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Decision Time!

KugarWeb

KugarWeb

KugarWeb

Associate
Joined
10 Jan 2011
Posts
54
Hey everyone,

So you may have noticed that my HD3470 has just died (well, the fan's about to drop off!) and since Christmas is nearing my parents have decided to chip in and help me out with a new graphics card (luckily! :D).

Really, it seems to come down to two choices. I want to have Nvidia because they offer CUDA support which will help me greatly with my work (Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop) as well as giving me the power to play games that have been gathering dust on Steam.

There's the 560 which is ever so slightly out of budget but I could manage it:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-132-MS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1341

And an EVGA 550Ti:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-156-EA&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1576

Which of these would be most suitable for my computer?

Power Supply: Corsair 750W
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L ATX
Processor: Intel Q8300 QuadCore 2.66Ghz
Memory: Corsair DDR2 XMS PC6400 6GB (3x2GB)
HDD: 2x 1TB 7200RPM and 5400RPM

Help please :)

Cheers,

KugarWeb

EDIT: Or, for the same price as the MSI, I could get this ASUS
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-256-AS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1341
 
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It's the worst time to upgrade now. If you can manage to hold with something else then wait.

I agree that you should choose an NVIDIA card as you use those software.
 
Photoshop can benefit from 1GB vram since CS4. (512MB vram would struggle)

CUDA plays an important role in Premiere. With at least 96 CUDA cores and a minimum of 1GB vram, you can get acceleration and even the low end Pentium platform can edit HD. If you use AMD cards it's not gonna be smooth, not even with a top-end Core i7. It's the same with After Effects.
 
Ah cool, thanks for the advice :).

Just one question, why is it not the best time to upgrade at the moment? :). I saw in another thread that new cards are being released but this won't happen until Q2 2012 and I really can't wait that long :(
 
If you can manage to hold for the new GTX560 Ti with more CUDA cores then wait a bit? That would give better gaming performance I believe.
 
harmony said:
If you can manage to hold for the new GTX560 Ti with more CUDA cores then wait a bit? That would give better gaming performance I believe.
Click to expand...

Isn't the 560Ti already out? :). The difference seems to be a bit negliable as well...just 48 cores between the 560 and 560Ti :confused:
 
KugarWeb said:
Isn't the 560Ti already out? :). The difference seems to be a bit negliable as well...just 48 cores between the 560 and 560Ti :confused:
Click to expand...

Okay, after doing a bit of research on the subject, it would appear that a new 560Ti is on the way with 448 cores instead of the current 386. But, this announcement was only made about 2 weeks ago and it will probably be much nearer Christmas until it gets released and at a price :(

Any ideas guys? I'm really not able to push further than £160 (absolute ceiling limit!) :)
 
You can get a 560Ti for around £160. That would be the logical choice. It really is worth the little extra on top of the regular 560. If you were ATI inclined then the 6870 would be a good choice, giving performance fairly close to the 560Ti but at a lower price point.

The new 560Ti is rumoured due out at the end of this month so it's not too far away but there are conflicting reports as to the merits of the card. Some say it will basically be a slightly gimped 570. Others say it will be significantly hotter and power-hungry than the current 560Ti with little room for overclocking. The current 560Ti overclocks very well and can give performance equal to or a little better than the 570, so all things considered that would be a great choice.
 
kissenger said:
You can get a 560Ti for around £160. That would be the logical choice. It really is worth the little extra on top of the regular 560. If you were ATI inclined then the 6870 would be a good choice, giving performance fairly close to the 560Ti but at a lower price point.

The new 560Ti is rumoured due out at the end of this month so it's not too far away but there are conflicting reports as to the merits of the card. Some say it will basically be a slightly gimped 570. Others say it will be significantly hotter and power-hungry than the current 560Ti with little room for overclocking. The current 560Ti overclocks very well and can give performance equal to or a little better than the 570, so all things considered that would be a great choice.
Click to expand...

Awesome! That's exactly the type of answer I needed, thank you also to Tediore :). Off I go shopping for the 560Ti then :D

EDIT: Okay, a little complication here. I can choose between the Gigabyte GV-N560OC or Gigabyte GV-N560UD.

The UD looks to be non-overclocked and the OC is overclocked from 820mhz to 900mhz (apparently!). Gah! Buying Graphics Cards are so complicated :(
 
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KugarWeb said:
Awesome! That's exactly the type of answer I needed, thank you also to Tediore :). Off I go shopping for the 560Ti then :D

EDIT: Okay, a little complication here. I can choose between the Gigabyte GV-N560OC or Gigabyte GV-N560UD.

The UD looks to be non-overclocked and the OC is overclocked from 820mhz to 900mhz (apparently!). Gah! Buying Graphics Cards are so complicated :(
Click to expand...

I'd go for the cheapest option. I tried one of those superclocked 480s they did, and the overclock was nowhere near stable. I'd rather buy the standard one and overclock it myself. They might have actually tested the overclock on the 560Ti's, but who can say? :p
 
Anyone seen this? http://www.evga.com/articles/00656/

It's the 560ti 2WIN edition with;

Core Clock Speed: 850MHz
CUDA Cores: 768
Memory Clock Speed: 4008MHz
Memory Bandwidth: 256.6GB/sec
Shader Clock Speed: 1700MHz
Bus: PCI-E 2.0
Interface: DVI-I, DVI-I, DVI-I, Mini-HDMI
Product Warranty: 3 year warranty upgradable upon registration
Product Length: 11.5in - 292.1mm

EVGA are trying to call it the 585, supposedly 30% faster than a 580. It's basically 2 x 560Ti on a card.
 
KHAN said:
Anyone seen this? http://www.evga.com/articles/00656/

It's the 560ti 2WIN edition with;

Core Clock Speed: 850MHz
CUDA Cores: 768
Memory Clock Speed: 4008MHz
Memory Bandwidth: 256.6GB/sec
Shader Clock Speed: 1700MHz
Bus: PCI-E 2.0
Interface: DVI-I, DVI-I, DVI-I, Mini-HDMI
Product Warranty: 3 year warranty upgradable upon registration
Product Length: 11.5in - 292.1mm

EVGA are trying to call it the 585, supposedly 30% faster than a 580. It's basically 2 x 560Ti on a card.
Click to expand...

I don't recommend sinking that much money into this now, especially when there are new cards coming out soon, cuz vram can be a bottlenecking factor here in games like BF3. Already enough troll discussion there: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...l-GPU-Review&p=4993791&viewfull=1#post4993791
 
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