Looking to upgrade from my HD 6950 (A bit of help needed)

jamiehavok · 29 Dec 2014 at 19:17

Malmortius said:
What GPU do you suggest with my specs? considering i only have a 500w psu

Everywhere i've checked they've said 600w at the very least. Im not going to take that chance.

if your looking for a card that requires no more than 500 watts i'd say maybe the nvidia 760, or wait a month for the 960 which is likely going to be a bit faster for similar money. the 760 is faster than a 6950 but not by much it seems, it seems to keep up with a 7950 which is a tad faster than the 6950.

sources

so personaly id wait for the gtx 960 and see how much better that is or just splash out on a 970 as the psu requirements for that are 500 watts which is amazing for such a fast card.

Malmortius · 29 Dec 2014 at 20:25

jamiehavok said:
if your looking for a card that requires no more than 500 watts i'd say maybe the nvidia 760, or wait a month for the 960 which is likely going to be a bit faster for similar money. the 760 is faster than a 6950 but not by much it seems, it seems to keep up with a 7950 which is a tad faster than the 6950.

sources

so personaly id wait for the gtx 960 and see how much better that is or just splash out on a 970 as the psu requirements for that are 500 watts which is amazing for such a fast card.

How can a card that powerful have such a low psu requirement?

Tonester0011 · 29 Dec 2014 at 20:29

Magic i think.

Tonester0011 · 29 Dec 2014 at 20:32

Just done some heavy research, definitely magic.

Malmortius · 29 Dec 2014 at 20:33

Tonester0011 said:
Magic i think.

On a computer this old, £400 is a bit much for a single upgrade.
Since i overclocked my CPU, i seem to be running new games like DA:I quite a bit better now, so i think im good for the time being.

I had a suspicion that any card with a 500w psu requirement and between £150-£250 wouldnt be that much of an increase.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 29 Dec 2014 at 20:34

Malmortius said:
Everywhere i've checked they've said 600w at the very least. Im not going to take that chance.

I know at least two people who run them off 450W PSUs - Valve(yes that Valve) was running a Core i7 4770 and a Geforce Titan off a small form factor 450W PSU.

Just look at the reviews - most of them measure power consumption at the wall and even then you are lucky to see 400W at the wall when actually running a game. A lot of reviews test synthetic 3D loads too which are not as low as what an actual gaming workload would be.

Unless you are into massively overclocking your GPU and your CPU at the same time,a decent 500W PSU is more than enough.

For example lets look at a few reviews of the Sapphire R9 290X which is pre-overclocked:

http://www.vortez.net/articles_file/27434_power.png

458W at the wall running Tessmark with a Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition @ 4.5GHz.

With an actual game,ie,Crysis Warhead:

http://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/GPU-power-consumption.png

292W at the wall with a Core i7 4770K.

Lets look at the R9 290(not R9 290X) version of the card.

http://img.hexus.net/v2/graphics_cards/amd/Sapphire/R9290TRIX/graph-08.jpg

305W at the wall when running Far Cry3 with a Core i7 4770K.

Running Furmark and 3DMark:

http://cdn.eteknix.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/sapphire_r9290_trix_power.png

That is with a Core i7 3960X and varies between 350W to 420W at the wall.

356W at the wall when running Crysis3 with a Core i5 3570K:

http://www.legitreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Sapphire-Vapor-X-R9-290-Power1-645x425.jpg

400W at the wall when running Unigine 1.0:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/03/11/sapphire-radeon-r9-290x-tri-x-oc-review/8

Running Unigine Valley 1.0 with a 4.2GH Core i5 3570K.

None of the gaming benchmarks running actual games appear to go past 360W at the wall. Even with a 90% efficient power supply it makes the actual load on the PSU(all the lines) at under 330W.

The two people I know off who are using 450W PSUs(one is Tute on this forum),have their CPUs at stock and Valve was running their Geforce Titan systems with a Core i7 4770 off a 450W PSU too.

A decent 500W PSU is enough and only if it were quite old,ie,over 4 years than I might think of getting a newer one due to capacitor ageing.

Edit!!

I am running a GTX660 and Nvidia states a 450W PSU as a minimum:

http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-660/specifications

My system is lucky to see 200W when measured at the wall when running a game,and that was with a Sandy Bridge Core i5,a few HDDs and an SSD.

jamiehavok · 29 Dec 2014 at 20:36

Malmortius said:
How can a card that powerful have such a low psu requirement?

i dunno, its obviously something nvidia are focusing on, the 900 series is a massive step forward in power efficiency and amd still need to catch up.

Malmortius · 29 Dec 2014 at 20:38

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
I know at least two people who run them off 450W PSUs - Valve(yes that Valve) was running a Core i7 4770 and a Geforce Titan off a small form factor 450W PSU.

Just look at the reviews - most of them measure power consumption at the wall. Unless you are into massively overclocking your GPU and your CPU at the same time,a decent 500W PSU is more than enough.

Interesting...

My CPU is already overclocked. Won't that put extra stress on my psu if i get one of those?

Bah.. i really want to upgrade so im good for another year or two, i just dont know what the right choice is.

Tonester0011 · 29 Dec 2014 at 20:39

EVGA Hadron has a low powered SFF PSU?
I use a 500W PSU, and have run CF290s off it. An overclocked 780ti classy, 4790k etc.

Most people overestimate what is really needed, just because it's easier.

jamiehavok · 29 Dec 2014 at 20:48

Tonester0011 said:
EVGA Hadron has a low powered SFF PSU?
I use a 500W PSU, and have run CF290s off it. An overclocked 780ti classy, 4790k etc.

Most people overestimate what is really needed, just because it's easier.

i think it just stems from the gpu manufacturers covering there backsides to compensate for low quality psus. you dont want to be running a 290x on a 500 watt CiT for instance lol..

disclaimer .. you dont want to be running anything off a CiT psu..!

Malmortius · 29 Dec 2014 at 21:00

jamiehavok said:
i think it just stems from the gpu manufacturers covering there backsides to compensate for low quality psus. you dont want to be running a 290x on a 500 watt CiT for instance lol..

disclaimer .. you dont want to be running anything off a CiT psu..!

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
I know at least two people who run them off 450W PSUs - Valve(yes that Valve) was running a Core i7 4770 and a Geforce Titan off a small form factor 450W PSU.

Just look at the reviews - most of them measure power consumption at the wall and even then you are lucky to see 400W at the wall when actually running a game. A lot of reviews test synthetic 3D loads too which are not as low as what an actual gaming workload would be.

Unless you are into massively overclocking your GPU and your CPU at the same time,a decent 500W PSU is more than enough.

Oh Jeez.. i was wrong, my psu is a 600w. (Pardon the dust) Why did i think it was 500w all this time?

Does this open up any new possibilities?

jamiehavok · 29 Dec 2014 at 21:46

Malmortius said:
Oh Jeez.. i was wrong, my psu is a 600w. (Pardon the dust) Why did i think it was 500w all this time?

Does this open up any new possibilities?

yes just get a radeon r9 290 as per my original post! its a great gfx card and in your price range, i upgraded from a 6950 to it also and saw a massive boost, and i have a similar cpu to yours. no doubt you'll be happy with the upgrade.

Malmortius · 29 Dec 2014 at 21:58

jamiehavok said:
yes just get a radeon r9 290 as per my original post! its a great gfx card and in your price range, i upgraded from a 6950 to it also and saw a massive boost, and i have a similar cpu to yours. no doubt you'll be happy with the upgrade.

Sweet. What manufacturer? Theres so many and i'm quite unexperienced. Do you think you could link from the ocuk store?

Also, will i need to change any of my bios settings when i install my new GPU?

Malmortius · 30 Dec 2014 at 13:03

jamiehavok said:
yes just get a radeon r9 290 as per my original post! its a great gfx card and in your price range, i upgraded from a 6950 to it also and saw a massive boost, and i have a similar cpu to yours. no doubt you'll be happy with the upgrade.

Dude this is worrying me, on some sites its saying a 750w psu is required.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2215117/sapphire-290-tri-psu-requirements.html
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?pid=2090#

I guess im looking for a few users to confirm this is all good to buy. I've been looking at http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-341-SP

jamiehavok · 30 Dec 2014 at 19:33

Malmortius said:
Dude this is worrying me, on some sites its saying a 750w psu is required.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2215117/sapphire-290-tri-psu-requirements.html
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?pid=2090#

I guess im looking for a few users to confirm this is all good to buy. I've been looking at http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-341-SP

it quite clearly says on the the ocuk web page on your last link 600 watt or greater psu required, (which we've allready seen on cat-the-filth's posted links is massively overstated) 600 watts is likely what it says on the sapphire packing, (it says 600 watts required on my gigabyte windforce packing also) and you have a decent quality psu as well, i looked up your psu and it has the right pcie connectors for it also, so you have no problem. Yes the sapphire one supposedly has one of the best coolers out of all the 290s which is important because the 290s do get quite hot, so i would go for that one.

Malmortius · 31 Dec 2014 at 00:53

jamiehavok said:
it quite clearly says on the the ocuk web page on your last link 600 watt or greater psu required, (which we've allready seen on cat-the-filth's posted links is massively overstated) 600 watts is likely what it says on the sapphire packing, (it says 600 watts required on my gigabyte windforce packing also) and you have a decent quality psu as well, i looked up your psu and it has the right pcie connectors for it also, so you have no problem. Yes the sapphire one supposedly has one of the best coolers out of all the 290s which is important because the 290s do get quite hot, so i would go for that one.

Great. Ill order it today. Thanks guys.

Malmortius · 31 Dec 2014 at 22:12

Guys, http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-342-SP

Whats the difference between a 290X and a 290? Theres a 290X on sale right now which only comes to a little more.

Which do i go for?

Devrij · 1 Jan 2015 at 01:22

290x is worth it for 25 quid more. It's not a massive performance boost, but it's worth that small amount extra. I run xfire 290s (tri x) and they are great cards. You should get a very nice boost, even if your cpu is getting on a bit. No need to do the whole lot now, but that would be the next port of call for sure.

Malmortius · 1 Jan 2015 at 02:42

Devrij said:
290x is worth it for 25 quid more. It's not a massive performance boost, but it's worth that small amount extra. I run xfire 290s (tri x) and they are great cards. You should get a very nice boost, even if your cpu is getting on a bit. No need to do the whole lot now, but that would be the next port of call for sure.

Ahh nevermind my 290 has already been shipped now. Im hoping this 290 will hold me over for another year or two until i buy a whole new system (Or put one together myself, but i dont see that happening!)

Devrij · 1 Jan 2015 at 10:09

Don't worry, like I said they are great cards. I occasionally play games on one card when xfire isn't supported (shadows of mordor when it launched) and it is still plenty at 1440p