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Help a friend!!

Rhyswh

Rhyswh

Rhyswh

Associate
Joined
10 Jan 2012
Posts
806
A friend asked me too help him spec up a PC. I can help him choose everything apart from the GPU as I don't know much about them (music is my thing so I don't need amazing graphics).

His needs are,

-3D modelling (within Photoshop so I'm not sure how intense it is)
-Gaming (Highest FPS possible on max resolution)

What is the best money can buy?
The best for around £300?
And the best for around £150?

Also, is their a massive difference between the best and £150 mark (considering his needs)?

Thanks in advance
 
With photoshop CS5 there seem to be a few CUDA accelerated plugins, so if they plan to use any of these in the future then I would lean towards getting an Nvidia card. If this isn't an issue then in normal stuff the openGL acceleration can be provided by a low/medium-end card from either AMD or Nvidia (£100 or less).

Therefore, it is really gaming that would require a spend of over £100 - as this will buy you a more powerful card that can deliver better framerates in games (and allow you to run higher settings). For around £150 the best cards are the GTX 560 and HD 6870. If you go up to £160 then the much better GTX 560 Ti 1GB is available - which is a really nice deal.

However, the real price sweet-spot at the moment is around £200-250 - as this budget will get you a HD 6950 2GB for £210, HD 6970 for £240 or the GTX 570for £240. If CUDA will come in handy, then the GTX 570 is a nice deal.

To beat the HD 6970 or GTX 570 you really need to spend a bit more than £300 - to buy either a HD 7950 or GTX 580 you need to spend £348 at a minimum.

As for the best card available, the current single-GPU king is the HD 7970 - but that is an expensive card.

Nvidia are expected to release a new generation of cards in about a months time, so if they are willing to wait till then, the market might change a fair bit due to increased competition (at least we are hoping it will).

As for a performance difference, this article shows how the £160 GTX 560 Ti compares to the £350 HD 7950. Usually the performance increase going from the GTX 560 Ti 1GB to the HD 7950 3GB is around 60% - though this varies between games. Also when playing at higher resolutions and in games that demand a lot of video RAM the 7950 with 300% more video RAM will often pull ahead further than 60%.
 
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Thank you, this is very helpful.

So what is the difference between the GTX 570 and the HD 7970? Is it worth the xtra money?

He said he can wait a couple of months so that shouldn't be a problem.
 
This page shows the difference between the GTX 570 and HD 7970.

The prices of the HD 7970s currently start at around £440 - so they are more powerful but a lot more expensive. Also, as Nvidia hasn't released yet they are currently not competing with any other cards - so they can price it how they like. This will likely change when the new Nvidia cards come on the scene which will directly compete with the 7970.
 
That is quite a difference!

I guess it's up to how much he can afford (he has about £1000 to spend on the whole build). So if I suggest this list, in this order,

1. HD 7970
2. GTX 580
3. GTX 570

would it be right?
 
If he has £1000 to spend on a full system then I wouldn't spend £440 on the graphics card. Better to go for a £240 card (or even a £340 one like the 7970) and be able to afford an i7 CPU, plenty of RAM, an SSD, storage drive, good quality CPU cooler and a good quality PSU. With graphics cards, the high-end cards tend to be less good value (in terms of performance per £) compared to the mid/high-end cards.

Also, if he isn't needing the system for a month then I would re-evaluate then - as the graphics card landscape will likely change quite a bit then with the release of the new generation of Nvidia graphics cards.
 
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It's a tough call and really depends on how you plan to spend the rest of the budget, so that a high-cost graphics card doesn't compromise the other components (does he need everything like monitor, speakers etc. or just the base unit + OS?). May I ask what the rest of the current spec is? (I'd be happy to help with it)

The GTX 580 is a nice card and will give him CUDA for those plugins, but it is an expensive card (£340) and is literally about to be replaced in a few weeks. In terms of gaming performance, the HD 7950 is faster (but doesn't have CUDA).
 
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He already has a monitor and speakers, not sure if he has a 64bit OS and he might have a case with fans.

I haven't given him the proper spec yet but something along the lines of,

i7 2600k
Asrock Z68 PRO3
16GB Kingston hyperX RAM
60GB SSD for OS
1TB WD caviar black HDD
Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler
Then the graphics card and maybe a soundcard if he wants it!
Haven't looked at the case and fans yet as I'm not sure what he has.

He only asked me today so I'm not sure exactly what he wants, I wont see him for 2 weeks now so in the meantime I might spec him the full monty (apart from monitor and speakers) and then he can leave things out if he has them.
 
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