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Help with Graphics cards?

Aerindyr

Aerindyr

Aerindyr

Associate
Joined
15 Jan 2013
Posts
76
Location
Banbury, UK
Hi to all,

I am currently building a new pc for some heavy gaming but its been a while since I built with graphics in mind and have no idea about current graphics cards and their capabilities so I was hoping to pick everyone's brains!

Build: Gaming
CPU: i7-3770K
Resolutions: 1080P/120Hz but upgrading to 1440 in 2013

Basically I have always used NVidia in the past and was heavily thinking about a GTX670 or 680 but the 4GB version as I want to play games on ultra and use mods such as 2k textures in skyrim. But, my friends keep recommending I go with a high end AMD (ATI when I last built gaming lol) as they have good ram too. I have looked at 7850/7970s and they seem like contenders for me but then I found this:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-301-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=938

So what I want to know really is:
Are sapphire any good?
How does this card measure up (or appear to) in performance terms?
Would I be better sticking to a 670 or 680 4GB?
What advantages does an AMD card bring to me?

I'm not looking for the decision to be made for me but I would like some friendly advice from all you graphics card buffs to aid my decision!

Many thanks to all :)
 
What's your overall budget? To be honest an i5-3570K overclocked plus 7950 crossfire should do fine, don't really need the extra threads on the i7 unless you're doing a lot of video encoding.
 
I could stretch to that Sapphire card if needed as I traded in a ton of my xbox games to budget the graphics card, as an AMD owner how do you like your card in terms of gaming? Do you need to do much tinkering per game or does it basically run itself?
 
Basically runs itself (until I had to RMA it :(, but not got it back, Sapphire RMA seems very slow...). The thing is, you don't need 6gb of vRAM, that's just pretty much useless even on 1440p, 3gb is more than enough. Money is better spent on two 7950s which will give you even greater performance for your money.

Two of these will do very nicely: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-098-GI&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1673

Also these cards can easily hit 1ghz with stock volts, and with the latest drivers, they perform just as well as a 670.
 
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I suppose with 2 of those I would have 6GB anyway! lol

So if I put skyrim, for example, on ultra with lots of high resolution mods (2k textures, foliage etc...) a pair of 7950s would blitz it no problems? I have heard about things like stuttering but I want a smooth experience (can you tell im a graphics noob? lol)

Also what advantages (from an AMD user) would this recommendation bring me over 670/680s apart from costs?

Thanks for all your help :)
 
Kinda right, but wrong on the vRAM part, it's still 2x3gb as the data clones itself over the two cards :p.

As for Skyrim, yes, depending on the mods you use the huge GPU grunt will help a lot, but Skyrim itself is more CPU bound, and even then it hardly uses that many cores. But an i5 overclocked to 4ghz+ should do fine. Just make sure you also install the Crossfire Application Profile (which will be on the same page as the driver download) and Skyrim should play pretty smoothly.

As for the advantages apart from costs... no, not really :p. But there's no reason to spend so much when you don't have to ;).
 
No still 3GB XF dont stack sorry :P

1 7950 will pwn skyrim with many mods on dont worry :)

Best advantage is cost, bigger bus and more vram.

Cons are no Physx basically and not as good driver support with some games.
 
Crossfire shares the VRAM, you'll still have 3Gb. Find out from the Skyrim gamers how much memory usage a fully modded Skyrim uses. I assume 3Gb will be plenty.

NVIDIA's advantages are PhysX and CUDA cores. But I'll let the more knowledgeable people explain what benefits that brings.
 
Ah, fair enough so 2 x 3 then! :P

I do want to be fairly future proof for now, especially CPU wise but im fine with that, I will be video editing and more so that's cool! :)

Okay, last time I was into the graphics scene PhysX was an upcoming tech by Agea(?) so what advantages would PhysX and CUDA? bring me? Also does AMD not have an equivalent?
 
I suppose with 2 of those I would have 6GB anyway! lol
Click to expand...

I feel I should clarify that because of the way crossfire / sli work, having 2 3GB cards still only equals 3GB total usable memory.

So if I put skyrim, for example, on ultra with lots of high resolution mods (2k textures, foliage etc...) a pair of 7950s would blitz it no problems? I have heard about things like stuttering but I want a smooth experience (can you tell im a graphics noob? lol)
Click to expand...

There is usually a little bit of stutter with 2 cards but not everyone notices. Being a 680 user I cannot comment on the 7950's performance except that my cards only have 2GB of Vram and I do not notice much if any stutter when playing modded skyrim. The 7950's are not much less powerful and have 1GB Vram more than my 680's so I don't imagine they will struggle very much.

Also what advantages (from an AMD user) would this recommendation bring me over 670/680s apart from costs?
Click to expand...

Honestly AMD cards are just as good as Nvidia's in overall performance. Some people will have you believe that AMD's drivers are inferior however I can say from experience (my previous cards were a pair of AMD 5850's) that both companies can and do put out poor drivers sometimes. The current drivers for my 680s (310.90) don't load on a cold boot lol. AMD cards are also cheaper so there are very few reasons not to go for them really. In my case the main reason I went for NVidia is that I love to play my games in 3D vision and therefore I am tied to them.

If you do go for Nvidia and you are buying new then go for the 670's. The performance difference between them and the 680's is negligible and they are significantly cheaper. I only bought the 680's because they were offered to me at a significant reduction (the same price roughly as 670's) and I couldn't refuse!

Hope that helps
 
I would get the 7950 honestly, since they're so easy to overclock you can go past stock 7970 performance.

As for the CUDA thing, more software seems to be supporting OpenCL which is the open alternative, so AMD is fine on there ;).

And PhysX just makes the game look prettier, but it doesn't really feel like it contributes to the game much. There's not that many games that supports it anyway.
 
Well depends really because you can overclock the 7970s also its always gonna be a better card.

The main thing u need to think about is it worth the extra?

And if you plan on XF id go with the 7950 since its gonna be a lot more savings.
 
Get the best you can afford, the way some people act you think that a 7970 can't be overclocked;) But when it comes to getting the best bang for your buck then at the moment it is the 7950. Saying that I've seen the Windforce HD7970 for as low as £290 from other etailers - so shop around. :p

See this or other forum's various benchmark threads for Benchmark and Game performance both at 1080 and 1440p. I find the results on these type of threads more reliable and consistent over Journal reviews who tend to differ the level of AA and resolution when comparing cards. :rolleyes:

Also the latest cards are likely to be voltage locked, so investigate who has bought a card within the past month and what overclocks they managed to achieve and what "brand" card they have.
 
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