Graphics card for Guild Wars 2

[NutterzUK]

Hi,

I have a bit of a situation with my graphics cards and I'm looking to upgrade. I was wondering if someone could spec me a card, and let me know roughly what performance boost I would see for the two games I only really plan to play, GW2 and League of Legends. I don't get a huge amount of time to play so can't see me playing anything else, I mainly use this PC for work.

I have crossfire Sapphire 6850 cards at the moment. My first question is, how much do you think i'd be able to sell these for? I have the box etc and know that they are not too old, so maybe I could sell them rather than add them to my collection of "stuff" around the house. These cards on my usual resolution of 1920*1080 struggle a little on GW2 (Although it is in beta, I don't see this changing much). I do also have a second monitor, although even when I disable that one it still stuggles slightly and it causes the game to jerk a little which in battles becomes really horrible.

I'd like to look for a single card solution which would free up my second space.
I *Could* spend up to around £300 I think on a new card, if I sell my current cards whatever I get I can add to the budget. *could* spend though doesn't mean I want to spend every penny for little difference, if one around £200 is similar to one around £300, of course I'd rather not waste money.

Finally, my PSU is only 650w. It's currently running:
G1 sniper motherboard
24 GB Corsair Vengeance 1600Mhz Memory.
Intel 80GB X25M SSD
2X WD Green 1TB hard drives
Crossfire 6850 Graphics cards
1 Blue ray drive
1 CD drive
QPAD MK-85 Keyboard, Sidewinder mouse, Energiser USB Battery Charger, and the 2 monitors which have USB hubs.

I don't want to over do the PSU, I don't know if this comes close to it's limit but I would suspect that it does. The other day my PC did the most worrying thing it ever has, when I turned it on it kept just turning off instantly, the fans would fire up,then went off... it did this a few times until it then booted up. There were no other problems but I thought this was maybe a sign that my PSU is struggling. This was after changing to a new keyboard and plugging in the USB battery charger ( I wouldn't have thought either use that much power but maybe tip it over the edge? )

Anyway, which cards would be best? Do I need to upgrade or is there something else going on which my PC that is causing the problem? How much would you spend and on which card?
Oh, one other thing. My monitor is the Samsung SA950D 27" one, I would like it if it is still possible for this to work in 3D. I'm not sure it works with the NVidia 3d kits or not, I don't really use it to be fair but I'd rather not totally waste the 3D possibilities of the monitor. I've always gone with ATI, but I wouldn't at all mind an Nvidia card.
Thanks,

 

[opethdisciple]

Your only problem with your current set up is not power, but vram. You only have effectively 1Gb of VRAM which at your resolution is not enough.

With a £300 budget you have many options.

7850, 7870, 7950, 7970, GTX 670 or wait untill August and get a GTX 660.

I would say at current prices/preformance this cheap 7950 is a bargain compared to the price for the 7870 or 7850

If you want something with a nice cooler on for noise and heat reduction, well those come as a premium but still within your budget.

Depends what you want really.

Cheaper alternatives but with nice coolers: 7850 & 7870

If you want to spend all of your budget, there are 7970's and GTX 670 for £300

 

[Rusty0611]

Guild Wars 2 isn't the best optimised. Even with an i5 2500k @ 4.5 and a 680 I can't max the shadows and reflections out if I want > 60 FPS. But something around a 7850 overclocked or a 670/7970 will be a good upgrade for you.

Edit: I mean a 7850 at the low end and a 670/7970 at the top end of your budget.

 

[Rusty0611]

Your only problem with your current set up is not power, but vram. You only have effectively 1Gb of VRAM which at your resolution is not enough.

Oh and just checked - Guild Wars 2 only uses around 600MB of VRAM. So you don't have to worry about that if you don't choose to upgrade. So you can disregard this point.

 

[NutterzUK]

Oh and just checked - Guild Wars 2 only uses around 600MB of VRAM. So you don't have to worry about that if you don't choose to upgrade. So you can disregard this point.

Thank you both for your help! It's really appreciated. I understand kind of the numbering system of graphics cards but I have to admit that is about as far as it goes.

So reading what you have both said so far, I may be leaning towards maybe a 670 or 7970. My resolution is over two screens, one (Main) at 1920x1080 and my other which is the extended desktop at 2048x1152.
Ideally, I'd love to be able to play a game and still leave the other on updating me on email/music etc. I'm not sure if I would be ok to do that with a game like GW2 or similar with the cards above, I assume VRAM is what I want to be looking for to handle multiple screens with high resolutions?

I sometimes have my main desktop screen on 120Hz also, not all the time but for some games. When I do that though I nearly always turn my other one off. I have noticed my cards get a little warm and start making a lot of noise (actually, they manage to warm up my fairly small office) pretty quickly when playing anything with the 2nd screen on too (but they do handle it usually in BF3, just not so well in GW2)

I have a little money to treat myself so don't mind looking at the 6790/7970 cards. I guess i'm asking for a lot, 2 screens, gaming and for it not to make my room too hot so I should probably look towards my upper limit.
Would I be looking at a good boost in performance over having 2X 6850s with one of these cards, or is it likely to be about the same only using only one card(so less heat, less noise) ?

Thanks again, I really appreciate it.

 

[NutterzUK]

I have to admit, with this being £100 off I'm very tempted. Is this because it was just priced too high before or is this actually an awesome deal?

6970

I looked up to see if PCIE2.0 would be an issue as this card can take advantage of PCIE3.0.
I believe that it shouldn't cause a noticeable loss at all.
Linky

 

[opethdisciple]

I have to admit, with this being £100 off I'm very tempted. Is this because it was just priced too high before or is this actually an awesome deal?

6970

i looked up to see if pcie2.0 would be an issue as this card can take advantage of pcie3.0.
i believe that it shouldn't cause a noticeable loss at all.
linky

yes the massive reduction is becuase it was over pirced before.

also there wont be a big difference in performance between pci 2 and 3, so thats not a problem.

i think you'd be quiet happy with that card, but its a stock cooler, which means it will make as much noise as a stock 7970 makes. (may need to do some reading up, too see just how much noise.)

if you wanted alternatives then this 670 or this 7970 as they both have better fans for reduce noise and heat.

alternatively if you wanted better cooling and noise and be around or under £300, you could get a custom cooled 7950.

again you would have to do some reading up, becuase the pre overclocked 7950 i linked too may be close in benchmarks to a stock 7970 - meaning you get 7970 speeds with nice cooling and reduced noise.

balls in your court.

----

if it was my £300, i would get this 670 or this 7970

from benchmarks here it does seem a stock 7970 is a tad noisey under load. Depends if noise is a concern for you?

 

[NutterzUK]

Yes the massive reduction is becuase it was over pirced before.

Also there wont be a big difference in performance between PCI 2 and 3, so thats not a problem.

I think you'd be quiet happy with that card, but its a stock cooler, which means it will make as much noise as a stock 7970 makes. (May need to do some reading up, too see just how much noise.)

If you wanted alternatives then this 670 or this 7970 as they both have better fans for reduce noise and heat.

alternatively if you wanted better cooling and noise and be around or under £300, you could get a custom cooled 7950.

again you would have to do some reading up, becuase the pre overclocked 7950 i linked too may be close in benchmarks to a stock 7970 - meaning you get 7970 speeds with nice cooling and reduced noise.

balls in your court.

----

if it was my £300, i would get this 670 or this 7970

from benchmarks here it does seem a stock 7970 is a tad noisey under load. Depends if noise is a concern for you?

Thanks for the reply! That's really helped me out. I think one of those two it is. I will spend a bit of time researching to decide which, and after looking at the second hand price of my 6850's i'm fairly pleased (better than I thought).
I have read some reviews that say it's a noisy card, even here on OcUK it's noted in the reviews for the card I pointed at, so I think the non-stock cooler would certainly be a plus. I'm not too worried about noise at all really, I usually wear my headset anyway, the only thing that bothers me is every time I hear my two cards being loud I think something is about to set on fire or something.

I think I'll go with ATI on the basis that my monitor should just work with it and I don't really know the way 3D works with the Nvidia cards if I do actually ever use 3D.

Thanks again, i'll let you know how the card is when it arrives

 

[Xelene]

Try turning crossfire off in GW2.

 

[Rusty0611]

VRAM doesn't matter in GW2 as mentioned above. It's not a VRAM hog at all and 1GB is fine. If you are upgrading then VRAM is a consideration but not important for the games you play.

You don't need that much of an improved GPU to run an extended desktop. What I'm saying is that for the games you play you probably don't need to upgrade. You have decent GPU power and although 1GB of VRAM isn't that much, for the games you play it's fine.

I don't know how well GW2 works in multi card set-up's though so you are reliant on that to get decent performance. A single card equivalent is always a better option in my view but it is a rather expensive upgrade for what you play.

 

[kration]

Thought I'd tag onto the back of this thread, as I've got the same dilemma. The main games I'll be playing are GW2 and 'Mechwarrior Online' (the latter uses the CryEngine 3) and I think the weakest part of my system is currently the graphics card (?).

My current set-up is:
MB - Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H
CPU - AMD Phenom II x4 955 3.2GH
GPU - Radeon HD5770
RAM - 8Gb
Screen - Acer X223W (1680 x 1050)
PSU - OCZ StealthXStream 700W

I'm tempted to go for a GTX670 (a quiet one) but feel it's probably overspecced for my system (and expensive) or wait for a GTX660 (but not sure I can wait - it comes out in August but there's likely to be a waiting list...).

Is a GTX670 in that system a bit ridiculous?

Apart from the above, any suggestions around the £200 mark for a decent and quiet card for GW2/MWOnline?