New CPU or GPU?

Deehjay

Deehjay

Deehjay

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Joined
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So I haven't really paid much attention to PC technology since I got my PC 2 years ago; it's pretty standard and mediocre (well compared to what you can get for money now anyway) -
CPU: i5-2500 non K
Mobo: AsRock Z68
GPU: 560 non Ti
My PSU is a pretty bog standard 80+ 650w (I believe the make is Powercool)

Anyway, I was wondering which CPU OR GPU I would be better off getting since I may be upgrading this Christmas. I don't really do anything MEGA CPU intensive apart from watching streams in 1080p which uses roughly 30% usage, and sometimes Maya for 3d modelling. I'd prefer a new graphics card, but I'm unsure whether or not something like a 680 would bottleneck my CPU (the main thing I use my PC for is obviously the internet, and games..) or whether it would fry my PSU.

Also haven't heard much about the 7xxx series from ATI - how do they shape up to the 6xx series?
 
Deehjay said:
Also haven't heard much about the 7xxx series from ATI - how do they shape up to the 6xx series?
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The AMD/ATI 7xxx cards support DirectX 11.1 (and soon 11.2) along with the upcoming Mantle... Nvidia has DirectX 11.0 along with GPU based PhysX and usually a higher price tag.
 
SoundDoctor said:
Yes, I'd add a new GPU too. What's your budget?
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Well I was looking at the 680 which seems to generally be in the region of ~£260 so somewhere around there I guess?
Not sure if I'd be able to upgrade the PSU as well though, which is what I was worrying about.
 
Deehjay said:
Well I was looking at the 680 which seems to generally be in the region of ~£260 so somewhere around there I guess?
Not sure if I'd be able to upgrade the PSU as well though, which is what I was worrying about.
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You might as well get the GTX 770 for around that price (2GB model)... It's basically a slightly improved GTX 680. Even a GTX 760 is a big upgrade from a GTX 560 ;). What Powercool model is that PSU?
 
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A good 650W PSU will be fine if you only intend on using a single GPU (like the OCZ model below which can output 54A on the +12V rail). The following GPUs are quite decent without spending too much:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 WindForce 3x OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-N770OC-2GD) £257.99
1 x HIS Radeon R9 280X iPower IceQ X2 Boost 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with BattleField 4 PC Game Included £239.99
1 x HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H795QC3G2M) **FREE SHIPPING** £209.99
1 x Gainward GeForce GTX 760 Phantom 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £191.99
1 x OCZ ZT 650W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply £71.99
Total : £971.94 (includes shipping : FREE).




You appear to qualify for free shipping too :)
 
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Deehjay said:
Well I was looking at the 680 which seems to generally be in the region of ~£260 so somewhere around there I guess?
Not sure if I'd be able to upgrade the PSU as well though, which is what I was worrying about.
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A 770 is a "super duper" 680. I think CUDA (Nvidia) is slightly ahead of opencl (AMD) for maya but things might have changed since I last looked. Overclocking the GPU will boost the acceleration and help with gaming of course whichever brand you choose.

That PSU is gash to be fair. I would get something decent and use that old one as a known working PSU for troubleshooting. It might be worth waiting to see what the Mantle API for AMD GPUs will do for gaming performance. BF4 will soon (next month?) be patched to use it. The 560 you have isn't great to be honest wasn't much of an improvement over the 460, I still own the latter and can understand why you want to upgrade. You can't OC the CPU you have but you can OC the 560 GPU to practice on while you make your mind up......

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming Edition OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with BattleField 4 PC Game Included £239.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L8 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £59.99
Total : £299.98 (includes shipping : FREE).



Slightly more than you wanted to pay out but the GPU has a nice long warranty and includes BF4 (sell it to recoup cash if you already own it) and there is a decent PSU there too with plenty of juice for a single GPU setup
 
Deehjay said:
Not sure if I'd be able to upgrade the PSU as well though, which is what I was worrying about.
Click to expand...

What's your disability ? :) SPread cost between GPU and PSU = you gonna have still BETTER GPU than GTX 560. And - additionally - you will not have to worry about new graphic card: will be burnt, or not, if "old" blacklisted-PSU would die; or potential instability issues at least.
 
Oh god, I didn't even know that the 700 series was released lol. My bad. I suppose I could also get a decent PSU if people really think that the one I haven't got is suffice.


PowerPie5000 said:
You might as well get the GTX 770 for around that price (2GB model)... It's basically a slightly improved GTX 680. Even a GTX 760 is a big upgrade from a GTX 560 ;). What Powercool model is that PSU?
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It's a 650 watt high efficiency one, 12v 2.2, it has like a lime green fan. It can be found on that river website... (I don't believe they sell it at Oc)

honosuseri said:
A 770 is a "super duper" 680. I think CUDA (Nvidia) is slightly ahead of opencl (AMD) for maya but things might have changed since I last looked. Overclocking the GPU will boost the acceleration and help with gaming of course whichever brand you choose.

That PSU is gash to be fair. I would get something decent and use that old one as a known working PSU for troubleshooting. It might be worth waiting to see what the Mantle API for AMD GPUs will do for gaming performance. BF4 will soon (next month?) be patched to use it. The 560 you have isn't great to be honest wasn't much of an improvement over the 460, I still own the latter and can understand why you want to upgrade. You can't OC the CPU you have but you can OC the 560 GPU to practice on while you make your mind up......

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming Edition OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with BattleField 4 PC Game Included £239.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L8 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £59.99
Total : £299.98 (includes shipping : FREE).



Slightly more than you wanted to pay out but the GPU has a nice long warranty and includes BF4 (sell it to recoup cash if you already own it) and there is a decent PSU there too with plenty of juice for a single GPU setup
Click to expand...

I haven't even seen this R9 280X thing before, how does it compare to the 770?


Edit: Oh and also - I wasn't really sure whether or not a massive graphics card would fit in my case; it's quite a budget case and obviously haven't tested with anything other than a 560 which is relatively small, and I'm not sure of the dimensions. It used to be on OcUK but it's been discontinued/removed
It kinda looks similar to this:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-059-OK&groupid=2362&catid=505
 
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Deehjay said:
It's a 650 watt high efficiency one, 12v 2.2, it has like a lime green fan. It can be found on that river website... (I don't believe they sell it at Oc)
Click to expand...

Looks like a Maplins special to me (not a good thing)... As far as i can tell it has dual 12V rails with 14A and 16A which is VERY poor for a 650W PSU. A decent branded 650W PSU will usually have at least 50A on the 12V rail. Definitely change it or you risk damaging other components if it blows!



Deehjay said:
I haven't even seen this R9 280X thing before, how does it compare to the 770?
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The GTX 770 and R9 280X are quite similar in performance, but the R9 280X is usually a bit cheaper to buy (i personally wouldn't bother with the 2GB version of the GTX 770).

Both are basically rebrands of older cards with GTX 770 being a tweaked GTX 680 and the R9 280X is a tweaked Radeon 7970.
 
Deehjay said:
Edit: Oh and also - I wasn't really sure whether or not a massive graphics card would fit in my case; it's quite a budget case and obviously haven't tested with anything other than a 560 which is relatively small, and I'm not sure of the dimensions. It used to be on OcUK but it's been discontinued/removed
It kinda looks similar to this:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-059-OK&groupid=2362&catid=505
Click to expand...

Probably best to measure the space between the rear slots/brackets and the HDD cage. I'd also make use of all the available fan slots too :).
 
PowerPie5000 said:
Looks like a Maplins special to me (not a good thing)... As far as i can tell it has dual 12V rails with 14A and 16A which is VERY poor for a 650W PSU. A decent branded 650W PSU will usually have at least 50A on the 12V rail. Definitely change it or you risk damaging other components if it blows!
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Damnit, knew I shouldn't have gotten a cheap one when I got it 2 years back :p Although, I've literally had no issues with it whatsoever but I'm not sure I'd be willing to risk it with a £250 card in there.

I might just eventually end up building a completely new computer and maybe using a couple of the parts I currently have in it since I don't really like the case I have; I always wanted my case to look aesthetically pleasing but I was on a rather strict budget.
 
To run anything up to a 280X you'll have no problems with a 550W PSU. The Seasonic Gold modular 550 is on sale at the moment and I'd go for that one.

Since the 280X includes BF4 for free, I don't think the 7950 is worth considering at current prices. The 280X is overall faster than the 770 at stock, and overclocked has a decent lead.
 
teppic said:
To run anything up to a 280X you'll have no problems with a 550W PSU. The Seasonic Gold modular 550 is on sale at the moment and I'd go for that one.

Since the 280X includes BF4 for free, I don't think the 7950 is worth considering at current prices. The 280X is overall faster than the 770 at stock, and overclocked has a decent lead.
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I Have the Seasonic Gold 550W. Happily running a 3770k and a GTX 770.
 
So hopefully I think I'll be going with the R9 280X as it seems like the best option and you guys say that it's faster than the 770 at stock (which is more than likely what I'll be keeping it at)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-322-SP
How is this Sapphire one? I see it's on sale at the mo. Or is it worth paying the extra tenner for the MSI one?

Edit: does anybody have the link to that website where you could compare the benchmarks for PC hardware? I forgot the name of it :p
How much of a difference will I notice between my current 560 and the R9 280X?
 
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Deehjay said:
So hopefully I think I'll be going with the R9 280X as it seems like the best option and you guys say that it's faster than the 770 at stock (which is more than likely what I'll be keeping it at)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-322-SP
How is this Sapphire one? I see it's on sale at the mo. Or is it worth paying the extra tenner for the MSI one?

Edit: does anybody have the link to that website where you could compare the benchmarks for PC hardware? I forgot the name of it :p
How much of a difference will I notice between my current 560 and the R9 280X?
Click to expand...

I suggested the MSI as it has a 3 year warranty and a black PCB to help tie in with the Asrock mobos colour scheme. The Gigabyte Windforce also has a 3 year warranty but is more expensive and has a blue PCB which might clash with your kit, as does the Sapphire but that has only a 2 year warranty ;)

The 280X is a refined 7970Ghz edition, you can use THIS to help you do comparisons.
 
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