new card advice

[boyle]

I wish to buy a new graphics card my present one is XFX RADEON HD 6870
black edition.

My set up is asus mb M4A78

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Socket AM3 3.2 GHz 6MB L3 Cache

OCZ StealthXStream 2 700W Power Supply

6gb memory , dvd drive, Windows 7 sp1

I want to play Arma 3 and Rome total war 2 on ultra settings ,I was looking at
something around £150 -£175.My question is what card could I get that would make these games e.g. run an look better.,and does it matter if the card has onboard memory of 2gig or 4gig? Many thanks

 

[varkanoid]

If you can push it up a little you are probably better off going for an AMD R9 280x or Nvidia GXT 770 but your CPU may hold you back a bit.

If you cant stretch that much then either an AMD R9 280 or GTX 760 would suffice.

2gig or 4gig depends on what resolution your monitor is. 2gig is fine for 1920 x 1080.

 

[humbug]

MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming 3072MB GDDR5 £150

Powercolor Radeon R9 280X TurboDUO 3072MB £185

The Gold Reward should be worth about £25 if you sell it, so baisically a £25 rebait on both those cards.

 

[rippa2k]

I had the same CPU oc'd to 3.8ghz and paired with a 280x.
There was a pretty noticeable CPU bottleneck, and the GPU would only utilise around 50% load.

 

[humbug]

Maybe get the 280, sell the coupon, card cost' in the end £125, leaves you with £50 out of your £175, find another £30 and get this AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition

 

[boyle]

Thank your for your help much appreciated.Firstly let me say that Im aware the cpu could bottleneck if I go for more power in GPU,so I want to get it right,the problem is im getting on a bit and I just dont want to try update cpu etc I couldnt do it now maybe years ago!
Also my cpu isnt overclocked in any way Ive never went down that route. So Im thinking
would this be a better buy for balance and also give me a bit more GPU power,

Sapphire Radeon R9 270X Boost OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Card. or

Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon R9 270X OC 2GB thank you once again

 

[humbug]

Thank your for your help much appreciated.Firstly let me say that Im aware the cpu could bottleneck if I go for more power in GPU,so I want to get it right,the problem is im getting on a bit and I just dont want to try update cpu etc I couldnt do it now maybe years ago!
Also my cpu isnt overclocked in any way Ive never went down that route. So Im thinking
would this be a better buy for balance and also give me a bit more GPU power,

Sapphire Radeon R9 270X Boost OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Card. or

Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon R9 270X OC 2GB thank you once again

Sapphire Radeon R9 270X Boost OC 2048MB £130. and you don't get a coupon to sell, so it will end up costing you the same as the 280.

I think you should go for the 280 regardless of the CPU, if you get a bottleneck then the worst that will happen is you will end up with the same performance as the 270X, if not then you will get better performance.

The 280 will also have a higher resale value.