750Ti or something else?

mark2410 · 27 Sep 2014 at 20:00

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
What are the specifications of your system??

My Xeon E3 1220(basically a SB Core i5) and a GTX660 running off an XFX PRO 450W was lucky to see 200W at the wall when running 3DMark or during an intensive game.

You should be fine with an R7 265,R9 270 or GTX660.

fx6300 slightly overclocked, a 20mhz bump to the fsb so it turbos to 4.5ghz.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 27 Sep 2014 at 20:08

mark2410 said:
fx6300 slightly overclocked, a 20mhz bump to the fsb so it turbos to 4.5ghz.

Looking at the TR results it appears Civ5 scales upto 4 threads,and is also limited by single thread performance too:

http://techreport.com/r.x/amd-fx-8350/civv-lgv.gif

If the next Civ is using a similar engine,I would suspect Mantle will help in your case,especially after seeing the boosts with Thief with FX CPUs(got them closer to the Intel ones). I would OFC wait a few more weeks for the game to be released - websites like GameGPU and so on will do hardware tests on the game,so you have a better idea.

Boomstick777 · 27 Sep 2014 at 20:19

Can't go wrong with the 750Ti, low power and good performance. Some good prices on them if you look around.

ukxenon · 28 Sep 2014 at 03:31

970 or 980 don't see point in 750ti

RanxZy · 28 Sep 2014 at 10:16

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Its going to be around £150 to £250 as opposed to the £100 to £110 for the GTX750TI and R7 265.

However,first we need to know what CPU the OP has too,and even then I would probably wait until the game is released.

I'm just asking if the GTX 960 at a stretch is an option because the op might find you get more performance for money in a way because you could buy a 265 and you may be able to do 1080p now with reasonable settings, but for how long?

When the GTX 960 comes I don't think it'll be anywhere near £250 as that's 970 territory.

SilverTongue · 28 Sep 2014 at 10:29

ukxenon said:
970 or 980 don't see point in 750ti

for somebody who doesn't have upwards of £200 to shell out on a GPU.

For it's price point the 750Ti is a great little card, certainly don't regret getting mine

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 28 Sep 2014 at 12:56

RanxZy said:
I'm just asking if the GTX 960 at a stretch is an option because the op might find you get more performance for money in a way because you could buy a 265 and you may be able to do 1080p now with reasonable settings, but for how long?

When the GTX 960 comes I don't think it'll be anywhere near £250 as that's 970 territory.

I get what you are saying,and I think the GTX960 will probably be around £180 to £200 at launch. However,going by Civ5 it is quite CPU intensive,and Mantle has potential to help in this case as the OP appears to primarily upgrading because of the next installment in the series(in Thief it does help AMD CPUs quite a bit) - but this is why I think the OP should wait and see if it helps with his CPU.

Plus if the GTX960 does launch in the next month or so,it will push the AMD cards down in price and if Mantle does make a difference with his CPU he can get a faster card I suspect for the same budget he is looking at in this thread,which appears to be £90 to £130,and the Nvidia options will still be on the table anyway.

bru · 28 Sep 2014 at 13:12

The 960 will be £150-200 I reckon.

If the opening poster can wait, then I would wait. Even if the 960 is too expensive it will undoubtedly shake up the pricing in that area of the market.

mark2410 · 29 Sep 2014 at 15:16

well have went ahead an ordered a 750ti.

it was the appeal of that nice low power draw that swayed me over a radeon. fingers crossed mantle wouldnt have made a big diff anyway.

humbug · 29 Sep 2014 at 15:59

mark2410 said:
well have went ahead an ordered a 750ti.

it was the appeal of that nice low power draw that swayed me over a radeon. fingers crossed mantle wouldnt have made a big diff anyway.

In something like CiV5 BE it will. without it Your FPS on that CPU will be up and down in huge chunks from mid to low causing a jerky gaming experience.

What you did here is gone for an inefficient slower CPU, and then a slower GPU thats also of no help to the slow CPU, rejecting the faster GPU that also is.... to save a few Watts

Marine-RX179 · 29 Sep 2014 at 16:04

IMO 750TI is too weak to play modern games at decent settings for today's standard. Best hope is pray Nvidia will release a 960 or may be 950Ti, and price as well as the 970 in terms of bang for bucks.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 29 Sep 2014 at 16:46

mark2410 said:
well have went ahead an ordered a 750ti.

it was the appeal of that nice low power draw that swayed me over a radeon. fingers crossed mantle wouldnt have made a big diff anyway.

The power draw is nothing though - I did some more measurements with my newish Xeon E3 1230 V2(I had a Xeon E3 1220) and a GTX660 and I still barely see 200W at the wall and the R7 265 is still faster than a GTX750TI and consumes about 30W to 40W more. TPU puts the R7 265 as 16% faster over a bog standard GTX750TI.

The GTX660 power draw is comparable to a R9 270 IIRC.

To put in context at 20 hours a week gaming for 52 weeks constantly,you are seeing an additional £5.61 spent in power consumption at 18P a kWH(for 30W more power consumed).

Plus,you have just ignored entirely what I have posted right??

Civ5 only really used 4 threads and was still bottlenecked by single thread performance.

The Firaxis LORE engine looks like it will be used in Beyond Earth too,so it will probably show similar scaling too.

Look again:

http://techreport.com/r.x/amd-fx-8350/civv-lgv.gif

That is Civ5 late in game. An FX8350 can barely match an IB Core i3 3220.

You want to see another engine which scales like that??

UE3 as used in Thief:

http://media.bestofmicro.com/L/L/427161/original/Thief-Mantle-Mid.png

UE3 scales upto 4 threads and again many of the UE3 based games tend to be limited by single threaded performance.

This is why Mantle makes such a difference for AMD CPUs in the game(and less I would say for BF4 which is reasonably well threaded).

I honestly don't understand why you could not even wait 4 weeks to see how the game does scales,especially since it is an AMD Evolved title.

Almost all the Civ5 reviews are done using Intel CPUs since they are faster for the game.

If I were you I would DSR the card.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 29 Sep 2014 at 17:03

I have had a look through some other reviews. The relevant benchmark is the Late game view one,not the no-render one which is synthetic.

From ABT:

http://i.imgur.com/scuIFnj.png

ABT are hardly an AMD biased site at the best of times BTW.

humbug · 29 Sep 2014 at 17:20

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
The power draw is nothing though - I did some more measurements with my newish Xeon E3 1230 V2(I had a Xeon E3 1220) and a GTX660 and I still barely see 200W at the wall and the R7 265 is still faster than a GTX750TI and consumes about 30W to 40W more. TPU puts the R7 265 as 16% faster over a bog standard GTX750TI.

The GTX660 power draw is comparable to a R9 270 IIRC.

To put in context at 20 hours a week gaming for 52 weeks constantly,you are seeing an additional £5.61 spent in power consumption at 18P a kWH(for 30W more power consumed).

Plus,you have just ignored entirely what I have posted right??

Civ5 only really used 4 threads and was still bottlenecked by single thread performance.

The Firaxis LORE engine looks like it will be used in Beyond Earth too,so it will probably show similar scaling too.

Look again:

http://techreport.com/r.x/amd-fx-8350/civv-lgv.gif

That is Civ5 late in game. An FX8350 can barely match an IB Core i3 3220.

You want to see another engine which scales like that??

UE3 as used in Thief:

http://media.bestofmicro.com/L/L/427161/original/Thief-Mantle-Mid.png

UE3 scales upto 4 threads and again many of the UE3 based games tend to be limited by single threaded performance.

This is why Mantle makes such a difference for AMD CPUs in the game(and less I would say for BF4 which is reasonably well threaded).

I honestly don't understand why you could not even wait 4 weeks to see how the game does scales,especially since it is an AMD Evolved title.

Almost all the Civ5 reviews are done using Intel CPUs since they are faster for the game.

If I were you I would DSR the card.

Re: Thief..

mark2410 · 29 Sep 2014 at 18:24

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
The power draw is nothing though - I did some more measurements with my newish Xeon E3 1230 V2(I had a Xeon E3 1220) and a GTX660 and I still barely see 200W at the wall and the R7 265 is still faster than a GTX750TI and consumes about 30W to 40W more. TPU puts the R7 265 as 16% faster over a bog standard GTX750TI.

The GTX660 power draw is comparable to a R9 270 IIRC.

To put in context at 20 hours a week gaming for 52 weeks constantly,you are seeing an additional £5.61 spent in power consumption at 18P a kWH(for 30W more power consumed).

Plus,you have just ignored entirely what I have posted right??

Civ5 only really used 4 threads and was still bottlenecked by single thread performance.

The Firaxis LORE engine looks like it will be used in Beyond Earth too,so it will probably show similar scaling too.

Look again:

http://techreport.com/r.x/amd-fx-8350/civv-lgv.gif

That is Civ5 late in game. An FX8350 can barely match an IB Core i3 3220.

You want to see another engine which scales like that??

UE3 as used in Thief:

http://media.bestofmicro.com/L/L/427161/original/Thief-Mantle-Mid.png

UE3 scales upto 4 threads and again many of the UE3 based games tend to be limited by single threaded performance.

This is why Mantle makes such a difference for AMD CPUs in the game(and less I would say for BF4 which is reasonably well threaded).

I honestly don't understand why you could not even wait 4 weeks to see how the game does scales,especially since it is an AMD Evolved title.

Almost all the Civ5 reviews are done using Intel CPUs since they are faster for the game.

If I were you I would DSR the card.

oh hell.

well now ive done the arsey thing of ordering a 270x too and will send the undesired one back. though not completely sure which one that will be. sometimes too many options isnt a great thing.

The Running Man · 29 Sep 2014 at 18:48

Get a 760 or 660 2nd hand from members market.

mark2410 · 29 Sep 2014 at 18:52

The Running Man said:
Get a 760 or 660 2nd hand from members market.

well theyre ordered now. plus i dont have access to the members market. while ive been registered here for years im not a big poster so havent hit the required number of posts.

The Running Man · 29 Sep 2014 at 19:19

Yeah sorry i missed that post on the last page. It's an alright card

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 30 Sep 2014 at 08:35

The thing DSR only works for like a few weeks as long as the card is not used and if it is it can mean you will get a restocking fee. Hence why I said it would have been better to wait and see what the DX11/Mantle benchmarks tell you.

danclivo · 30 Sep 2014 at 08:52

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
The thing DSR only works for like a few weeks as long as the card is not used and if it is it can mean you will get a restocking fee. Hence why I said it would have been better to wait and see what the DX11/Mantle benchmarks tell you.

^ This. Just make sure you don't open the box if you intend to send it back. That way you should get a full refund