In the market for a new video card

[krnmastersgt]

Been wanting an upgrade to my GTX 460 for a while and since I have a few upgrades en route I decided now is a good time for me to upgrade the video card before I move all my parts into my new case.

That being said, the games I play the most currently are LoL and DOTA both of which I can max out pretty much without issue at 1920x1080 (hoping to get a 2560x1440 IPS in the future but that's a bit away). I also try out MMORPGs here and there, one game I loved during the duration I played was GW2 and my card struggled at max settings though it could achieve some relatively decent frames. I typically take something mid-range and just overclock it till it meets my requirements, but I wouldn't be against buying something from the top-end for once (not thinking 7990 or Titans though, way out of my budget).

Currently been eyeing a 7950 as while I've used primarily nVidia cards iirc the GTX 600 family is pretty much voltage locked across most models, and any OC is just what you can manage to pull on stock voltages though I may be remembering it incorrectly or just really old information.

And shopping around for 7950s brought on another question for me. I could get one as low as 270 AR for the reference model Sapphire or go as high as 320 AR for their Vapor-X edition designed for OCing. Is the extra money worth it (for cooling and noise definitely but what about from the performance view?), or should I think about spending the extra and stepping up to a 7970 or 7970 GHz edition (I know I can OC a base model, but from what I've been seeing people prefer the GHz edition since they're more selectively picked and likely capable of overall higher OCs though I don't need that level of performance at this point in time).

As far as PSUs are concerned, while not high end I believe my current CX600 should be able to power most current cards without issue, and depending on the card (and the types of OC I try to push) I might be able to use this HCG 430W I've had lying around as a replacement that I was too lazy to install in my current case. Might end up picking up a good 650-700w in the future when I see a good deal pop up on Amazon/Newegg/Tiger or where I work.

And a side note, while I would like to buy upgrades on a rather regular cycle and just sell off old parts to pay for upgrades, I typically just do 1 major upgrade of a few components at a time instead of piece by piece so this card upgrade will likely stick with me for 2-3 years unless it dies or I feel I need something considerably stronger for whatever reason. Sorry for all the text and thanks for any opinions/input on the matter!

 

[Shmee]

7950 or 7970 sounds like it would be a good choice, but you may want to wait for GTX 700 series to see if there are price drops, or alternatives on the green side.

 

[DownTheSky]

7950 or 7970 sounds like it would be a good choice, but you may want to wait for GTX 700 series to see if there are price drops, or alternatives on the green side.

+1

 

[krnmastersgt]

Would the launch of the 700 line affect AMD's pricings all that much? Should drop the 670 and 680 but I'm guessing the 700 family will launch like the 600 where they start from the top and work their way down, so could I expect to see any real changes in price in less than 3 months?

Also any thoughts on the reference vs the Vapor X or other aftermarket editions vs the base model? Aside from the Gigabyte, while I like the WF design seems all the newer cards are voltage locked

 

[Lavans]

If you are leaning towards the 7950, I strongly recommend the Vapor-X. The aftermarket cooler allows it to hit a higher boost and keep the boost levels more consistent than the reference model.

Of course the next gen releases are going to affect prices
But I don't think you will have to worry about it too much. Most cards usually hold their value for a few extra months after the newer series hits the market. Usually, when the prices stop fluxuating on the new series, is when the old series will finally drop in price.

 

[Shmee]

the sapphire Dual X cards are also pretty nice, as well as cheaper. The 3L, which I have, has VDDC unlocked with trixx, though the stock voltage of 1.25 takes you plenty far I find.

Another card to consider is the MSI twin frozr 7950, known for good OC results.

 

[raghu78]

HIS HD 7950 iceq x2 boost is the card to get. built on a reference HD 7970 PCB with 8 + 6 pin power. more power phases than reference HD 7950. unlocked voltage. excellent cooler. check if this card will fit in your case as its 311 mm long.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161429

http://www.hisdigital.com/un/product2-731.shtml
http://www.legionhardware.com/artic...hz_edition_7950_iceq_xsup2_boost_clock,3.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_7950_X2_Boost/31.html

on average overclocks to 1150 -1200 mhz and should match/slightly exceed GTX 670 at 1250 -1300 mhz performance.

 

[RussianSensation]

Just wait for GTX760Ti/770 to launch and see what happens to pricing.

 

[Cloudfire777]

Gtx 780

 

[zettler]

HIS HD 7950 iceq x2 boost is the card to get. built on a reference HD 7970 PCB with 8 + 6 pin power. more power phases than reference HD 7950. unlocked voltage. excellent cooler. check if this card will fit in your case as its 311 mm long.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161429

http://www.hisdigital.com/un/product2-731.shtml
http://www.legionhardware.com/artic...hz_edition_7950_iceq_xsup2_boost_clock,3.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_7950_X2_Boost/31.html

on average overclocks to 1150 -1200 mhz and should match/slightly exceed GTX 670 at 1250 -1300 mhz performance.

I am in the same boat as the OP. And am looking at the same deal.

My problem is timing (for my son's birthday is on 5/30 AND I need to buy from AMazon as that's where I have s lot of store credit coming so little to no out of pocket).

Having stated that, I can see paying $300 but it seems Amazon has very few deals with the exception of this one and I am running out of time. I would prefer a EVGA card as that company stands behind their products from my personal experience but it would be another $75 or more to buy a comparable one at Amazon...

Anyway, I posted the $270 AR deal in the Hot Deals forum but thought I would check here.

I usually pester Zap for his input but hate bothering him all the time...

Your thoughts are appreciated.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone, currently eyeing the Vapor X (well I was to begin with) and the additional note of the 7970 PCB by raghu piqued my curiosity as what the Vapor X used, it seems they use the same PCB and power phasing as they do for their 7970 Vapor X so the only real difference between the two is the GPU at its heart.

Anyone think that stepping up to a 7970 is worth it?

And as for waiting for the next gen to release, I don't expect the prices to drop a significant margin since I expect most of the 700 family to launch at higher prices than the 600s sit at. I only expect them to drop when AMD launches their next line and nVidia feels they have to counter with a drop in prices, which is something I don't especially feel like waiting for. On the other hand if they launch the GTX 780 on the 23rd and its not voltage locked I might have a reason to see what the 770/760Ti can offer.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Welp with the launch of the 770s my trigger finger is itching, while they are on average about ~$100 more than an equivalent class 7950 or so I think the performance difference and really the drivers make up for it enough. In terms of pricing they're currently a bit less than the 7970GE cards (though mostly OOS at those prices) and while being behind in terms of memory bandwidth can easily compete in compute power.

Currently eyeballing the GTX 770 Lightning since it's about 15% more cost than the Twin Frozr for something that will likely last me quite a while in terms of power and satisfy my urge to tinker with settings when I'm bored as well. Only 2 downsides I see with the card right now, first is it's a bit more than I was looking to spend and secondly the yellow kills the whole red theme I was going with the case design

 

[Slappy00]

Welp with the launch of the 770s my trigger finger is itching, while they are on average about ~$100 more than an equivalent class 7950 or so I think the performance difference and really the drivers make up for it enough. In terms of pricing they're currently a bit less than the 7970GE cards (though mostly OOS at those prices) and while being behind in terms of memory bandwidth can easily compete in compute power.

Currently eyeballing the GTX 770 Lightning since it's about 15% more cost than the Twin Frozr for something that will likely last me quite a while in terms of power and satisfy my urge to tinker with settings when I'm bored as well. Only 2 downsides I see with the card right now, first is it's a bit more than I was looking to spend and secondly the yellow kills the whole red theme I was going with the case design

I've jumped into the upgrade cycle again this summer. I got a 6950 (unlocked) that will find its way to the computer of one of my less (financially) fortunate married friends, and I have no idea where in the development cycle both companies are.

I have been AMD for quite awhile now (since the rage days) but I sort of like the new 770s. If there isn't gonna be a new major release in the next year or so, I might consider a 770, although the price is on the upper end of what I want to spend ($399).

Like you mentioned the 7950s are a good buy even though they have been around, I really only game in 1920x1200 so I don't need anything super-powered, and I wonder if a 770 might be wasted horsepower?

In any event, I wish someone would do a "performance for your dollar" evaluation because I don't need to push 120fps in battlefield.

 

[krnmastersgt]

I've jumped into the upgrade cycle again this summer. I got a 6950 (unlocked) that will find its way to the computer of one of my less (financially) fortunate married friends, and I have no idea where in the development cycle both companies are.

I have been AMD for quite awhile now (since the rage days) but I sort of like the new 770s. If there isn't gonna be a new major release in the next year or so, I might consider a 770, although the price is on the upper end of what I want to spend ($399).

Like you mentioned the 7950s are a good buy even though they have been around, I really only game in 1920x1200 so I don't need anything super-powered, and I wonder if a 770 might be wasted horsepower?

In any event, I wish someone would do a "performance for your dollar" evaluation because I don't need to push 120fps in battlefield.

I think you could potentially find situations where a 7950 might not be able to run something maxed out pretty readily at your resolution, but a bigger reason for me at the moment is there's a good chance I'll be able to snag a bigger monitor. While many of the games I play right now could easily be managed by both cards when you step up to 2560x1440 which is basically doubling the pixel count compared to my 1920x1080 screen currently I suspect they'll both have to be pushed closer to their limits to maintain high framerates with good settings. For that reason I've been looking at the 770 Lightning since they allow me to pretty much play with any setting I want, though it does come at 15% increased cost. Gonna wait for a few more thorough reviews among the models, and see how Haswell OCing with de-lidding turns out before I decide though.

 

[RussianSensation]

Currently eyeballing the GTX 770 Lightning since it's about 15% more cost than the Twin Frozr for something that will likely last me quite a while in terms of power and satisfy my urge to tinker with settings when I'm bored as well. Only 2 downsides I see with the card right now, first is it's a bit more than I was looking to spend and secondly the yellow kills the whole red theme I was going with the case design

The type of games you play, the GTX770/HD7970GE is a waste of money at $400-450 and at the same time neither is futureproof for next gen games at 2560x1440. Just get an HD7950 for $270 and overclock it to 1.1ghz. You'll get ~90% of the performance for 40% less than the GTX770 Lightning card costs. Also, buying a 2GB $450 card for your resolution again sounds like a bad idea in general. If you are spending $450, go for the 4GB GTX770 cards. Having said that, I'd get this (or wait for GTX760Ti) and upgrade more frequently:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202026

If you plan on upgrading to 2560x1440 monitor, you'll have to upgrade GPUs more frequently. That means you should change your strategy - upgrade more frequently on new nodes, rather than holding and buying a GPU for 3+ years as you have been doing.

When next gen games come out, GTX770/HD7970GE will get owned at this resolution while right now a 925mhz HD7950 is just 22-25% behind those.

Think about it, if you blow $450 on 18 months old 28nm tech generation, when 20nm rolls around, there will be GPUs with 50% more performance. Sell that 7950 for $150, use the $130-180 savings you get now from NOT getting the GTX770/HD7970GE and suddenly you have $280-330 for your next gen 20nm card. If you are on a budget, the best way to futureproof is to buy mid-range cards like the 7950 and upgrading more frequently. Buying a $450 card and holding on to it for 3-4 years is one of the worst ways to futureproof your system for next gen games.

 

[raghu78]

I think you could potentially find situations where a 7950 might not be able to run something maxed out pretty readily at your resolution, but a bigger reason for me at the moment is there's a good chance I'll be able to snag a bigger monitor. While many of the games I play right now could easily be managed by both cards when you step up to 2560x1440 which is basically doubling the pixel count compared to my 1920x1080 screen currently I suspect they'll both have to be pushed closer to their limits to maintain high framerates with good settings. For that reason I've been looking at the 770 Lightning since they allow me to pretty much play with any setting I want, though it does come at 15% increased cost. Gonna wait for a few more thorough reviews among the models, and see how Haswell OCing with de-lidding turns out before I decide though.

do not buy a 2GB card even for 1080p gaming. with next gen consoles due for launch by Q4, future console to PC ports will be more demanding on VRAM. Both consoles come with 8GB unified RAM. PS4 reserves 7 GB for games and Xbox one reserves 5GB for games. the rest is OS and system software.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6994/nvidia-geforce-gtx-770-review/3

i agree with RS in that spending USD 300 now , getting a HD 7950 and overclocking to 1150 mhz is the best option. save the money so that you can sell the HD 7950 and get a 20nm product next year in June or July.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202007

if you want better stock performance i suggest HD 7970 OC or HD 7970 Ghz for USD 400.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202008
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202001

if you want very high stock performance the MSI HD 7970 Lightning BE with 1070 mhz core and 1150 mhz boost clocks is a good option.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...202&CatId=7387

with all these cards if you don't want the games, you can sell the games and cut costs by atleast USD 40 - 50.

 

[bystander36]

Just because the new consoles have unified RAM, does not mean 2GB or vram will not be enough on future games.

We really don't know what will happen, other than the fact that consoles will have to be ported to work on PC's. You can also be assured that games will run on as little as 1GB of Vram, because no matter how much a console runs on, the games will be made to run on current PC's when ported. How much can be used on the highest settings is what is in question.

We also do not know how much VRAM and RAM is needed to mimic what the consoles are doing with their RAM and VRAM being lumped into a single pool of RAM.

 

[raghu78]

Just because the new consoles have unified RAM, does not mean 2GB or vram will not be enough on future games.

We really don't know what will happen, other than the fact that consoles will have to be ported to work on PC's. You can also be assured that games will run on as little as 1GB of Vram, because no matter how much a console runs on, the games will be made to run on current PC's when ported. How much can be used on the highest settings is what is in question.

We also do not know how much VRAM and RAM is needed to mimic what the consoles are doing with their RAM and VRAM being lumped into a single pool of RAM.

let me quote anandtech

" The wildcard in all of this will be the next-generation consoles, each of which packs 8GB of RAM, which is quite a lot of RAM for video operations even after everything else is accounted for. With most PC games being ports of console games, there’s a decent risk of 2GB cards being undersized when used with high resolutions and the highest quality art assets. The worst case scenario is only that these highest quality assets may not be usable at playable performance, but considering the high performance of every other aspect of GTX 770 that would be a distinct and unfortunate bottleneck"

so even though GTX 770 has a lot of GPU grunt/horsepower it will be VRAM limited as next gen games texture budgets will be significantly higher. also keep in mind that PC versions are generally played at 1080p while consoles might sometimes play the game at 720p.

 

[RussianSensation]

Just because the new consoles have unified RAM, does not mean 2GB or vram will not be enough on future games.

History repeats itself. The same thing has been stated during HD4870 512MB, 8800GT 256MB, 8800GTS 320MB, GTX570 1.28GB. All of those cards suffered tremendously not long after their launches. You also run into a situation of resale value. Once games need more than 2GB of VRAM, the resale value of GTX770 2GB will tank as no one will want it. If you are saying that 2GB of VRAM is a non-issue since by the time next gen games come out, people will have upgraded, then it's better to skip the 770 entirely and just get GTX760Ti/7950 and upgrade next year to a $350 20nm GPU.

The 7950 already has 3GB of VRAM. You'd have to pay $450 for a GTX770 4GB and max overclock it to outperform the $270 7950 OC by just 16%. Even if you drop down to the 2GB card, that's still $400 for a card that's basically a throwaway in 2 years as surely by 2015 games will start to use > 2GB of VRAM.

As new gen cards come out, more expensive cards drop in value the most. I bet you can still sell the 7950 for $150 in 12 months from now but if 20nm $400 cards are 40-50% faster than the 770, that 770 4GB card will lose $150+ of value in no time. Not only do you need to pay way more upfront for the 770 but the total cost of ownership between upgrades will be higher with 770 route than going with the 7950 and upgrading. Looking back at 6970 vs. 580, 4890 vs. 285, 670 vs. 680, it's better to get a slightly worse card and upgrade to the next node rather than overspend and hold on to expensive cards like the 285/580. That makes 7950 OC a sweet spot right now, and GTX760Ti should also be a great for transitioning to the 20nm node. Once 760Ti launches, prices of 7950s should drop too. I can see some of these after-market 7950s going for $240-250 which would make $380-450 HD7970GE/770 2/4GB cards very overpriced as 28nm stop gap transitions at this stage of 28nm tech.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Just because the new consoles have unified RAM, does not mean 2GB or vram will not be enough on future games.

Actually that's exactly what it means. All the new games will be coded first on the PS4 and Xbox One, devs will not be too concerned about memory limitations on the PC side.

 

[Sleepingforest]

Actually that's exactly what it means. All the new games will be coded first on the PS4 and Xbox One, devs will not be too concerned about memory limitations on the PC side.

Yes, but if you look at the PS4, I don't see a huge increase in RAM available. It is rumored 1GB is reserved for the OS and other background tasks. That means 7GB is left for the CPU and GPU; assuming that the CPU needs a maximum of 3GB of RAM leaves 4GB for the graphics card--you'd need some really, really high resolution textures to use that much, and lower wuality textures will almost certainly be available on PC.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Welp pulling the trigger and grabbing the HIS IceQ X², was deciding between it and the Vapor X but it seems the HIS is just the better received card this time around, and it will fit in my case with a whopping 5 whole mm to spare!

Picked up some other goodies for my system so I'm hoping I get a card that can break 1200 MHz core clock. Thanks for all the advice everyone!