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New PC last month except graphics card - what should I put in?

gupott

gupott

gupott

Associate
Joined
26 May 2008
Posts
247
Hi there,

I upgraded the innards of my PC last month (i5 [email protected], 8gb ram, Gigabyte Z77-d3h mobo, 120gb Samsung SSD all running on air).

I didn't have enough money for a graphics card at the time (technically speaking I still don't!!), and I am now looking around for what my fit nicely.

I am currently using my 6950 1gb and it has been doing very well, just finished witcher 2, farcry 3 and about to start the new Bioshock. I have a monitor which native resolution is 1900x1200 (i.e. single monitor) so I tend to game at that unless I need to drop to 1080 in particularly demanding games.

So, what should I be aiming for? I was thinking of around £200-£300.

Cheers
Rossco
 
A 7950 will give you 95% of the performance for less money
That extra 5% is probably worth 1-5fps, e.g. not really noticeable in games

Asking if you should stick with AMD is a cue to a 10 page bun fight on this forum though :D

Check tomshardware and techreport websites for the latest on crossfire, in case you were thinking of going to 2 cards at some point
 
7950 all the way, I currently use the same resolution as yourself but at 85fps vsync locked and it plays pretty much everything and even then its not using 100% gpu...
 
So, just ordered one of these bad boys as they are on special.

As I will be upgrading from an AMD 6950 to a AMD 7950 do people think I need to change drivers (i.e. sweep etc) as I would going from an NVidia card? Or will it simply be a case of swapping cards?

I am on CCC 13.1.
 
rosscouk said:
Hi there,

I upgraded the innards of my PC last month (i5 [email protected], 8gb ram, Gigabyte Z77-d3h mobo, 120gb Samsung SSD all running on air).

I didn't have enough money for a graphics card at the time (technically speaking I still don't!!), and I am now looking around for what my fit nicely.

I am currently using my 6950 1gb and it has been doing very well, just finished witcher 2, farcry 3 and about to start the new Bioshock. I have a monitor which native resolution is 1900x1200 (i.e. single monitor) so I tend to game at that unless I need to drop to 1080 in particularly demanding games.

So, what should I be aiming for? I was thinking of around £200-£300.

Cheers
Rossco
Click to expand...

7950 would be a good shout. A 7970 would be wasted at 1080p unless you have a 120hz screen.
 
rosscouk said:
So, just ordered one of these bad boys as they are on special.

As I will be upgrading from an AMD 6950 to a AMD 7950 do people think I need to change drivers (i.e. sweep etc) as I would going from an NVidia card? Or will it simply be a case of swapping cards?

I am on CCC 13.1.
Click to expand...

Good choice, it is more a brute than a bad boy though.:D

As long as you are on W7(W8 Don't Use!), download the AMD Cleanup utility, but don't run it yet:

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/catalyst-uninstall-utility.aspx

Goto Remove Programs, Catalyst>remove everything wait until it completes the process>restart.

Run the AMD Cleanup Utility, when finished, exit-Do Not Restart, shut down the PC instead.

Swap cards over>Power up and wait for the generic Microsoft driver to install>restart.

Install latest AMD driver.
 
rosscouk said:
I am on win8, does that make a difference?
Click to expand...

tommybhoy said:
Just don't use the AMD cleanup utility, apart from that the rest should be the same.
Click to expand...

Follow steps 1-7 to sweep your system of drivers usng the guide here.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18431335

If you want to overclock you can follow the guide through to completion. Do not under any circumstance use the AMD tool on windows 8. Made that mistake myself a while back and there's no coming back from it unless you have system restore enabled. :D
 
Card in and all steps followed - about to give it a try.

Should I be disabling sound and using my mobo or the graphics card?
 
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