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£320 GPU

Katsumoto

Katsumoto

Katsumoto

Associate
Joined
28 May 2012
Posts
400
Location
England
What to get? I'm on the brink of buying my PC at long bloody last but this monitor and gpu stuff i'm struggling on deciding now.

For that money on a GPU I can get:

Crossfire 7850's
One 7970
One 670

Those seem to be the best options but... just wtf on which is the best? All of them fall on the £320 region of pricing.

The other thing to consider is I want a 120hz/3d monitor and i'm torn between Samsung and BenQ. For BenQ I pretty much have to take a 670 for the 3d. As well as that AMD cards come with 3 free games making the whole thing harder to decide upon.
 
Most powerful would be overclocked 7850s, though that limits future upgrades, since you can add another7970 or 50 and trounce xfire 7850s. Though tri-fire 7850s is always a possibility.

Really hard choice though, 7950s are at a great price and so are 7850s for crossfire.

Wouldn't go for a 670 since the deals on AMD cards are cracking at the mo.

At a push I'd say get a 7950, extra GB of vram and better future upgrade possibility.
 
If your sticking with your setup for quite a while i'd go cf 7850's, higher frame rates from the off. Although the other 2 would give you better upgrade options.
 
Why not jump on the HIS 7950 for £240 and clock it to a 7970 speed. £80 in your pocket for beers at the weekend :)
 
Even though the 7950 can clock to 7970 speeds does that mean it's the same performance? I thought the 7970 had more shader cores so it'd still be more powerful?

I got my 7970 when it was almost at the same price as the 7950 but I'd get the 7950 currently in a heartbeat now. Will be getting on in the future for xf that's fer sure.
 
Because of fewer shaders the 7970 still performs better, but honestly at the price it's at it's not worth that extra money. And since they can clock pretty high you can overclock them nicely past stock 680 levels in terms of performance.

However, if there's anything poor about the 7000 series, it would be the drivers. I'm still waiting on a good set of drivers from AMD...
 
Katsumoto said:
For that money on a GPU I can get:

Crossfire 7850's
One 7970
One 670

Those seem to be the best options but... just wtf on which is the best? All of them fall on the £320 region of pricing.

.
Click to expand...


erm the 7850 is waaayyyy lower than £320 :cool: in fact for not much more you can get 2 atm , but then youd be better of gettign a single mosnster than crossfire
 
TALON1973 said:
erm the 7850 is waaayyyy lower than £320 :cool: in fact for not much more you can get 2 atm , but then youd be better of gettign a single mosnster than crossfire
Click to expand...

If you read you'll notice a key word. The key word is 'crossfire'.

Anyway based on what i'm hearing:

670/7970 = depends on what you play
7850CF = better outright performance, worse upgradability in the future (unless I get a 2011 board to support tri/quad gpu setups)

So what it's coming down to is monitor choice and longevity of the cards. As I understand it, the 7970 has the most shaders and highest memory bandwidth, whilst also boasting the highest VRAM (yes rusty I know, ignore the VRAM). Does this mean it'll be the longest lasting of the 3 setups, disregarding current game requirements? If so i'll lean towards the 7970... but then I like the BenQ monitors more than Samsung... GRrrr

And then there's the 7950 too. Pesky thing making my decisions harder. Although I still lean more towards the top end because I can.
 
If you say that for arguments sake (stick with me) the 670 and 7970 have the same performance in games. Across the board identical.

Even in a crossfire/SLI set up (2 GPU's - not 3 as the argument is different) you're still going to need a new GPU before you worry about anything else (including VRAM).

So in regards to longevity both cards would fall over at exactly the same time and need upgrading. The cheapest way to stay on the high end GPU curve is not to drag every ounce out of it until it's simply not good enough anymore... it's selling it on while it's worth relatively much and then buying the next generations high end GPU.

Cheaper to do this in the long run rather than selling it when it's worth £30 in 3 years and then upgrading again.
 
HankScorpio said:
Never had any problems with AMD drivers myself.
Click to expand...
For single GPU card I would have to agree, but for crossfire it would always be a gamble. For those who have it is either please with the performance, or repeatedly banging their head against the wall due to their endless battle against crossfire not delivering as it should.
 
Rusty0611 said:
If you say that for arguments sake (stick with me) the 670 and 7970 have the same performance in games. Across the board identical.

Even in a crossfire/SLI set up (2 GPU's - not 3 as the argument is different) you're still going to need a new GPU before you worry about anything else (including VRAM).

So in regards to longevity both cards would fall over at exactly the same time and need upgrading. The cheapest way to stay on the high end GPU curve is not to drag every ounce out of it until it's simply not good enough anymore... it's selling it on while it's worth relatively much and then buying the next generations high end GPU.

Cheaper to do this in the long run rather than selling it when it's worth £30 in 3 years and then upgrading again.
Click to expand...

Good point. So based off that i'd be better off with a 670 would you say? Reason being purely my monitor preference.
 
It does come into it. Remember you've got to factor in the cost of the 3D Vision kit as well (no small cost!)

I've got 3 of the BenQ's. They are very nice monitors.
 
If you planning on using only one BenQ XL2420T then just get a 670 as it will handle everything very high fps even BF3 without AA will hit about 90-95fps average on Ultra.Can always add a 2nd when they are cheaper or when you wish to....i personally do not see the need for a 2nd 680 at the moment.(it will be a great combo by the way if you decide to go with it :p)
 
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