros · 11 Jul 2015 at 11:16

For WoW, a R9 380 is gonna be more than enough to max it and keep a steady 60fps. Any dips you'll have will be due to the CPU, or rather, due to the fact that MMOs are API limited so no hardware will really prevent the dips.

Marine-RX179 · 11 Jul 2015 at 14:24

Poneros said:
For WoW, a R9 380 is gonna be more than enough to max it and keep a steady 60fps. Any dips you'll have will be due to the CPU, or rather, due to the fact that MMOs are API limited so no hardware will really prevent the dips.

Yea.

Most of us mmo fans have had suffer sucky frame rate due to the lack of low level access API...fast CPU can only do so much in remedying the issue. Hope there future mmo will use dx12 as standard instead of still stucked with dx9/11, it will help A LOT.

genicide · 11 Jul 2015 at 15:38

Ok so I ended up spending a bit more than I planned and got https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-270-EA&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1010

I got about £30 off and The Witcher, Batman and a couple of other games.

Now I just need to hide the credit card statement and it's all good.

Thanks for all your help guys, I really appreciate it.

Regards

Gen

Lustral · 11 Jul 2015 at 15:48

Good choice @ £299

33% more than your intended budget hehe

genicide · 11 Jul 2015 at 19:12

Well, you guys talked me into spending around £240 initially and like I said, I was offered it for £270 with quite a few games.

It had absolutely nothing to do with the blonde girl that served me that also played WoW.

Absolutely nothing..

Honest

Marine-RX179 · 11 Jul 2015 at 19:59

By the way, is your 2600K at stock clock or overclocked?

Overclocked vs stock clock will provide quite huge performance boost in CPU limited games such as mmos (WOW).

genicide · 11 Jul 2015 at 20:22

I did knock the clock off it when I tried to solve the triple post problems that my board has. Overclockers did send me the bios settings through but I never changed them as I bottled it a bit.

genicide · 11 Jul 2015 at 20:24

I can't remember what I did with the profiles they sent me though

Killer7xx · 11 Jul 2015 at 20:29

genicide said:
Well, you guys talked me into spending around £240 initially and like I said, I was offered it for £270 with quite a few games.

It had absolutely nothing to do with the blonde girl that served me that also played WoW.

Absolutely nothing..

Honest

Sounds like you got yourself a date in the process...

Twirlywoos · 11 Jul 2015 at 20:29

See I think that if Blond Bimbos worked at the counter at all computer shops that sales would increase by 14% per quarter.

Nice card, enjoy

genicide · 11 Jul 2015 at 20:43

She has served me in the past...on that occasion I went in Looking for a quiet non mechanical keyboard and I left with a K70..

To be fair, it's been the best keyboard I have owned.

Maybe I should order online..