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Hello everybody!
I'm thinking about buying a new graphics card to replace my trusty HD4670. I don't feel like this deserves it's own thread, so hopefully I'll get some suggestions here.
THE QUESTION: Which graphics card should I get?
My specs:
P5Q Pro
E8500 @ 3,16 GHz (room for over clocking)
4 gig RAM
Considerations:
1) There is no budged, but preferably < 250 euros (350 usd)
2) Maybe there is no point in spending over 200 euros (280 usd), since there will be other bottle necks at that point?
3) Best bang for the buck?
4) Should be able to run The Witcher 2 (which my current setup has trouble with)
5) Also Skyrim (could actually run just fine? It's the old engine ins't it?)
6) I don't care whether it's ATI or Nvidia (people that do care are weird)
I could also get more RAM, if you think that'll help (would it help?).
Thanks!
Edit: I found Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2 GB for 250 eur. Should I go for it or get sonething cheaper?
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There are reasons why people are pro- nVidia or pro AMD. It usually comes down to stability versus price/performance. There are valid reasons for being a fan of one or the other.
That being said, what resolution are you running at? With that processor I would not bother pairing it with an enthusiast card. I think you should be fine with a less than 200 dollar card.
Edit: I found Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2 GB for 250 eur. Should I go for it or get sonething cheaper?
No dont go for it. Not normally anyway.
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More memory isn't going to help unless you are running out of memory in the first place due to running too many background tasks or due to memory leaks.
I would probably get a Radeon HD6870 but you're free to spend money on a GTX 560 Ti or Radeon HD6950 1GB as well. The 2GB variant of the 6950 isn't going to help much unless you are playing at 2560x1440 or higher resolution. The game is also quite CPU intensive so overclocking your E8500 is going to help as well.
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On November 03 2011 22:18 skyR wrote:
More memory isn't going to help unless you are running out of memory in the first place due to running too many background tasks or due to memory leaks.
I would probably get a Radeon HD6870 but you're free to spend money on a GTX 560 Ti or Radeon HD6950 1GB as well. The 2GB variant of the 6950 isn't going to help much unless you are playing at 2560x1440 or higher resolution. The game is also quite CPU intensive so overclocking your E8500 is going to help as well.
won't help at 2560x1440 either, from what I've read the bottleneck is such that the soonest it affects you is when you run metro2033 with max AAing at 2560x1440, increasing your FPS from like 19 to about 27. Very useful coughcough.
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Thanks for the replies. My monitor is 23 inches so I think I'm running it @ 1,920 x 1,080p.
HD6870 goes for 200 eur. Seems viable. I have a good heat sink just sitting there doing nothing so I'll take your advice and overclock.
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I would get HD 6870 and possibly overclock the E8500). 6870 is better value than 6950 1GB and usually cheaper than GTX 560. 6950 2GB is mostly just for Crossfire purposes to handle Eyefinity resolutions.
edit: 200 euros is too much for HD 6870. It should be more like 150-160 euros incl. VAT, not incl. shipping.
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Yeah your're right, though here it's more like 170-180 euros it seems.
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On November 03 2011 22:24 Shikyo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 22:18 skyR wrote:
More memory isn't going to help unless you are running out of memory in the first place due to running too many background tasks or due to memory leaks.
I would probably get a Radeon HD6870 but you're free to spend money on a GTX 560 Ti or Radeon HD6950 1GB as well. The 2GB variant of the 6950 isn't going to help much unless you are playing at 2560x1440 or higher resolution. The game is also quite CPU intensive so overclocking your E8500 is going to help as well. won't help at 2560x1440 either, from what I've read the bottleneck is such that the soonest it affects you is when you run metro2033 with max AAing at 2560x1440, increasing your FPS from like 19 to about 27. Very useful coughcough.
Can you link to a source? I totally believe you. I just didn't know that the GPU will bottleneck before the VRAM does even at super large resolutions.
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On November 03 2011 22:48 Medrea wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 22:24 Shikyo wrote:On November 03 2011 22:18 skyR wrote:
More memory isn't going to help unless you are running out of memory in the first place due to running too many background tasks or due to memory leaks.
I would probably get a Radeon HD6870 but you're free to spend money on a GTX 560 Ti or Radeon HD6950 1GB as well. The 2GB variant of the 6950 isn't going to help much unless you are playing at 2560x1440 or higher resolution. The game is also quite CPU intensive so overclocking your E8500 is going to help as well. won't help at 2560x1440 either, from what I've read the bottleneck is such that the soonest it affects you is when you run metro2033 with max AAing at 2560x1440, increasing your FPS from like 19 to about 27. Very useful coughcough. Can you link to a source? I totally believe you. I just didn't know that the GPU will bottleneck before the VRAM does even at super large resolutions.
Don't have the source here and too busy right now to search extensively, but it was some well-respected site that did the comparison
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On November 03 2011 22:48 Medrea wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 22:24 Shikyo wrote:On November 03 2011 22:18 skyR wrote:
More memory isn't going to help unless you are running out of memory in the first place due to running too many background tasks or due to memory leaks.
I would probably get a Radeon HD6870 but you're free to spend money on a GTX 560 Ti or Radeon HD6950 1GB as well. The 2GB variant of the 6950 isn't going to help much unless you are playing at 2560x1440 or higher resolution. The game is also quite CPU intensive so overclocking your E8500 is going to help as well. won't help at 2560x1440 either, from what I've read the bottleneck is such that the soonest it affects you is when you run metro2033 with max AAing at 2560x1440, increasing your FPS from like 19 to about 27. Very useful coughcough. Can you link to a source? I totally believe you. I just didn't know that the GPU will bottleneck before the VRAM does even at super large resolutions.
I'm sure this is not it, but for a quick and dirty comparison:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_6950_1_GB/22.html
Look at the 2560x1600 table. (be careful to note which tests may be CPU limited in general and here which games are tested and the amount of AA/AF)
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Same performance all around. Even in the high resolutions. Whacky.
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On November 03 2011 21:42 Medrea wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 17:58 nam nam wrote:
I was going to say the same thing. I get tired of people comparing the 6950 and the 570, it doesn't make much sense. Yes the 6950 is at a better price point relative to it's performance but if you go by pure performance then the gtx 570 wins hands down.
Of course you could argue that in most games you won't notice much difference between the cards, but that's the games "fault" not the cards. You could say a gtx 590 offers the same performance with that logic. This is the whole point. Pure performance only matters to people with no budget. In that case shouldn't we all be suggesting Dual 590's or 6990's in quad SLI/Crossfire configuration? I have something against spending $1300 or more on graphics cards, call it bias. This top-end cards between AMD and nVidia are all jockeying for best performance across very many games. Which is good, that is the sign of a healthy market. Unlike CPU performance where intel is ahead at all pricepoints all the time, the GPU market is somewhat up in the air. So lets start then. At the posters probable resolution, both cards (6950 and 570) are over spec. In fact a 6870 is also fine. But the 6950 regularly goes 90 dollars or more cheaper than the 570. And I am well against purchasing frames that one will never get to see. So why didn't I recommend the 6870? I think the 6950 will hold out a lot longer in the coming years than the 6870, enough to make its purchase warranted especially since the 6950's seem to be getting great deals. However, the 570 will not be seeing an appreciative life increase over the 6950. For 90 bucks more, you will not see close to half an additional cards life. The 560Ti is very price competitive though, and a wonderful nVidia alternative especially if the games you play favor nVidia. There is more to it than that as well. nVidia has been making monolithic cards with high power consumption as well, and power is not free. Any watt spent rendering a frame is better in the hands of AMD now. And finally, 300+ dollar cards are in a real odd point at the moment. For people with no budget limit, these are great in multi GPU configurations, but then I would be suggesting 580's. For people with single monitor displays with huge resolutions, okay yeah go into 300 dollar land, you need the performance and also VRAM. But when users typically possess 1050 or 1080p monitors. It makes very little sense to buy an enthusiast card, which I qualify as 300 or more. With this paradigm in mind, the best card to suggest is the card that produces the highest framerate, under the most sensible settings, for the least price, with respect to consumption, clocked or overclocked, with deals and discounts in mind, in conjunction with possible future alternatives. That spells 6950 across the board for me.
I'm not arguing against that, I'm arguing about your choice of words in your first post. It's annoying no matter how you put it when people say the 570 have similar performance as an 6950. You are arguing different points.
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On November 03 2011 23:00 nam nam wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2011 21:42 Medrea wrote:On November 03 2011 17:58 nam nam wrote:
I was going to say the same thing. I get tired of people comparing the 6950 and the 570, it doesn't make much sense. Yes the 6950 is at a better price point relative to it's performance but if you go by pure performance then the gtx 570 wins hands down.
Of course you could argue that in most games you won't notice much difference between the cards, but that's the games "fault" not the cards. You could say a gtx 590 offers the same performance with that logic. This is the whole point. Pure performance only matters to people with no budget. In that case shouldn't we all be suggesting Dual 590's or 6990's in quad SLI/Crossfire configuration? I have something against spending $1300 or more on graphics cards, call it bias. This top-end cards between AMD and nVidia are all jockeying for best performance across very many games. Which is good, that is the sign of a healthy market. Unlike CPU performance where intel is ahead at all pricepoints all the time, the GPU market is somewhat up in the air. So lets start then. At the posters probable resolution, both cards (6950 and 570) are over spec. In fact a 6870 is also fine. But the 6950 regularly goes 90 dollars or more cheaper than the 570. And I am well against purchasing frames that one will never get to see. So why didn't I recommend the 6870? I think the 6950 will hold out a lot longer in the coming years than the 6870, enough to make its purchase warranted especially since the 6950's seem to be getting great deals. However, the 570 will not be seeing an appreciative life increase over the 6950. For 90 bucks more, you will not see close to half an additional cards life. The 560Ti is very price competitive though, and a wonderful nVidia alternative especially if the games you play favor nVidia. There is more to it than that as well. nVidia has been making monolithic cards with high power consumption as well, and power is not free. Any watt spent rendering a frame is better in the hands of AMD now. And finally, 300+ dollar cards are in a real odd point at the moment. For people with no budget limit, these are great in multi GPU configurations, but then I would be suggesting 580's. For people with single monitor displays with huge resolutions, okay yeah go into 300 dollar land, you need the performance and also VRAM. But when users typically possess 1050 or 1080p monitors. It makes very little sense to buy an enthusiast card, which I qualify as 300 or more. With this paradigm in mind, the best card to suggest is the card that produces the highest framerate, under the most sensible settings, for the least price, with respect to consumption, clocked or overclocked, with deals and discounts in mind, in conjunction with possible future alternatives. That spells 6950 across the board for me. I'm not arguing against that, I'm arguing about your choice of words in your first post. It's annoying no matter how you put it when people say the 570 have similar performance as an 6950. You are arguing different points.
Oh. My choice of words. Alright then.
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So it seems but I'll order from the place Shikyo suggested since shipping will be cheaper and I'll get my card faster. Thanks anyway.
One more thing: How much power do these new cards require? I have a 500 W power supply. Am I in trouble?
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No, even with a bad 500w psu you should be ok, check though if you have the 2*6 pin connectors, otherwise you need a converter
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On November 04 2011 01:18 d00p wrote:So it seems but I'll order from the place Shikyo suggested since shipping will be cheaper and I'll get my card faster. Thanks anyway. One more thing: How much power do these new cards require? I have a 500 W power supply. Am I in trouble?
Should be fine unless it is a very very bad brand.
Cards ship with molex to PCI-e adapters unless its OEM or something.
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I'm looking to buy to buy a new PSU, since my old one died, and a cheap (but decent) set of speakers
As PSU I'm thinking about getting the Super flower folden green pro 400W for 51 euro: http://www2.anobo.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=50852&agid=1626&adp=7
Currenly have an i7 920@3.5 ghz + HD4850. I might want to get a new gpu in the near future but it'll be something along the lines of a 6870/6950, so that shouldnt be a problem.
I still have no clue about the speaker set. I'd like a 2.1 or 2.0 set that can cost no more than ~60 euro.
Any online shop in the Netherlands on Germany is fine.
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Hey I too have an overclocked 4850 and a stock athlon II x4 635, runs fine on a 300W PSU so I assume you won't need much as athlon II is quite the powerhog.
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EPT
