Help my son choose a card £135 max

[ashmanuk67]

Can you help us choose between these two cards please and this is our max budget.

1) MSI GeForce GTX 650 Black Knight OC 2gb

2) MSI HD 7850 OC 2gb

£135 is the maximum budget if anyone has a better choice were all eyes

 

[Randomface74]

what's the existing system spec?

 

[Suarez7]

Would you be willing to buy used?

 

[Orcvader]

Out of those two the 7850. But it depends on the rest of the system, especially the PSU brand + model.

 

[iTek]

The HD7850 out of those, though you would likely get a second hand 7950 for your budget from the MM.

 

[spixelspixel]

What's the spec of the rest of the pc?

 

[ashmanuk67]

Intel Q9550 with a Asus Rampage formula motherboard with 4GB OCZ PC2 8500 1066 and a Akassa 550w 80 plus power supply.

Hope this helps thanks all.

 

[Randomface74]

MSI HD 7850 OC 2gb

 

[Minstadave]

Yup 7850 would be a good choice.

 

[arc@css]

Yep, 7850 (faster than the 650 Boost).

 

[spixelspixel]

Personally I'd save a few quid and go for the 7770 (can be gotten for around 75 pounds, pretty big price difference actually)

It's a very capable card as long as he doesn't mind not being able to play at the highest settings. I don't think you'll get the most out of the 7850 with the q9550.

 

[markoboyo11]

I would go for the 7850 2gb if you can, im using one and runs most games at full or maybe just a couple notches down.

 

[Davanius]

I have a 7850 with a q6600 @ 3.4ghz and it's a decent match. Anything faster like a 7950 would require a cpu upgrade imo.

 

[Marine-RX179]

I have a 7850 with a q6600 @ 3.4ghz and it's a decent match. Anything faster like a 7950 would require a cpu upgrade imo.

Nope. Need at least a Core2Quad 9000 overclocked to close to 4.00GHz. My old Q6600 overclocked to 3.60GHz would bottleneck even my 5850 (and the 7850 is around 40% faster than it).

 

[David Bisset]

7850 is a great card, I'd happily recommend it. In the price bracket its an easy pick.

As for CPU bottlenecking cards.... that depends so very much on what you're doing! In general a q9550 should be fine to accompany a 7850.

 

[markoboyo11]

I have a 7850 with a q6600 @ 3.4ghz and it's a decent match. Anything faster like a 7950 would require a cpu upgrade imo.

I would imaging you would have a huge bottleneck, ive just moved to haswell from q6600 @3.2 and the difference in unbelievable, (major bottleneck you have) sorry mate

 

[Orch]

+1 on the 7850. Very happy with mine and considering a second in the future.

 

[Davanius]

I would imaging you would have a huge bottleneck, ive just moved to haswell from q6600 @3.2 and the difference in unbelievable, (major bottleneck you have) sorry mate

Not huge but noticeable on bf3 in the 48 and up player range. Below that it's fine. Also in blacklist when using night vision, there are dips down to 25 fps from an average of 55 fps on the settings I use.

My brother has a i5 3470 at stock with a 7770 ghz edition and has a constant 60 fps at the same res and settings in both games. I tested both pc's a couple of days ago.

 

[markoboyo11]

Not huge but noticeable on bf3 in the 48 and up player range. Below that it's fine. Also in blacklist when using night vision, there are dips down to 25 fps from an average of 55 fps on the settings I use.

My brother has a i5 3470 at stock with a 7770 ghz edition and has a constant 60 fps at the same res and settings in both games. I tested both pc's a couple of days ago.

Think I at least doubled my framerate on 7850 by moving to 4670k at stock, not overclocked it yet as there is no point with the 7850.

 

[Davanius]

Think I at least doubled my framerate on 7850 by moving to 4670k at stock, not overclocked it yet as there is no point with the 7850.

I am buying the 4670k and putting my 2500k into that pc very soon. I just upgraded the psu and cooler in that old rig.