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Cannot decide on a GPU to buy

J

jurrie

Junior Member
I decided to finally register to the forums in hopes of having my question answered 🙂

First off, I'm not a huge gamer. When I do game, however, I like my eye candy. The genres I prefer are FPS and RPG. For this year I plan on playing the MMO TERA, which I would like to play in its full glory.

For reference, my system specs, as per template:

I. Processor/CPU: AMD Phenom X6 T1055 (2.8GHz)
II. Current Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD5850
III. Display Resolution: 2560x1600 (Dell U3011)
IV. Power Supply Unit Specification: Antec TruePower New TP-650
V. Case Specifications: Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced (messy inside, I'm not tidy with casing)

Now the part which makes this difficult. Even though I am not low on funds and could just purchase some GTX680 and be done with it, I feel I do not game enough to warrant such a huge purchase (f.e. the only game I played for more than a day the last year was a four year old MMO). On the other side is the native resolution of my 30" display combined with my need for eye candy when I dó play a game.

I am considering the HD7870, which is between 300 and 320 euro's for me at the moment. Since GTX580 performance is similar, a cheap second hand would be a better option I guess, but second hand cards are priced about the same as a new 7870!

Then there's the 6970. I feel it's not lagging behind too much when compared to the other two, and it's reasonably priced second hand at ~190 euro's.

I have no need for crossfire / SLI (only have one 16x PCI-e slot). I'm not dedicated to a specific manufacturer. Examples of games I'd play are TERA, Civ5, Alan Wake and some random FPS games. High anti-alias or filtering is no requirement; I'm used to not having those turned on anyway.

All in all it probably boils down to: will a 6970 suffice, or will I get in trouble with new games soon, making the 7870/580 a better alternative? Or forget those alltogether and go for the 680 due to my display resolution?

I hop this spaghetti of text isn't too confusing 😵 and I thank you in advance for replying ^_^
 
jurrie: I have 2 5850s in CF and I just got a 6970 for Christmas. Both are on monitors with 24" 1920x1080 resolution screens. I compared a single 5850 to a 6970 and yes it was a big jump. However, if you have the funds and since you have a high resolution 30" monitor, I would get a GTX680 and be done with it. You would surely see a significant improvement and the eyecandy issue would go away.
 
Thanks for the responses.

I've done some looking around and these are the results:
- 680's are out of stock all around, except when you are willing to pay over 500 euro's for one
- Cheapest 680 is 444 euro's, while the rest are around 480
- The 7970's are between 450 and 500 euro's, so about the same as the 680's

I did however find someone who wants to sell his two months old 7970 for 375 euro's. A 16% discount is enough to tip the balance in favour of AMD, so I'll go with that one 🙂
 
jurrie said:
Thanks for the responses.

I've done some looking around and these are the results:
- 680's are out of stock all around, except when you are willing to pay over 500 euro's for one
- Cheapest 680 is 444 euro's, while the rest are around 480
- The 7970's are between 450 and 500 euro's, so about the same as the 680's

I did however find someone who wants to sell his two months old 7970 for 375 euro's. A 16% discount is enough to tip the balance in favour of AMD, so I'll go with that one 🙂
Click to expand...
Enjoy 🙂
 
I have a GTX 680 for my U3011. Since the power usage is pretty low, I'm actually thinking of adding a second one, because at 2560x1600, there are still times, even with that card, that I could use more GPU power. My last card was a 480, and SLI wasn't really an option due to the heat.
 
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