Best graphics card without bottlenecking

[Regality]

Hello!

Since all the price drops for graphics cards, I've been interested in buying a new GPU. I don't have a preference between AMD and NVidia but I would possibly like to experience AMD's 'mantle' as I will be playing games like BF4 and next gen games may possible utilise it. I will be gaming on a single 1080p screen and don't plan to change that.

My current setup just now is as follows:-

AMD FX6300 @4Ghz
Hyper 212
Asus GTX 560 Ti CUII
Corsair GS600 600w
Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0
Corsair Vengeance 8GB @1600Mhz

Any information would be appreciated. I'm looking around the £200-240 budget.

I have also been looking at a 7970Ghz edition from Gigabyte for around £200. Are there any better alternatives?

Thanks!

 

[Regality]

Anyone?

 

[Ragnahex]

bang for your buck the 7970 is a great card! (or 280x they are basically the same) have a look through the 280x selection and see if anything floats your boat. Not sure about bottlenecking... i have little idea about amd cpus sorry

 

[Avenged7Fold]

With your budget, id say a 7970 is a no brainer!

 

[teppic]

Yup, 7970 or 280X.

And get the CPU overclocked a bit more, it'll easily get to 4.5GHz or more on that board. It's fine, but you can get a lot more out of it.

 

[Regality]

Yup, 7970 or 280X.

And get the CPU overclocked a bit more, it'll easily get to 4.5GHz or more on that board. It's fine, but you can get a lot more out of it.

I'm a bit weary with increasing the voltage as I've never done it before. Any tips?

 

[teppic]

I'm a bit weary with increasing the voltage as I've never done it before. Any tips?

It's safe to increase, just keep an eye on the temps. Your cooler shouldn't have a problem with 4.5GHz though - it can even push an 8320 to 4.5GHz.

 

[Regality]

It's safe to increase, just keep an eye on the temps. Your cooler shouldn't have a problem with 4.5GHz though - it can even push an 8320 to 4.5GHz.

Do you recommend setting it straight to 4.5Ghz with stock voltage and then testing it or setting it a certain voltage?

 

[teppic]

No, increase the speed a little bit a time, testing for stability, until it stops being stable. Then increase the voltage to try to get it stable again, etc. You won't get much higher than 4GHz on stock voltage, maybe 4.2.

 

[Panos]

I'm a bit weary with increasing the voltage as I've never done it before. Any tips?

Yes easy.

Use AMD CPU Overdrive. It will find on it's own if and for how much it can safely overclock the CPU with stock voltage. Ask you to restart when finished and you can activate it afterwards. (Assuming you use 13.11 Beta 8 or newer)

Have a look at this discussion over the last 4 pages. I have some analysis and findings after my post at 61.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18544198&page=61

Someone using that method (with some voltage fiddling) has pulled 5200 on a 8320!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know my mate in Greece who is novice on overclocking, got his FX6100 @ 4.2 yesterday without volt mod by just following the simple process.

After that you can try the Overdrive Beta toolkit if you feel bit more comfortable (there is a whole pdf manual for that). No need for BIOS settings in the dark and pray that the system boots. The AMD benchmarking is pretty good also and let it run it's course. No need for Prime 95.