Will I need to upgrade my 460GTX?

[Ken]

Hi,

I bought a 460GTX from my bro's mate about 2 weeks ago because it seemed a steal and I thought it would have the grunt to sit in my new build.

I currently have a 4400+, 8800GTS, 2GB RAM but plan to upgrade to...

i7-3770K
Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H
Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1600MHz

I play on a 32 inch TV so 1920 x 1080.

Will the 460GTX be sufficient or should I just sell it to my bro and get something faster like a 670? Also any feedback on my upgrade choices welcome.

I have swapped out my 8800gts for the 460gtx and as I suspected the framerates were the same for Fallout NV on low settings so my current system is obviously a huge bottleneck for both cards.

Thanks

 

[Nickolp1974]

If you are considering the 670, the 7950 may be the better buy.

Something like this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-148-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1673 and if you were to sell the games it should bring it under £200

 

[FoxEye]

The 460 is still a good card with AA off And mid-high settings.

I'm also going to be upgrading soon, but I can't work out if the 7950 is overkill for 1080p. I suspect it is. I'd probably be just as happy with a 660 or 7870... but they are just too close (in price) to the 7950, so I keep hovering over "buy now" on the 7950

That's the stupid thing. 7870 = £200 with 2 games, 7950=£230 with 3. It almost seems like madness to buy the 7870, even tho I don't really need anything more powerful.

And the £150 cards will utterly underwhelm.

 

[arc@css]

I wouldn't say the 7950 is overkill for 1080p at all.

 

[Zorgar]

i just got one of them for my main pc.. it used to have a GTX 285 and it is a huge upgread.. i would say just keep it intill you cant play games

 

[Ken]

@nick, looks like it is. Been to the GPU benches on Anandtech and it looks like the 7950 aint far off the 670 and with 3 games bundled too and me not playing at higher than 1080 it seems the better buy.

FoxEye, haha, I saw the 7950 was considerably cheaper than the 670 and thought the budget I had in mind plus £10 or so I could go 7970 but won't now that I know it will definitely be overkill from the benchmark results. 7950 sounds the sweet spot and should serve me a while as did my 8800gts. Guess I'll just try the 460 first and see how it fares.

 

[FoxEye]

I wouldn't say the 7950 is overkill for 1080p at all.

I think I am "special" in that I don't turn on AA, because I don't really see the jaggies anyhow. OK, I turn it on if there's no performance hit

I don't think there are that many games that need a 7950 for 1080p/60Hz gaming. Not forgetting that most games are console ports.

But even so the 7950 still seems to be the best value for money card, overkill or not

 

[JonSmith]

Eh I run 1080p fine with my OC 6850 and I'm only using a phenom. Your i7 will not be a bottleneck, obviously something is misconfigured if it's a problem, or it's one of those GTX 460s with the crippled memory bus.

 

[Ken]

Eh I run 1080p fine with my OC 6850 and I'm only using a phenom. Your i7 will not be a bottleneck, obviously something is misconfigured if it's a problem, or it's one of those GTX 460s with the crippled memory bus.

I'm going to buy an i7 but currently have a 4400+ which is the bottleneck...

 

[biuro74]

Bottleneck, bottleneck.
You see - under Win desktop nothing is a bottleneck, unless you launch a 3D game. So name it, we will see what you play and answer your question (maybe you still use Fallout only, I don't know)

 

[Nickolp1974]

The 7950 or even 7970 is not overkill for 1080p when playing on a large screen as you will be wanting to use antiailising/AA to combat those jaggies! Due to the lower dpi.
What would be overkill is your planned 3770k, unless your cf/sli'ing high end cards or you do video rendering etc, if you plan to do neither of these stick to a 3570k

 

[Nickolp1974]

The 7950 or even 7970 is not overkill for 1080p when playing on a large screen as you will be wanting to use antiailising/AA to combat those jaggies! Due to the lower dpi.
What would be overkill is your planned 3770k, unless your cf/sli'ing high end cards or you do video rendering etc, if you plan to do neither of these stick to a 3570k

My advice buy the best card you can afford now, and when you change your processor you will see another big jump in gaming performance.

 

[pgi947]

I just started using a GTX460 768mb yesterday as a temp card while I wait for RMA on my 7970. I have to say I'm impressed with it, especially for a card thats nearly 3 years old.

Granted I haven't been playing any AAA titles, but dropped some AA and the detail levels down a touch on Borderlands 2 and managed around 75fps.

If you're on a tight budget and can get the 460 cheap enough (I paid £45 with a waterblock), then I say go for it, should do you well until the next gen come out and prices on current gen fall. Second hand market is where you'll save the most money, especially on the GTX400 and HD5000 series cards.

And I agree, single 7950/70 GTX670/80 isn't overkill for 1080, I would even go as far to say as its not enough for 120hz/3D.

 

[Feoilban]

Just pick a card that plays almost anything on high settings with 60 fps ... thats the Benchmark imo

 

[mame]

Still on a release day GTX460 1gb here. It's still a good card. I'm getting to the point where I am slightly tempted to get a 660 but I'm not quite there yet There's nothing it can't play but off the top of my head, the games that it lacks in power really are Alan Wake, Testdrive Unlimited 2 and Skyrim. Not got BF3 or anything else like that.