Am i going to regret it?

Urbanfreestyle · 15 Aug 2015 at 17:32

Hi all,
Just wanted to sanity check my next purchase.
I'll keep it short and sweet as i think it's a simple question.....
Current build:
EVGA SuperNOVA 650w G1, NZXT S340, MSI Gaming 3 mobo, 2x4gb Vengeance ram, G3258 clocked to 4.3ghz, H110 cooler, 2x3tb HDD 1x 120gb SSD.

I use my PC for a LOT of lightroom, a bit of Photoshop (both latest versions of CC) and light intermittant gaming (Dirt3, Grid and Grid2.) Folding@home running when i'm not on the computer.

Originally bought a 7770
Pros:
Small card
Only needs 1x 6 pin
Clocks reasonably well

Cons
NOISY
Looks kinda puny
runs very hot

Then bought a 6970
Pros
Looks epic beefy
faster on paper

Cons
Couldn't overclock it
took up 3 slots on rear of case
REALLY Low ppd on F@H

Now i want to get a 750Ti ACX
Pros
Higher ppd on F@H
Looks great
Only needs 1x 6pin
Low power

Cons
Not sure it will run in lightroom as described here:
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/lightroom-gpu-faq.html

Funds for the new card will come from the sale of the other two cards so looking around £100-150.

Thanks in advance :-)

Lokken86 · 15 Aug 2015 at 17:54

£150 will get a second hand 290 or gtx780.

RanxZy · 15 Aug 2015 at 17:54

The 950 should be released within a week according to reports. It is the second generation of Maxwell like the 960 so has updated features. It's faster than the 750Ti and it should come in around £100-130 under the 960.

Lokken86 said:
£150 will get a second hand 290 or gtx780.

Good point, though it seems the op values low power requirements and single PCI 6pin only cards. Maxwell excels in these situations.

Urbanfreestyle · 15 Aug 2015 at 18:02

i don't mind sacraficing a bit of power in exchange for performance but i heard that the 750Ti is the best performance per watt? I may be wrong but all these cards have me so confused. I've also seen the 960 for about £160 but where do you draw the line? lol

UTmaniac · 15 Aug 2015 at 18:15

At least with that EVGA 750 Ti ACX, you can do the "step up program," IIRC.

But for that sort of money (~£120), if I understand the re-badging correctly, the new MSI R7 370 is basically an upgraded /re-badged R7 265 (which had the beating of the 750Ti in most games).

Urbanfreestyle · 15 Aug 2015 at 18:36

What is the step up program? Anything to do with the dance film? Haha!
I'll have a look at the r7 370. Thanks

RanxZy · 15 Aug 2015 at 18:36

Urbanfreestyle said:
Cons
Not sure it will run in lightroom as described here:
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/lightroom-gpu-faq.html

From the link you provided all Maxwell cards will support that software, including the 750Ti. Again, would advise waiting a wee bit for the 950 if you still want to buy new under £140.

UTmaniac · 15 Aug 2015 at 18:52

Urbanfreestyle said:
What is the step up program? Anything to do with the dance film? Haha!
I'll have a look at the r7 370. Thanks

EVGA's "step up program" basically lets buyers upgrade to other EVGA graphics cards within so many days of purchase. You simply pay the price difference between what you paid and what the new card is on the EVGA store.

Or something along those lines, if it still operates.

Urbanfreestyle · 15 Aug 2015 at 18:57

I presume the card numberings follow some kind of logic?
The 760 is better than 750, 770 is better than 760, 960 is better / newer than both?

nashathedog · 15 Aug 2015 at 19:30

Urbanfreestyle said:
What is the step up program?

I wouldn't bother it only has a 90 day window so your hardly gonna want to change that quickly and if you do then you may as well just buy the 950, You've got a card to cover you until it appears and it's definitely the smarter buy rather than a 750ti which is about to be replaced by the 950.

bru · 15 Aug 2015 at 19:59

Urbanfreestyle said:
I presume the card numberings follow some kind of logic?
The 760 is better than 750, 770 is better than 760, 960 is better / newer than both?

Basically in terms of performance you get the ?50, the ?60, the ?70, ?80, titan.
A Ti variant like the 980Ti is better than the 980 like the 750Ti is better than the 750. The preceding number, the 7 in 750ti for example denotes the generation the card comes from, the 750 comes from the 700 series, whereas the 900's are all a year or so newer. The 750 is due to be replace by the 950 sometimes this month, maybe even on Monday is the latest rumour.

Boomstick777 · 15 Aug 2015 at 20:01

You can get a 960 for sub £150 and with a game code that's worth about £20. So the 960 makes more sense than other Nvidia cards at that price level.

oldestgregg · 15 Aug 2015 at 20:55

Wait on the 950.

Scougar · 15 Aug 2015 at 21:25

deleted.

Gerard · 15 Aug 2015 at 21:33

How did a 6970 manage to take up 3 slots as its only as dual slot card?

nashathedog · 16 Aug 2015 at 00:11

Gerard said:
How did a 6970 manage to take up 3 slots as its only as dual slot card?

I bet it was one of the Asus DCU cards.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 16 Aug 2015 at 00:44

Most of the Adobe GPU effects in CS have moved over to OpenCL which runs better on AMD cards currently. In fact the reason why this occurred is since Apple pushed for this first for the OS X version,and then AMD appears to have collaborated with Adobe to push it to the Windows version.

AFAIK,LR is using OpenGL but AFAIK you don't a mega-powerful card for it.

In that price range I would consider the R9 380 as it has enhanced OpenCL performance it appears over previous generations of AMD cards and gets close to a R9 290. The Tonga GPU in the R9 380 was first introduced in the current iMac.

Edit!!

This Russian website tested Sony Vegas 13 and other image and video editing software:

https://translate.google.co.uk/tran...http://www.efxi.ru/more/gtx970_vs_gtx770.html

https://translate.google.co.uk/tran...ru/more/gtx970_vs_gtx770_part2.html&sandbox=1

See the OpenCL benchmarks of the R9 285.

Look at the supported list for graphics cards for PP:

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/system-requirements.html

See how there are now more certified AMD cards - it was not the case a few years ago!

Regarding the games,AFAIK the DiRT series tends to favour AMD more and AFAIK,only Intel and AMD support CMAA in Grid2.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 16 Aug 2015 at 01:06

Also,a side note too. I would make sure you see if 8GB is enough for the processing you do,and I would also make sure you have optimised your disk setup too.

Plus,you might find that a better CPU might be more useful long-term:

https://translate.google.com/transl...r-Photoshop-und-Lightroom-1109093/&edit-text=

Overall, we have converted 30 raw image files from a Nikon D800 with a total size of 1.23 GiByte.

The video is in German but indicates they generated 30 jpegs at the same resolution as the RAW files. They used sRGB and 87% quality for the jpegs.

The chart says 4GB of RAM per channel was used.

Urbanfreestyle · 16 Aug 2015 at 12:24

Yeah, the system runs fine for my editing needs as is so was thinking GPU acelleration would help. I'll keep an eye out for the 950 as I believe it is imminent. I'll look into the r9 380 as it also depends on its folding performance. I believe the 750Ti can get around 40k PPD compared with my 6970 and 7770 which do about 15k each and use a hell of a lot more power, how power efficient are the r9 380 cards?