best mid range gfx card with best power consumption?

[evident]

What's the best gaming gfx card nowadays that can get very good idle gfx performance? Fact is, i leave my computer on all the time and it needs to get decent idle performance.


I'd like to spend around $200 and the main game i play right now is UT4 on a 1900x1200 monitor...

I haven't kept up with video cards in years. everything seems like a rebadge of a previous generation and it's hard for me to keep track of what's worth buying and what isn't

Other specs of my machine are

i7-2600K
Gigabyte Z68MAD2H-B3 Motherboard
32 GB RAM
Samsung 840 Pro SSD
Radeon HD7770
Dual Monitors - Dell U2410, Dell 2005FP or something like that

 

[skipsneeky2]

Buying something used like a 290 may be way better then buying something new like the 960 which is terrible for the price.

UT4 uses vram like no ones business and while the 960 comes with 4gb with some models,its god awful performance for the dollar.Awesome power usage but awful performance.

I would go with a used 7970/280x or 290 before i buy anything new for $200.

 

[Zodiark1593]

With the new UT update yesterday, I've actually seem to have taken a pretty significant performance hit on my 960. Before, 60 fps on Titan Pass was easy with a mix of high and epic settings, averaging 70-80 without vsync, now I'm barely scraping 60 on the same map, more often dipping below.

With textures on High, my memory use falls around 1990 MB out of 2 GB on said map. This was before the update. Haven't checked after, but if the card is at it's edge, I could see that last straw being the culprit for my reduced framerate.

 

[evident]

With the new UT update yesterday, I've actually seem to have taken a pretty significant performance hit on my 960. Before, 60 fps on Titan Pass was easy with a mix of high and epic settings, averaging 70-80 without vsync, now I'm barely scraping 60 on the same map, more often dipping below.

With textures on High, my memory use falls around 1990 MB out of 2 GB on said map. This was before the update. Haven't checked after, but if the card is at it's edge, I could see that last straw being the culprit for my reduced framerate.

Yep. My 7770 was able to handle titan pass in completely low setting before yesterday's patch. It's choking pretty badly now. the Used 7970 / R280X (they pretty much are the same card, right?) sounds like a good idea.

 

[Yuriman]

Most modern cards will idle around the same - around 10 watts, give or take 2. It's only under load that nVidia's offerings look better than AMD's, while AMD's cards generally offer better performance per dollar.

 

[Headfoot]

Yeah, modern cards all idle at very low power levels, which is good. ~10w or less for the most part

 

[tential]

Gtx 960 is what you'll most likely end up buying. Try and find one under 170. But honestly it's one of the worst value cards out there.

 

[xorbe]

Gtx 960 is what you'll most likely end up buying. Try and find one under 170. But honestly it's one of the worst value cards out there.

Yeah I hesitate to recommend the 960 at this point. If if fits your "casual" 1080p medium-settings gaming needs it's fine (price aside), but the 128-bit vram is a performance buzz-kill for more quality settings. Maybe a used 970 ...

Hasn't everyone more or less conquered idle power at this point? My 4790K + 960 idles at 55W (wall) when the screen powers down, with an 860W psu no less. Swapped my TiX back in, which added 8W to idle. OP, you might check what your 2600K system is actually idling at before worrying about it.

 

[SimianR]

I think an R9 380X would be a good choice, 4GB standard and you can find them for about $220 - just slightly over budget. It also tends to be a bit faster than the 960 as well.

 

[DownTheSky]

For $200 you can try grabbing a 2nd hand 290. The difference between it and a 7970 in DX12 is pretty big. Make sure it's not reference model tho.

 

[Madpacket]

For $200 you can try grabbing a 2nd hand 290. The difference between it and a 7970 in DX12 is pretty big. Make sure it's not reference model tho.

This.. Unless you have a 500W or less power supply. Also don't be scared of grabbing a reference 290 as they aren't that bad as you can really undervolt them at stock speeds to quiet them down and they use a lot less energy than the aftermarket cards in my experience. A used 290 will blow away a 960 and likely further the spread once DX12 becomes standard. It'll also allow you to upgrade to a Freesync monitor which are generally much less expensive than Gsync.

 

[JDG1980]

What's the best gaming gfx card nowadays that can get very good idle gfx performance? Fact is, i leave my computer on all the time and it needs to get decent idle performance.

Any modern card has good idle performance if you've got one monitor. For multi-monitor setups, AMD cards draw a lot more power at idle than Nvidia.

 

[Silverforce11]

This.. Unless you have a 500W or less power supply. Also don't be scared of grabbing a reference 290 as they aren't that bad as you can really undervolt them at stock speeds to quiet them down and they use a lot less energy than the aftermarket cards in my experience. A used 290 will blow away a 960 and likely further the spread once DX12 becomes standard. It'll also allow you to upgrade to a Freesync monitor which are generally much less expensive than Gsync.

Having owned reference R290s, I can never recommend them to anyone for the sheer noise. Aftermarket cards can also undervolt.

Best options: 380X, custom R290 or 970.

Anything less than that in modern 1080p gaming have to sacrifice too much on visual quality.

 

[Charlie98]

Nice mobo, OP...

I'd say save the coin for a GTX970 or 380X... I think you'd be disappointed otherwise, the 960 is a waste at $200'ish. The 970 is a nice match for your 2600K...

 

[Gikaseixas]

GTX 970, 290, 390 or 380X minimum at this stage

 

[xthetenth]

Having owned reference R290s, I can never recommend them to anyone for the sheer noise.

Underclocking them enough that they don't make a bunch of noise would do wonders for the power consumption though. I'm kind of wondering just how viable a ~$200 underclocked reference 290 would be as a 960/380 drubber (half joking).

 

[Rakehellion]

Buying something used like a 290 may be way better then buying something new like the 960 which is terrible for the price.

UT4 uses vram like no ones business and while the 960 comes with 4gb with some models,its god awful performance for the dollar.Awesome power usage but awful performance.

I would go with a used 7970/280x or 290 before i buy anything new for $200.

Or you can just get a used 960.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Or you can just get a used 960.

Used 960 often times still is more expensive then the 7970.More games are quicker on the 7970.

I know as i was contemplating swapping my 660 for a 7970,waiting it out a bit more.Maybe when Pascal drops we might land with them for a flat $100 used?

Typical AMD offerings are practically being given away and slower more expensive Nvidia cards still get all the praise.

 

[Mercennarius]

Non-Reference 290(X) gets my vote. May not have the best power consumption but certainly a good performer for the $$$.

 

[RussianSensation]

Used custom 290/970, or new 380X.

 

[tential]

I still say GTX 960 unless OP plays a lot of other games/single player games or cares about graphics a LOT, if you're just trying to shoot people with graphics turned to medium then since power consumption is SPECIFICALLY a big deal for OP, I'd go with a GTX 960.

It's all dependent on how you game OP, but you specifically said power consumption so GTX 960 IMO.

 

[ElFenix]

Or you can just get a used 960.

960 and 290 having been targetted at 2 different markets, it seems to me there's less chance of finding a used 960 out there. 290 buyers were likely top of the line purchasers and have moved on to 980tis or furies. 960 buyers knew they were getting a mid range card from the get go and likely haven't moved on yet

 

[Zodiark1593]

960 and 290 having been targetted at 2 different markets, it seems to me there's less chance of finding a used 960 out there. 290 buyers were likely top of the line purchasers and have moved on to 980tis or furies. 960 buyers knew they were getting a mid range card from the get go and likely haven't moved on yet

This was actually on my mind when I grabbed my 960 aside from CUDA. I didn't get it to max out the latest (2015 and 2016) games, nor am I under the delusion that it will. Most of my games I play consist primarily of what I missed up to now due to my old Radeon 5470, the most demanding games I play being UT4 and Tomb Raider (2013), though I most often play jRPGs like Hyperdimension Neptunia and Tales of Symphonia, both the 960 completely steamrolls with AA and DSR cranked up.

 

[poofyhairguy]

though I most often play jRPGs like Hyperdimension Neptunia and Tales of Symphonia, both the 960 completely steamrolls with AA and DSR cranked up.

Amen, I am pretty sure my 970 falls asleep on Hyperdimension Neptunia.

 

[Headfoot]

Underclocking them enough that they don't make a bunch of noise would do wonders for the power consumption though. I'm kind of wondering just how viable a ~$200 underclocked reference 290 would be as a 960/380 drubber (half joking).

Absolutely destroys 960 and 380. I have 2 reference 290s, since the blowers end up working about as well as aftermarket in tightly packed CF.

I replaced the TIM on em with NTh1, which dropped my temperatures by about 5c and lowered fan speeds to achieve that. I also undervolt -12mV while overclocking to 1025 core. Still noisy set up like this due to crossfire. Doing this with a single 290 is less loud. And if you set up powertune lower by about 15% you lose almost no performance and drop temperatures and fan speed even further. At -25% powertune you are noticeably losing performance but it gets into decent sound level ranges. Still faster than a 960 though.