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Reality Check, Please!

9TurningMirrors

9TurningMirrors

9TurningMirrors

Associate
Joined
12 Oct 2008
Posts
286
'ello.

I tend to hang onto my hardware until it breaks down or simply refuses to play the games but my ailing GTX8800 really needs replacing.

Rest of system: E8400, Antec 520W, 4GB RAM. 24" 1920x1080 at 60Hz. Clearly I will need to upgrade my Chip/Mobo in the near future but the GPU is urgent.

I've got £210 in eBay sales at the moment but I'm having difficulty deciding on a 7850 or a 7950.

To give you an indication of the kind of games I play: Dungeon Defenders, Orcs Must Die 2, End of Nations, Super Monday Night Combat but I'll be playing GW2, PS2, and Planetary Annihilation.

As I want reliability I'm looking at MSI or Gigabyte...possibly Sapphire. The next most important factor would be noise as I'm gaming in a share area.

I've been saving up / hanging on for several months now as in the past I haven't spent more than £150 on a GPU...and I'm having guilt issues over spending out on it! :D

I keep looking at the 7950s with their 3GB of VRAM and drooling but I don't know whether that will be worth it now or in the next 3-4 years. Am I actually just going to be wasting £70? I did consider trying to wait out a bit more until the 7950s drop below £200.

Would it be worth me saving up for another month to get a 7950 or should I just go with the 7850?

Thank you.
 
I would just go with a 7850 with a good cooler, hopefully a MSI or a Gigabyte like you say. I think the 7950 will be bottlenecked by your processor, so you wouldnt see much difference between a 7850 and a 7950 until you upgraded that. Also you wont need more than 2GB vram at the moment with your resolution.

A 7850 would be a huge upgrade for you. My personal opinion is you should sell the 8800, buy a MSI 7850 power edition ond overclock it :D
 
Thats the kiddie I would go for.

Dont rush into anything though, do some research, read some reviews and listen to other peoples advice to get a balanced view and make up your own mind :cool:
 
I'm in a bit of a similar situation as the OP, but my system is all new (3750k, 8gig Corsair etc.) but my card is still my ageing 470. I really, really like the look of the 7870 Hawk, and I know that despite being able to easily clock to similar performance as the 7950, is it really worth the extra £40 to go up to a 7950?

I guess the bottom line is, I'm a complete tart and love the backplate+blue lights on the Hawk :o Am I shooting myself in the foot because I'm so superficial?
 
scritchyrat said:
I'm in a bit of a similar situation as the OP, but my system is all new (3750k, 8gig Corsair etc.) but my card is still my ageing 470. I really, really like the look of the 7870 Hawk, and I know that despite being able to easily clock to similar performance as the 7950, is it really worth the extra £40 to go up to a 7950?

I guess the bottom line is, I'm a complete tart and love the backplate+blue lights on the Hawk :o Am I shooting myself in the foot because I'm so superficial?
Click to expand...

£179 7870 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-010-VX&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=411
 
Not the Hawk though Dave! ;)

If I were going to get an 7870 over a 7950, it'd only be the Hawk model. I was just wondering if the extra £40 to go up, was worth it as I think the Hawk is a fantastic price at £200.
 
It would be worth the extra money for the 7950 only if you are going to overclock it, in which case get one with a good custom cooler.

The 7950 would definately stretch its legs on that rig of yours :cool:
 
9TurningMirrors said:
'ello.

I tend to hang onto my hardware until it breaks down or simply refuses to play the games but my ailing GTX8800 really needs replacing.

Rest of system: E8400, Antec 520W, 4GB RAM. 24" 1920x1080 at 60Hz. Clearly I will need to upgrade my Chip/Mobo in the near future but the GPU is urgent.

I've got £210 in eBay sales at the moment but I'm having difficulty deciding on a 7850 or a 7950.

To give you an indication of the kind of games I play: Dungeon Defenders, Orcs Must Die 2, End of Nations, Super Monday Night Combat but I'll be playing GW2, PS2, and Planetary Annihilation.

As I want reliability I'm looking at MSI or Gigabyte...possibly Sapphire. The next most important factor would be noise as I'm gaming in a share area.

I've been saving up / hanging on for several months now as in the past I haven't spent more than £150 on a GPU...and I'm having guilt issues over spending out on it! :D

I keep looking at the 7950s with their 3GB of VRAM and drooling but I don't know whether that will be worth it now or in the next 3-4 years. Am I actually just going to be wasting £70? I did consider trying to wait out a bit more until the 7950s drop below £200.

Would it be worth me saving up for another month to get a 7950 or should I just go with the 7850?

Thank you.
Click to expand...

9TurningMirrors said:
This guy?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-157-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=411

Seems to tick all the boxes :D Thanks for the advice!
Click to expand...

+1

scritchyrat said:
I'm in a bit of a similar situation as the OP, but my system is all new (3750k, 8gig Corsair etc.) but my card is still my ageing 470. I really, really like the look of the 7870 Hawk, and I know that despite being able to easily clock to similar performance as the 7950, is it really worth the extra £40 to go up to a 7950?

I guess the bottom line is, I'm a complete tart and love the backplate+blue lights on the Hawk :o Am I shooting myself in the foot because I'm so superficial?
Click to expand...

It depends if you prefer Aesthetics over value for money. I don't spend that much time looking at my case and internals so would prefer to spend a little more on the screen and keyboard but if you would rather buy the Hawk, go for it :)
 
Add me to the vote for the Hawk, unless you change the rest of your system very soon, you won't notice the difference between them on your current setup-in more titles than not.
 
psychodil said:
Thats the kiddie I would go for.

Dont rush into anything though, do some research, read some reviews and listen to other peoples advice to get a balanced view and make up your own mind :cool:
Click to expand...

My head says the 7850 - I don't play stuff that warrants the beefier card at the moment.

I'll go with the MSI, I think. Thanks to every one for the advice. :)
 
Your E8400 is only around on par with the low end G530 CPU at the moment...you best try to overclock your CPU to around 4.0GHz or above...which would effectively give you in theory at least 33% increase in CPU performance (since it went from 3.0GHz to 4.0GHz).

For GW 2, once you got a fast enough graphic card (around GTX560Ti or 6950 level or above) the game would become mostly CPU limited. So if you are going for the 7950...or even just a 7850, the higher the CPU's speed/clock the better for that game.
 
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