Should I buy a R7 370 new or GTX 660 Used?

[john5220]

As the title says

I read bad things about older Nvidia cards that Nvidia is trying to kill their cards since performance keeps going down while AMD keeps going up with newer driver releases on newer games

also do I really need a 4GB card? there is a version of the R7 370 but honestly I will be playing mainly Killer Instinct and Street Fighter 5 next year.

i do currently have a 1GB HD 7850 but I dunno if it will be enough to run SF5 and KI at highest settings due to limiting VRAM. Currently it cannot run Mortal Kombat X on high textures but I dunno how it will work with KI and SF5

 

[Seba]

They are very similar in performance, but neither are a worthwhile upgrade from a HD 7850.

In fact R7 370 is more or less a re-branded HD 7850 (with slightly higher frequencies).

2GB of video memory would be an improvement, but not worth the cost (unless you can sell your HD 7850 1GB for a fair amount).

4GB has to high of a price premium and is of limited use on this level of graphics card.

 

[john5220]

hmm I see, do you recommend anything?

I will be selling my HD 7850 for sure. will recover atleast $100 US for it. I really am aiming for the VRAM I want to play Killer Instinct and Street Fighter 5 on Ultra settings next year.

Guide me on this path. I was thinking 4GB might be useless at this level since the actual GPU is hardly powerful enough to utilize it.

I should note I am 1080p monitor and will NOT be upgrading this resolution for the next 15 years to come.

 

[Seba]

What CPU and what power supply do you have?

 

[Red Hawk]

A Radeon 370 is basically a slightly improved 7850, and a Geforce 660 is on the same level. Literally the only significant improvement you're getting is that extra 1 GB of RAM, which is significant for sure but not really worth buying a whole new graphics card for. I'd save your money up a bit and buy at least a Radeon 380 or a Geforce 960, which would be an improvement over your 7850 on all fronts.

 

[john5220]

A Radeon 370 is basically a slightly improved 7850, and a Geforce 660 is on the same level. Literally the only significant improvement you're getting is that extra 1 GB of RAM, which is significant for sure but not really worth buying a whole new graphics card for. I'd save your money up a bit and buy at least a Radeon 380 or a Geforce 960, which would be an improvement over your 7850 on all fronts.

Hi I can afford a GTX 960 2GB no problem.

But I am concerned about recent plots by Nvidia to reduce the potential of all their GPUs as they release new ones.

Is the GTX 960 a good enough upgrade from a 7850? I know the VRAM will be the biggest benefit.

And my specs are well I ordered a i3 4170 3.7 GHZ with 8GB DDR 3 1333mhz Ram and Rosewill 750W Gold PSU

 

[Seba]

A GTX 960 2GB would be a good upgrade from HD 7850 1GB.

Another good option (depending on price and availability, since it is a discontinued card) would be R9 280 3GB. Or R9 280X 3GB.

The games you are interested in are not yet released (so the system requirements are not known yet), but in general those cards would be good enough for games at 1920x1080.

If you can afford it, you can go even higher, to GTX 970 or R9 290/R9 290X/R9 390.

Some are long cards (even 12"), so make sure that they fit in your case.

It is not a plot to reduce the performance of older GPUs. The newer ones are better (as they should be), and the owners of older ones are somewhat upset by that.

 

[john5220]

ok thanks so we can safely say that a R7 370 is a r7 265 which is exactly a HD 7850? just rebranded but uses same architecture? so if looking to benchmark the 960 against the r7 370 I could just look up benchmarks of a HD 7850?

 

[Seba]

HD 7850, R7 265 and R9 370 are basically the same. R9 270 and R9 270X (which is an overclocked R9 270) are slightly above those.

If comparing to your HD 7850, keep in mind that you have the 1GB version.

 

[bononos]

......
It is not a plot to reduce the performance of older GPUs. The newer ones are better (as they should be), and the owners of older ones are somewhat upset by that.

I think the issue is that Nvidia hasn't kept pace with AMD in minor performance increases with newer drivers for their older cards. I heard that because AMD has stuck to the same gcn architecture with minor tweaks for the past 3 gens its easier for them to pull up their 7xxx cards along with the new drivers.

 

[DigDog]

there's been a story out on the web these days that new nvidia drivers reduce performance of older cards, but it's all tin foil hat stuff.

OP, you say you can get $100 for a used 7850? that sounds a bit too high. 50 bucks would be more like it.

 

[Headfoot]

Yeah, used 7950 Boosts go for $100. If you can get $100 for the 7850 that would be great but I wouldn't count on it. If you are willing to go used, keep an eye out for used 7970, 7970 Ghz Edition, or 280X. They are very inexpensive used but they're really quite a bit faster than what you've got and they have 3GB of VRAM.

 

[DigDog]

im curious ..

OP, have you tried overclocking your card? and your cpu ?

it could make a difference, and with a cost of zero.

 

[john5220]

im curious ..

OP, have you tried overclocking your card? and your cpu ?

it could make a difference, and with a cost of zero.

no the issue with my card is the 1GB VRAM I suspect

I saw petitions and shit on Nvidia's website to fix their drivers for old card basically everyone is saying Nvidia is purposely killing their older cards. Like how a R9 280X is more powerful than a GTX 780 ti these days. When they first came out you would swear the 780 was that much better than 280 r9

 

[tential]

no the issue with my card is the 1GB VRAM I suspect

I saw petitions and shit on Nvidia's website to fix their drivers for old card basically everyone is saying Nvidia is purposely killing their older cards. Like how a R9 280X is more powerful than a GTX 780 ti these days. When they first came out you would swear the 780 was that much better than 280 r9

You really need to dial it back with your ideas that companies plot things like this. Really, I had linked you a lot of books/things to read last year, I hope you actually took the time to read that information.

How is a 780Ti less powerful than a 280x?

Another scenario now to help you understand this situation.
X and Y are going somewhere.

Illustration of the speed rate in which X and Y are going:

X-------------
Y------

Now, Y speeds up and they are now both going at this rate:
X-------------
Y-----------

Are you telling me X got slower? NO, Y got faster. In this case Y is AMD.

Picking ONE game in which an architecture does poorly doesn't mean X card is faster than Y card overall. By your own logic:

Because GCN isn't optimized for Project Cars (for whatever reason), it's now WORSE than Kepler/Maxwell. FOR ONE game.

This is just a ridiculous way of looking at it. It's simple, Nvidia's priorities are on it's newest architecture first. AMD's priorities are the SAME. Except their architecture is similar up and down which is great for them. For Nvidia, when PAscal comes out, you have Kepler, Maxwell, and Pascal fighting for help. AMD still has GCN.

It's simply business.... which is what I tried to teach you a LONG time ago on here when you were new. If you had read that material, you'd be well equipped to evaluate the market and make this decision yourself quite easily.

Also, lol that you didn't even TRY to OC your card. Why would you simply ignore trying? I put 300+ mhz on my 7950 in the worst cooling environment possible. I'm eager to see what I get once I actually upgrade my cooling now that I need my PC to be far more silent. But hey, it's your money whatever.