• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Single card for 1440p

chrisgt

chrisgt

chrisgt

Associate
Joined
12 Jul 2010
Posts
743
Hi all,

I'm dual monitoring with DGM 2560x1440 and Samsung 1920x1080 monitors. My current card is a 1GB Gigabyte 460GTX. As you can imagine, some games are struggling on medium-high settings on the 1440p (main) monitor.

I actually have 2 questions:

1) what GPU would be best on a budget of <£280 - Nvidia or AMD?
2) will getting a new graphics card be pointless because of the potential bottlenecks my system might produce? And will my PSU be sufficient?

Specs
Intel i3 530 @ 3.5Ghz
16GB 1600mhz Kingston Grey RAM
OCZ StealthXStream 2 600w PSU
 
Off topic, how long you had the DGM monitor?

On topic, a 7870 OC'd gets pretty much same performance as a 7950 if you want to save money, just make sure you get a 2gb card.
 
Rusty0611 said:
A 7950 is undisputedly the best card you can get for that resolution and that budget.
Click to expand...

I was looking at the Gigabyte Windforce as my 460GTX is a Gigabyte and a really good card.

Gibbo3771 said:
Off topic, how long you had the DGM monitor?

On topic, a 7870 OC'd gets pretty much same performance as a 7950 if you want to save money, just make sure you get a 2gb card.
Click to expand...

Monitor arrived this morning funnily enough. No dead pixels, stand isn't near as bad as the reviews were making out, its quality (so far)

7950 looks good. My only concerns are 1) They were launched January 2012, so over a year old now, when are AMD due to launch the 8000 series? And secondly, will my CPU cause any restrictions? Thirdly, will my 600w OCZ PSU be adequate for a 7950?
 
Last edited:
Yes, your CPU will start causing you issues with a high end graphics card, you'll want to upgrade to a quad core ideally (both for a high end GPU and for running at 1440p)... even then, you are asking a lot of a single 7950 to drive 1440p, my personal opinion would be that you would have been better off with a good quality 1080p monitor if a single 7950 was about the limit of what you were willing to get graphics card wise

your PSU will be fine however

an 8000 series will require even more of a system upgrade to get the most out of it (e.g. ivybridge / sandybridge) so even if they are out in the next 3-4 months, which I doubt, you'll not get much out of one on your current system
 
Last edited:
Hmmm maybe I'll just take the plunge and go full upgrade. Could do with a quad-core (i5 3570K) CPU, SATA 6Gb/s, USB3 etc etc which this PC doesn't offer.

Will cost it out, cheers for input.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom