Time for a GPU upgrade. Any advice...

[gazrawly]

Hi chaps. I'm looking to upgrade my graphics card as even at medium graphical settings at 1080p I am seeing some low fps in some of the most gfx intensive games (Crysis 3!).

The system specs; i5 2500K @ 4.5ghz, 4Gig Kingston blu 1600mhz DDR3, 530W be quiet! PSU, Gigabyte Z68AP-D3. Current GPU = MSI HD 6870 OC 1GB.

It seems as though 2GB graphics cards are the sweet spot currently, although would it be of any advantage to be looking at cards with more than 2GB? Would the current age of cards take advantage of additional ram in the future or would it be a case of time to upgrade again before this point?

I think it's wise to upgrade the ram to 8Gig at this point as again this seems the sweet spot.

I'm looking at pounds per frames really, ideally I don't want to be paying £100 for say an extra 3fps but I do want to enjoy gaming on a decent card again (god bless the 6870, you've been a champ!).

I could run my current 6870 in crossfire but I assume the benefits would be smaller than running one single high end card and I seem to remember reading that crossfire carries over usable ram from one card, not both card memory combined. I think I'd also have to change out the PSU as it only has the wiring to run one GPU from memory...

Which GPU would you/did you choose to run and why? Nvidia or AMD?

Current cards that I am looking at;
VTX3D Radeon R9 290 X-Edition 4096MB (it's on offer currently?)
Asus Radeon R9 290 "Voltage Unlocked" 4096MB

OcUK Geforce GTX 780 3072MB GDDR5
Inno3D GeForce GTX 770 iChill HerculeZ X3 Ultra 4096MB

Even after seeing some benchmarking and reading around, it's still all about of a minefield, with different card suppliers, memory (2GB/3GB/4GB?), clock speeds etc. Am I just wasting cash?

 

[gazrawly]

Thanks guys.

I'm still reading a little on some of the reviews of various cards.

That 290 VTX card certainly seems ideal. It is looking like a good balance really!

I guess mantle will improve over time as with many things. It's exciting though, isn't it? It's always bugged me at how well consoles play on such poverty spec hardware compared to PC's.... I've heard a lot of people are having issues with BF4 with choppy performance even though FPS is holding up well. I guess they have some work to do on patching up BF4 and on mantle.

When I went for AMD a few years back, it was more a case of giving AMD a go as I'd had Nvidia cards in the past. I don't think there's really any difference to either, besides pro's and con's to both which effectively cancel each other out?

It's nice to get views on this as it's a fair amount of cash to me, so I like to get thoughts and opinions before parting with my cash

 

[gazrawly]

Interesting.... Do we have any idea when Nvidia's new range are due for release? Could you give me a point in the right direction?

 

[gazrawly]

Ah, I did see the entry cards....

I have just noticed that the 290 PSU requirement is 750watt... I guess I need to look into a new PSU too, especially as I have a tendency to fiddle with frequencies.. Any recommendations? I guess I should think about future proofing it and getting a PSU capable of running 2 of these cards?

 

[gazrawly]

Yeah, I think I will replace the PSU to be on the safe side. Currently looking at; EVGA SuperNova G2 1000W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply.

I guess I will crossfire at some point. If not, at least I should have a decent PSU to carry over to another build in the future I guess