Upgrading from an 8800GT!

[DarkRogue]

Hello, everyone,

It's been a little over 4 years since I upgraded from an ATI 9500 Pro (and a 9800 Pro) to this 8800GT. I feel it's time for an upgrade, so I'm putting together an IVB build, but I have no idea what to get for a GPU.

My upcoming system will most likely have an i7-3770K, some flavor of a Z77 mobo, as well as 16 or 32GB of ram. Probably 2x8 to start, and I'll drop in another 2x8 if I find I'm running out.

As far as gaming goes, I'll play pretty much anything from Recettear to Skyrim, both included, on my NEC 1920x1200 LCD. I know I want to play at least Skyrim and Deus Ex HR, since I've held off on them until they get really cheap. The catch here is that I don't game often, so I would like good idle power consumption, yet powerful enough that I can turn on some eye candy (or go wild with Skyrim mods.)

I've budgeted roughly $300 or so for the GPU in my upgrade, which may change depending on how much I wind up spending on the mobo and CPU ($300 each allocated.) SLI/Crossfire is not a consideration.

I'm also planning on tossing on an Arctic Cooling heatsink, as I don't trust any stock HSF to be quiet enough.

At this price point, it looks like I'm stuck between an AMD 7850 and 7870. I might be able to stretch for a 7950, but I don't know if it will really be worth it. GTX680, as appealing as it sounds, is priced out of my league.

I imagine there are good deals to be had with AMD's 6000 series, and Nvidia's 500 series, but I'd imagine the newer 28nm stuff plays better with idle power, which is very important to me.

Any suggestions? :/
Thanks, everyone.

 

[Don Karnage]

7850 is the new "5770" IMO. Overclocks like a dream and is fairly cheap

 

[Jaydip]

Grab a 7850 now or wait for the NV refresh scheduled for May.I myself would wait unless u r in a hurry

 

[Dark Shroud]

Grab a 7850 now or wait for the NV refresh scheduled for May.I myself would wait unless u r in a hurry

Has that actually been confirmed or is it just rumor based?

 

[Jaydip]

Well it has been rumor mostly.But i remember reading that 670ti/660 is coming on May on many different sites.

 

[DarkRogue]

It depends how early in May.

I'm planning on grabbing the IVB build as soon as the CPU comes out, and reviews of the Z77 mobos are available. If I'm certain I'll go with an Nvidia card again, I could just use my 8800GT for a little while longer, but I really don't want to go through the hassle of switching drivers over if I decide to go AMD, lol.

7850 seems ok, but will it really handle 19x12 well?

 

[Jaydip]

Yeah it will.But u should have reasonable expectations from a mid tier card.It also ocs very well if that's your thing.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Buy a 3570K and get a GTX 680.

 

[DarkRogue]

A 3570K would not be a very good tradeoff for me, unfortunately.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Maybe a used GTX 580?

Sometimes I feel like at certain price points the new gen just misses the mark completely.

 

[HURRIC4NE]

IMHO.. get a 7850.... for the price point, they are EXCELLENT when OC'd... i know that cause i am running it right now, it runs BF3 with the highest (ultra+) on everything and still give me above 40+ FPS... without OC! with OC i get 50+ all time!


HOWEVER.... if you do have cash to spare... go for the 680.. or the 7970.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

What do you typically use your PC for besides gaming?

 

[DarkRogue]

Typically, the biggest things are Lightroom and Photoshop.

I game as a break between photo editing sessions.
Otherwise, I'm pretty sure my GPU's are idle most of the time while I'm editing, which is why I'm placing some emphasis on idle power consumption.

I can probably spare a little bit extra, but even if I could, I have a really hard time justifying near $500, or $500+ for flagship cards. I normally just pick the price/performance winner around $200 and am done with it, but things got spoiled with the 8800GT/HD4850 era up until now, pricing-wise. That's why I upped my budget a bit to $300.

Does it make any sense to try for a 7950 over the 7850?
The 7870 seems really dumb at $100 over the 7850, and only $50 shy of the 7950.

Overlord: I don't want to grab the older gen just yet, since I believe the newer stuff idles much more conservatively, power-wise.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Overlord: I don't want to grab the older gen just yet, since I believe the newer stuff idles much more conservatively, power-wise.

Newer stuff does idle better. Just a recommendation, used 580s are great bang/buck.

Also, I hadn't looked into the 7850 bandwagon, that might be the card to get.

 

[TemjinGold]

OP: Did you budget for an SSD? $300 each for cpu and mobo seems like overkill if you didn't...

 

[DarkRogue]

I already have an SSD - Crucial M4 256GB in my sig.

I popped it in about 6 months ago to help prolong the life of my current rig while I waited for IVB.

It's getting thrashed like crazy though, because I keep running out of my 4gb system ram between Firefox, Photohop and Lightroom.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Buy a 2500k + 7850 and upgrade every 2 years instead. That is better than buying 3960X + 680 and upgrading after 4-5 years.

 

[DarkRogue]

I can't really afford to upgrade every 2 years. Even if I got crap components, I would try and run them for 4-5 years.

*Edit:
I originally built the rig in my sig with the intention of upgrading piece-by-piece every year or two to keep it updated.

Well, judging by the items still in it, you can see how well that plan turned out...

 

[aaksheytalwar]

That is your mindset. If you spend 50% of the money right now, you have 50% left for the future.

 

[Denithor]

I've budgeted roughly $300 or so for the GPU in my upgrade, which may change depending on how much I wind up spending on the mobo and CPU ($300 each allocated.) SLI/Crossfire is not a consideration.

Readjust your allocation a little bit here:

$300 cpu
$150 mobo
$450 gpu

There, now you can get a 7950...

As a note, there are quite a few Z77 boards for $100 or less and a bunch will almost certainly be discounted along with the 3770K when it launches. Save $25-75 on that part of the build, throw into the GPU and you're going to love it.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

But a $200 CPU, $125 motherboard and $250 gpu. Save the rest for upgrade after 2 years

 

[blckgrffn]

I also vote for spending the little extra to get one with a nice cooling solution. If you are going to have it that long, it might as well be quiet & cool and all that... haha, looking more closely at your sig, I see we are likely on the same page there

7950 at its new price point could be pretty attractive. It should have some pretty long legs.

I'd also put out there that you should just buy all that ram at once. That way it is uniform and if you get a bad set right away, you don't have to wait to assemble your rig during the RMA process

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Get 16gb ram since you need for > 2 years

 

[DarkRogue]

I will re-evaluate my budget allocations with regard to the motherboard when reviews of the Z77 mobos come out. AT seems to be holding them back until the IVB NDA is lifted.

With the trend of pricing lately, I allocated $300 to it just in case. However, Gigabyte's UD5H is priced at under $200, which is very good news. However, ASUS' -V Deluxe board is near $300. I would like to see some reviews to find out why there's such a staggering price difference. I will be OC'ing the CPU, hoping to target a mild 4.5GHz OC, so I hope the boards VRM's will be able to handle them, since a lot of Z77 boards are cutting down on the number of power phases.

aaksheytalwar, I understand what you're advocating, but from experience, it simply does not work with me. I can't see myself upgrading and swapping parts regularly. I don't really know what it is, but outside of these major builds, I really hate spending money upgrading parts unless they break, lol.

blckgrffn, spending extra for a nice stock cooler is of no importance to me, as I'm fairly certain I will grab an Arctic Cooling heatsink (one of the variations of their accelero xtremes.) I've had good experience with my Accelero S1 being able to passively cool the 8800GT, and strapping a quiet Nexus fan undervolted to 5v (just under 500rpm) gives it very good cooling power for barely any noise.

As far as buying 32gb of ram up front, I'm very tempted to, but it would be an extra $100 out of the budget. I figured if anything I could throw that in at a later date when prices come down some more, or if 16gb would be enough to last me until my next build with DDR4.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Buy 3570k plus z77 gd65 msi plus 7950 custom plus 16gb