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GTX295 upgrade advise?

karlos103

karlos103

karlos103

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Joined
6 Sep 2008
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354
Location
Penkridge
Hi all
I have a Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 motherboard with an i7 processor ...running 2.6 ghz but can overclock to 4ghz.
I have a nvidia gtx925 graphics card which was good 5 years back but struggles a bit now especially if try bf3 ....just have to turn settings down .
Well i want to get Company Of Heroes 2 ...will it play this or am i better off upgrading my graphics card ?
It used to play company of heroes fine ...everything on full .
I dont play games on my pc now , just want this game but is it going to need an new card ...thats the question ...or best to just try it and see lol
If new card is best option....what best to go for with say a budget of £300 max ...less the better lol .
Any help most appreciated
Karl
 
CoH 2 is very demanding even on medium settings. I don't think you could run it on yours.

A 7870 is your cheapest best option (£160ish), that'd be absolutely fine for BF3 too. Otherwise as above for staying under £300.
 
Great stuff ....im guessing they would be ok with my motherboard ?
Is there any other card that would be worth upgrading to if i could push just over £300 ...if you know what i mean ...or are those the best value ones to get ...dont want to buy one then find out for a fraction more i could have a way better card lol
 
Either of those cards arc@css has listed will be a nice upgrade. And both will be fine in your current rig. An i7 920 @4ghz is still a very powerful cpu for gaming.
 
Once you overclock those two cards you get to the level of the next models up (770 and 7970), but these are already high end cards that will do fine for pretty much any game you throw at them.

CoH 2 at max settings is a bit ridiculous, even a £900 Titan doesn't do very well.
 
karlos103 said:
Great stuff ....im guessing they would be ok with my motherboard ?
Is there any other card that would be worth upgrading to if i could push just over £300 ...if you know what i mean ...or are those the best value ones to get ...dont want to buy one then find out for a fraction more i could have a way better card lol
Click to expand...

I don't know of any reason why those won't work with your mobo.


The Nvidia options are 770 > 680 > 670 > 760. Now, here's a rough benchmark showing the difference between the 770 and the 760. Personally, I'm not altogether convinced it's worth the extra money :

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/854?vs=829


With regard to the AMD cards, again, I don't see the point of stumping up quite a lot extra for about 5% more performance, and possibly less overclocking headroom. It's hard to recommend even another 7950 over the one I've linked as that one has a very quiet cooler, is not voltage locked (so you can overclock it with more freedom than many other 7950s).


Regardless, if you still want more performance then the cheapest 770 will set you back £320, and the cheapest 7970 will be £300. Apart from the occasional game, will it be worth spending quite a lot extra? :)

As mentioned, the AMD game bundle is worth considering.
 
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Thanks ....dont overclock it too often as its not as stable ...but for games i can just overclock it a bit more than standard lol .
Looking more like 760 is going to best choice for me unless anyone else has any more info
 
karlos103 said:
Thanks ....dont overclock it too often as its not as stable ...but for games i can just overclock it a bit more than standard lol .
Looking more like 760 is going to best choice for me unless anyone else has any more info
Click to expand...

I meant the graphics card overclocked rather than the CPU. The 7950 especially benefits from it, and all of them will overclock at least a bit with 100% stability.

As it stands right now - I'd say if you don't want to overclock at all and don't really want any games, the 760. If you do want to overclock and want the free 8 games on offer, the 7950.
 
Can see what you mean ...for what i want to do then it would not be worth paying the extra £100 for the 770...760 is looking best deal ...but will look at the amd card just to make sure .
Is the 760 card listed best one out of the range to get or would the slight more expensive MSI one be better ?
Again ...appreciate all the help
 
5 years and no upgrade ...used to play games on it when first had it ...but think last time i used it properly was 4 years back ...lol..use it now and then for surfing net ...games i use xbox 360 lol
 
Either you want a gaming gpu or not, if you dont drop £30 and sell the 290 at auction, if you do get a card with 3GB vram so it lasts you a long time again.
 
karlos103 said:
Can see what you mean ...for what i want to do then it would not be worth paying the extra £100 for the 770...760 is looking best deal ...but will look at the amd card just to make sure .
Is the 760 card listed best one out of the range to get or would the slight more expensive MSI one be better ?
Again ...appreciate all the help
Click to expand...

I might be right in thinking that the MSI card is better, though you might want to wait for customer feedback on that one, or contact customer services. I think a member, 'whyscotty', has an MSI GTX770 Gaming Edition card. If I remember rightly, that one isn't voltage locked so the 760 equivalent may well be the same in that regard.
 
I would say keep what you have got and when you get the game go from there. You stated that "It used to play company of heroes fine ...everything on full." Well if that's the case trying it first would be the common sense thing to do and if you have to turn a few settings down, so be it; would you even noticed? COH2 is not BF3, and from playing COH1 a lot I would have said it is CPU limited not GPU, I could be wrong about that.

Mind you it did not take many post to get you willing to spend decent money, so maybe there's an upgrade itch as well.
 
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