• 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.

Which GPU for £250

nutsnut

nutsnut

nutsnut

Associate
Joined
22 Apr 2009
Posts
2,288
Location
Birmingham
Set up is in signature, currently play on a single monitor at 1080p.

No preference to either MAD or Nvidia, though i am more familiar with Nvidia and just have receipt of a faulty Gigabyte 7850. Would look to go SLI/Crossfire in the future too.

Play mainly BF3, Bioshock and other FPS games. Max budget £250, would prefer less.
 
With the issues of Crossfire being worked on by AMD, I can see this setup being nice and smooth in the near future (June/July the drivers for this are expected), so I would look for a 7950 now and then another in the future :)

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H795QC3G2M) £251.99
Total : £262.79 (includes shipping : £9.00).



Lots of guys here own these 7950's and speak very highly of them. A little more expensive than previous prices :(
 
Can't really wait until the end of the month, although i know i should. Already committed to selling both of my current cards to need a new one asap. Don't have a spare card or onboard to tie me over.
 
Richdog said:
Buy one from Ebay for £5?
Click to expand...

Can he not use the integrated graphics?

Tough choice at the moment I don't feel there are many good G card deals right now. Prices have mostly increased in both the green and red camps for some reason.

What about second hand GTX 580s? are they expensive?

Edit: 580s are about £180 buy it now.
 
Last edited:
nutsnut said:
Can't really wait until the end of the month, although i know i should. Already committed to selling both of my current cards to need a new one asap. Don't have a spare card or onboard to tie me over.
Click to expand...

7950's are good but the price has gone up and there no longer including games so they workout around £50 more than they were a couple of weeks ago.

So I would also wait until next month but if your intent on buying now and from ocuk then I would probably go for
Sapphire HD 7950 Vapor-X OC 3072MB PCI-Express Graphics Card £260
or
HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £252
 
BAMBI said:
Can he not use the integrated graphics?

Tough choice at the moment I don't feel there are many good G card deals right now. Prices have mostly increased in both the green and red camps for some reason.

What about second hand GTX 580s? are they expensive?
Click to expand...

Around the same price as a GTX 660 or 7870 and you would be better off with one of those.

Between the GTX 660TI and the 7950 the 7950 is the faster of the two, its similar to the performance of the GTX 670, as the 7950 is cheaper than the GTX 670 and with in your £250 price range I would go for that.
 
humbug said:
Around the same price as a GTX 660 or 7870 and you would be better off with one of those.

Between the GTX 660TI and the 7950 the 7950 is the faster of the two, its similar to the performance of the GTX 670, as the 7950 is cheaper than the GTX 670 and with in your £250 price range I would go for that.
Click to expand...

This seems to be true the 7950 is faster than the 660TI in more games than not.

I guess it also matters if Crossfire or SLI is better if OP wants to double up. I don't know the answer.

Does the 7950 OC better due to voltage adjustment?
 
BAMBI said:
This seems to be true the 7950 is faster than the 660TI in more games than not.

I guess it also matters if Crossfire or SLI is better if OP wants to double up. I don't know the answer.

Does the 7950 OC better due to voltage adjustment?
Click to expand...

CF is not quite as good as SLI, but AMD are working hard on the Drivers to improve that and it is getting better.

The 7950 runs low clocks out of the box, early ones only ran at 800Mhz.
AMD did this to give it a meaningful gap to the 7970 as clock for clock the 7950 is only 5% slower, much like the GTX 670 vs GTX 680. and when you think the 7970 GHz beats the GTX 680 9 times out of 10 you have a good idea of how fast the 7950 actually is.

They later released a 975Mhz boost edition to fix that but that's still clocked low, all 7950's typically run at 1100Mhz day in day out, some as much as 1200Mhz: 24/7

A lot of reviews still use the 800Mhz 7950's because that's what they have to hand, in which case it looks much slower than it actually is given its so underclocked.
 
Last edited:
humbug said:
CF is not quite as good as SLI, but AMD are working hard on the Drivers to improve that and it is getting better.

The 7950 runs low clocks out of the box, early ones only ran at 800Mhz.
AMD did this to give it a meaningful gap to the 7970 as clock for clock the 7950 is only 5% slower, much like the GTX 670 vs GTX 680. and when you think the 7970 GHz beats the GTX 680 9 times out of 10 you have a good idea of how fast the 7950 actually is.

They later released a 975Mhz boost edition to fix that but that's still clocked low, all 7950's typically run at 1100Mhz day in day out, some as much as 1200Mhz: 24/7

A lot of reviews still use the 800Mhz 7950's because that's what they have to hand, in which case it looks much slower than it actually is given its so underclocked.
Click to expand...

I guess there is also 3GB of VRAM instead of 2 which will prove useful for future titles.


Boomstick777 said:
Pair of GTX 660's in SLI perform better than GTX 680 / 7970 Ghz.

Worth a consideration at that budget, especially at 1080P.

GTX 680 VS GTX 660 SLI:
Click to expand...

2 660's is also an option if OP feels 2 in SLI when he has them will be enough power compared to 660TIs or 7950s. The 660s will probably depreciate faster than the other two cards making it cheaper to buy in the future.
 
Last edited:
imginy said:
7950's are good but the price has gone up and there no longer including games so they workout around £50 more than they were a couple of weeks ago.

So I would also wait until next month but if your intent on buying now and from ocuk then I would probably go for
Sapphire HD 7950 Vapor-X OC 3072MB PCI-Express Graphics Card £260
or
HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £252
Click to expand...

Picked up a 7950 for £227 with 3 games.last week Just need to shop around
 
BAMBI said:
The 660s will probably depreciate faster than the other two cards making it cheaper to buy in the future.
Click to expand...

If anything the 660's will hold there value better, some people still pay £50 - £65 for GTX 460's today, whereas the GTX 480 is also around £80 - £90, so the GTX 480 has depreciated far more as the cost at launch was many times more.. If you get my what I'm saying.

The less you pay out initially the less you stand to lose. A lot of the expensive cards value drops like a sack of spuds when new stuff comes out..

I paid £100 each for my 660's, will probably make a profit when / if I sell them :D
 
Hmmm, food for thought with the 660's in sli. Would prefer a faster single card solution with the option to add another at a later date. Depends on how cheap I could pick two up for.

Digging around for a cheap pcie card at the moment, how much do people think the we pending nvidia cards will affect current pries. If I could pick up a 670 in two weeks time for the same money then it's worth waiting.
 
Just get at 660 for now, Ti is £80 more (50% of 660 price) for 10% more performance, not really worth it.

Keep the box in good condition, save a bit more money, and pick up a 760 Ti when it comes out in June (or when you spot a good deal), sell the 660 on.

Also sell the free game vouchers that come with the card to cut the cost.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom