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Inevitable Spec Me

Shelster

Shelster

Shelster

Associate
Joined
3 Aug 2003
Posts
2,028
Location
Plymouth, UK
Has been forever since I last bought some GFX hardware and as I have just had a shares sale go through, am looking to change my hardware.

At present I have 2 x 7970's that are underwater and run 3 x 1920x1200 monitors in Eyefinity. Main use is gaming (Project Cars, EVE, Star Citizen, Elite, the odd FPS).

Budget of circa £500.

Will be lookig to watercool the replacement too, but am happy for that to be a bit down the line.

Any recommendations?

Am happy to change sides on the card if it gives a better improvement and I can still run my 3 screens at the same time in uber silly wide desktop and gaming
 
Personally I don't think AMD have released anything for you to upgrade too as I would not suggest crossfire due to the support history, Based on the games you've mentioned stretching the budget to a single 1080 would be a massive upgrade especially for Project cars which heavily favours Nvidia. Has Elite Dangerous got a working crossfire profile now? A 1070 maybe, not a Maxwel card though.
 
Bad time to buy to be honest, card prices are sky high and AMD have nothing in that price bracket at the moment.

I wouldn't crossfire two cheaper cards so you'd be looking at the GTX 1070 at £400 or the GTX 1080 at £600. :eek:
 
nashathedog said:
Personally I don't think AMD have released anything for you to upgrade too as I would not suggest crossfire due to the support history, Based on the games you've mentioned stretching the budget to a single 1080 would be a massive upgrade especially for Project cars which heavily favours Nvidia. Has Elite Dangerous got a working crossfire profile now? A 1070 maybe, not a Maxwel card though.
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If you read, he already has Crossfire cards... so i think he is probably aware of any crossfire issues.

With that said Reference 8gb 480s would be good for his budget, or as you said get a single 1080, stretch the budget a little but definitely worth it.

Apparently Xfire 480's is around 1080 performance while cheaper and its 2 cards with profiles you need to worry about, where as a single 1080 will give you the same performance pretty much without the crossfire headache.

If it was me and i had been running Crossfire for a few years so knew the issues and i was ok with it, and i was going to watercool the cards later, id buy 2 x 8GB 480, job done.
 
Well one thing's for sure, I wouldn't go Nvidia for a triple monitor setup, AMD is far superior in that use case. If you can keep the money and wait, I'd watch out for Vega nearer to the end of this year. Right now, GPU pricing is a bit awkward as there are yield issues. Otherwise, take a look at the Nano, they do very well with watercooling tho still a tad bit too pricey imo.
 
He wants to watercool it so a 1080 block would be another £100 odd on top of the card price, starting to get waaaay above his budget.
 
Two RX 480's would fit your budget, but wouldn't be a hugely impressive upgrade.

If I were you I'd be inclined to hold on until AMD launches their Vega cards, which will either be a better upgrade and/or lower the prices of the market. Should only be a couple of months.
 
Jony27 said:
Would two Fury Nitros be too much?
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There aren't any full cover blocks for them unfortunately.

Fan noise would be quite high as well if that makes a difference. There's also no semi-passive fan mode.

You'd be better off with Nanos or Xs.

I have just the one Fury Nitro as a stop gap until vega personally.
 
pandem0nium said:
There aren't any full cover blocks for them unfortunately.

Fan noise would be quite high as well if that makes a difference. There's also no semi-passive fan mode.

You'd be better off with Nanos or Xs.

I have just the one Fury Nitro as a stop gap until vega personally.
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Your sig says otherwise :p
 
Nobody talking about 980ti second hand in SLI? Technically slightly over budget, but not much more than a 1080 and excellent performance per pound. Or a single card and spend the leftover cash on something else. It's basically 1070 performance for less.
 
SiDeards73 said:
If you read, he already has Crossfire cards..
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Surely what I'd written in my response made it obvious that I had read it and did know he currently has 2 cards? I stated I wasn't willing to suggest crossfire because he wanted opinions and that's my opinion I even asked him if Elite Dangerous had finally got a profile so yes I do read thanks.
 
nashathedog said:
Surely what I'd written in my response made it obvious that I had read it and did know he currently has 2 cards? I stated I wasn't willing to suggest crossfire because he wanted opinions and that's my opinion I even asked him if Elite Dangerous had finally got a profile so yes I do read thanks.
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Come on Nasha I wasn't having a dig or getting personal buddy, and I agree with your 1080 views, but I still think there's mileage for him with dual ref 480
 
SiDeards73 said:
Come on Nasha I wasn't having a dig or getting personal buddy, and I agree with your 1080 views, but I still think there's mileage for him with dual ref 480
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It seemed that way, Sorry.
If he's happy with his current crossfire experience like you said a pair of 8gb 480's is a decent option but in my opinion it's not a big enough upgrade when you want it to last for the next 4 or 5 years.
Basically he's got a pair of 280x's and when you only upgrade every 4 or 5 years it's not enough of a boost in comparison (imo).
Unfortunately the current state of pricing makes getting a big boost hard especially when you consider that AMD's current cards are not offering more bang for your buck than the cards on offer 2, 3 & 4 years ago, With that in mind I'd say get a single card from one of the latest gen's and consider a second in a year or two if you need more grunt,
Having said that if it was me I would hold out for Vega and buy one of those. I think running 3 monitors rules out both 4gb cards and 6 gb cards.
 
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