GTX 660 user-trying to upgrade for around $200 new or used

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pittguy578

Member
Apr 21, 2012
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Really want to upgrade my graphics card. Friend has GTX 980, and I am jealous when I go over his house and watch him play GTA V and BF4. Now that have seen in person how good a better card could be (versus watching youtube clips) I really want to at least boost my performance somewhat to try to get around 60 FPS on ultra settings in GTA V.

I am torn between getting a GTX 960 which should take me to the 60 FPS mark, and I would buy that new. But I am also not a fanboy and would purchase an AMD card used. I saw some used R9 280X cards on Ebay for right around the same price $200.

One thing that I want to be able to do is decode 4k H265 video on the fly. My wife and I recently got a 4K TV and want to be able to use that to it's potential.

Forgot about the other specs of my system
i73770K clocked to 4.3
16 GB Ram
1 GB Hard drive
2GB media drive
And GTX 660 2 GB

Any assistance is appreciated.
 
T

TemjinGold

Diamond Member
Dec 16, 2006
3,050
65
91
I hope you don't plan on playing GTAV on that 4k TV you mentioned. You may be overestimating that GTX960 there...
 
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pittguy578

Member
Apr 21, 2012
44
0
0
Ha no...not going to play GTA V on the TV. Just going to stream media to it.
I mostly play FPS so I never really had the desire to play a game on the TV.
 
lopri

lopri

Elite Member
Jul 27, 2002
13,327
708
126
960 + Witcher for $200 seems like a fantastic deal to me.
 
Arachnotronic

Arachnotronic

Lifer
Mar 10, 2006
11,715
2,012
126
pittguy578 said:
Really want to upgrade my graphics card. Friend has GTX 980, and I am jealous when I go over his house and watch him play GTA V and BF4. Now that have seen in person how good a better card could be (versus watching youtube clips) I really want to at least boost my performance somewhat to try to get around 60 FPS on ultra settings in GTA V.

I am torn between getting a GTX 960 which should take me to the 60 FPS mark, and I would buy that new. But I am also not a fanboy and would purchase an AMD card used. I saw some used R9 280X cards on Ebay for right around the same price $200.

One thing that I want to be able to do is decode 4k H265 video on the fly. My wife and I recently got a 4K TV and want to be able to use that to it's potential.

Forgot about the other specs of my system
i73770K clocked to 4.3
16 GB Ram
1 GB Hard drive
2GB media drive
And GTX 660 2 GB

Any assistance is appreciated.
Click to expand...

What is the most that you are willing to spend on a GPU? Is $200 a hard limit?
 
poofyhairguy

poofyhairguy

Lifer
Nov 20, 2005
14,612
318
126
Wait. For the love of God wait. You are correct right now the 960 is the only thing that can fully hardware decode h265 at the 4k Blu Ray standard, but it is WAY less powerful than a 980. Wait to see what AMD does this summer.
 
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pittguy578

Member
Apr 21, 2012
44
0
0
Arachnotronic said:
What is the most that you are willing to spend on a GPU? Is $200 a hard limit?
Click to expand...


Right around $200..could go to $210, but prefer $200 or less..any more than that and this purchase will be hard to hide from my wife:) I am even open to buying used on Ebay. I saw r9 280x for around $170. How "bad" is AMD compared to Nvidia in terms of 4k video decoding. ?
 
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pittguy578

Member
Apr 21, 2012
44
0
0
ElFenix said:
saw a deal for a 960 for $165
http://slickdeals.net/f/7839523-msi...tx-12-opengl-4-4-with-witcher-3-165-ac-ar?v=1


that's about right, pricewise, for that card, methinks. $200 is a bit of an awkward price point right now - the R9 290 goes on sale for $240 quite often so 280s and 960s at ~$200 seem like a bad deal, to me.
Click to expand...

Just missed it . I wil keep looking around the web.
The other thing I like about the 960 is the amount the card can be overclocked. It is insane:)
 
H

Headfoot

Diamond Member
Feb 28, 2008
4,444
641
126
Don't get a 960. Bad upgrade from 660. Wait until the full AMD lineup comes out in just a little while. It's about to hit, 1-2 months. nVidia prices will shake up and you'll be able to see what new stuff AMD has.

Dont be impulsive and impatient. You'll get a 960 then you'll be pissed when the new cards come out and wreck it.
 
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pittguy578

Member
Apr 21, 2012
44
0
0
One other quick thing I wasn't thinking of....is my PC is also a Hackintosh (Have OSX installed on 1 of the 3 hard drives I have). Mostly I use that for artsy/creative things like pictures and movie editing. Would an AMD card be better in terms of hardware acceleration there (encoding ETC) I use Final Cut Pro
 
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aaksheytalwar

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2012
3,389
0
76
In the future, I'd expect the gap between the 290 oc and 960 to only grow. To an extent that a 290 oc might end up being nearly twice as fast once both have finally peaked.
 
Seba

Seba

Golden Member
Sep 17, 2000
1,599
259
126
poofyhairguy said:
Wait. For the love of God wait. You are correct right now the 960 is the only thing that can fully hardware decode h265 at the 4k Blu Ray standard, but it is WAY less powerful than a 980. Wait to see what AMD does this summer.
Click to expand...

Headfoot said:
Don't get a 960. Bad upgrade from 660. Wait until the full AMD lineup comes out in just a little while. It's about to hit, 1-2 months. nVidia prices will shake up and you'll be able to see what new stuff AMD has.

Dont be impulsive and impatient. You'll get a 960 then you'll be pissed when the new cards come out and wreck it.
Click to expand...
So the summer came and AMD rebadged the Rx 2xx cards.
 
guskline

guskline

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2006
5,338
476
126
pittguy578 said:
Really want to upgrade my graphics card. Friend has GTX 980, and I am jealous when I go over his house and watch him play GTA V and BF4. Now that have seen in person how good a better card could be (versus watching youtube clips) I really want to at least boost my performance somewhat to try to get around 60 FPS on ultra settings in GTA V.

I am torn between getting a GTX 960 which should take me to the 60 FPS mark, and I would buy that new. But I am also not a fanboy and would purchase an AMD card used. I saw some used R9 280X cards on Ebay for right around the same price $200.

One thing that I want to be able to do is decode 4k H265 video on the fly. My wife and I recently got a 4K TV and want to be able to use that to it's potential.

Forgot about the other specs of my system
i73770K clocked to 4.3
16 GB Ram
1 GB Hard drive
2GB media drive
And GTX 660 2 GB

Any assistance is appreciated.
Click to expand...

I'm selling one of my Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290s for $210 plus shipping on this Fore Sale forum!:cool:
 
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