39 replies to this topic

[OfficerTaco]

I bought a XFX Radeon 6750 last christmas for $100 and I can run almost anything as of right now on high settings, you dont need to spend a fortune to be able to play these demanding games. In fact i never even look at required specs unless someone asks me about it.

Although i did buy a 600w corsair with it for a total of $200.

I made everything important bigger.

Edited by NotoriousForce, 18 June 2012 - 05:48 PM.

[Vulpesveritas]

Blackfire1, on 18 June 2012 - 05:39 PM, said:

Just buy two GTX 560 TI's They'll give you all the power you ever need for the next 6 years.

I always buy last years model unless it was something like the 460 vs the 560. (Day and night heat and power wise.)

Why buy two 560 ti's when you suffer from driver issues and some games won't run under SLI, not to mention microstuttering? When a 670, 7970, or 680 on it's own would be just as fast but use less power and have none of the above issues?

[Reported for Inappropriate Name]

I like nvidia drivers more

but as far as a really good videocard goes

you want at least 256 bit memory interface
at least 1 gb of ram
ample volts amps (lol) to power the card


on nvidia cards a GT or GTX, GTS is acceptable but not preferred
as far as the numbers go in the three number system it's [Generation number][Quality][??]
typically nothing below x60 (example 460 gtx, also known as the firestarter), x50's are okay but if you can go the little extra effort for an x60 you'll be glad you did.

on ati cards it's a little more defined, the four number system going [Generation Number][Series Quality][Relative Quality][??]

typically nothing but the x8xx and x9xx have better than 128bit memory bandwith, but in some cases x7xx is fine too. as far as relative quality goes I prefer to not go lower than xx70 but that's my preference

my advice to you is do research, but if you can follow these guidelines you can probably find what you're looking for

and seriously, every now and then nvidia might release a patch that disables the fan on your videocard, but it still beats ati drivers.

Edited by Battlecruiser, 18 June 2012 - 05:54 PM.

[Vulpesveritas]

Battlecruiser, on 18 June 2012 - 05:52 PM, said:

I like nvidia drivers more

but as far as a videocard goes

you want at least 256 bit memory interface
at least 1 gb of ram
ample volts amps (lol) to power the card


on nvidia cards a GT or GTX, GTS is acceptable
as far as the numbers go in the three number system it's [Generation number][Quality][??]
typically nothing below x60 (example 460 gtx, also known as the firestarter), x50's are okay but if you can go the little extra effort for an x60 you'll be glad you did.

on ati cards it's a little more defined, the four number system going [Generation Number][Series Quality][Relative Quality][??]

typically nothing but the x8xx and x9xx have better than 128bit memory bandwith, but in some cases x7xx is fine too. as far as relative quality goes I prefer to not go lower than xx70 but that's my preference

my advice to you is do research, but if you can follow these guidelines you can probably find what you're looking for

and seriously, every now and then nvidia might release a patch that disables the fan on your videocard, but it still beats ati drivers.

Well, it's a good thing there are no more ATI drivers, eh? Being bought by AMD was one of the best thing that ever happened to Radeon users lol.
Also I would disagree, seeing how a Radeon HD 7770 outperforms the 256 bit 6850 in many cases, despite being 128bit.

Edited by Vulpesveritas, 18 June 2012 - 05:55 PM.

[Reported for Inappropriate Name]

Vulpesveritas, on 18 June 2012 - 05:54 PM, said:

Well, it's a good thing there are no more ATI drivers, eh? Being bought by AMD was one of the best thing that ever happened to Radeon users lol.

they're still ***.

the only feature they added was a "cpu auto overclock" feature that's guaranteed to ruin your computer to the point of repairs if you use it- and for about 5 months there the most recent drivers broke anti aliasing into making everything horrid and blocky

Edited by Battlecruiser, 18 June 2012 - 05:56 PM.

[Eric darkstar Marr]

I love my 560 ti 448 it runs everything max @ 1080p even can run run 3 graphic intense games at once while meeting a min of 60 FPS , though I run a OC'd water cooled system. With that when I go to fans for testing I can still run any game on max settings without issue.

[Vulpesveritas]

Battlecruiser, on 18 June 2012 - 05:55 PM, said:

they're still ***.

the only feature they added was a "cpu auto overclock" feature that's guaranteed to ruin your computer to the point of repairs if you use it- and for about 5 months there the most recent drivers broke anti aliasing into making everything horrid and blocky

Yet now with driver releases there are no issues in 99% of games and a few minor issues in the other 1%. lol. What was the last Radeon card you used again? XD

[Reported for Inappropriate Name]

honestly the little differences aren't that big


it's a lot like faster ram. between the different speeds of ram you won't even notice a difference unless you drop a lot of money on really fast ram with great timings, and even then you have to have similar quality hardware. you won't notice much of a difference within the same type of ram and different speeds if any. If you do serious business work then the little things can add up and save you days of time, but for gaming you wont even notice a difference between 50$ ram and 120$ ram


there's also the dangerous overclocking option for experienced computer enthusiasts but really, this is not the thing you should be doing if your budget is tight.

Vulpesveritas, on 18 June 2012 - 05:59 PM, said:

Yet now with driver releases there are no issues in 99% of games and a few minor issues in the other 1%. lol. What was the last Radeon card you used again? XD

still using a 5770. I've built a few computers for other people (envy included) but I'm thinking it's time i replaced my power supply and gpu, and I should probably go with an x8xx series at the least with my upgrade. I also don't like ati because it gives me problems when I want to manually adjust my resolution and maintain the refresh rate I want in games without it defaulting to the lowest number. It's mainly why my quake machine uses nvidia with its crt. then again it's really old so lol

Edited by Battlecruiser, 18 June 2012 - 06:06 PM.

[Homeles]

Vulpesveritas, on 14 June 2012 - 12:56 PM, said:

You seem to have a couple of things wrong.

First of all, the Radeon HD 7970 is faster than a Geforce GTX 670. Furthermore stock cards on the 7970 start at around $460 last time I checked. Also, with overclocking the 7970 can run faster than the highest overclocked 680.

As far as bad cards go, you get them on both sides. Its normal with aby electronic device; something slips past qc, or is damaged in transit, or perhaps it has a somewhat corrupt BIOS.... a lot can happen.

Personally, on the AMD side, I would say you're best with HIS, Powercolor, or XFX. On the Nvidia side, EVGA, Asus, or MSI is the way to go.

Disagree with a few things there.

Firstly, the 670 is equal to the 7970 in speed (faster with Nvidia's most recent beta drivers) at stock. You even linked a chart showing that they're on par, so I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. Everything else that you said there I agree with. OP didn't list his resolution, so it's not possible to say which is faster. Only at 2560x1600 and above does the 7970 pull ahead above margin of error, and it's quite possible that the aforementioned beta drivers negate the 7970's lead anyways. If the OP overclocks and plays at higher resolutions, the 7970 might be the way to go. As the OP mentioned though, the 7970 GHz edition will be out within 30 days, so it might be worth waiting for. It's doubtful that it'll drop in at a higher price.

Second, XFX RMA service is notorious for having ridiculous RMA rejections. If you're looking for the highest quality on the AMD side of things, ASUS and MSI are the way to go, particularly MSI. HSI has been stepping it up recently though. As far as the Nvidia side of things go, I agree. I have a personal vendetta against EVGA, but they do have a lifetime warranty that you can take advantage of and offer a step up program.

Blackfire1, on 18 June 2012 - 05:39 PM, said:

Just buy two GTX 560 TI's They'll give you all the power you ever need for the next 6 years.

I always buy last years model unless it was something like the 460 vs the 560. (Day and night heat and power wise.)

Read the OP... (s)he'd rather not put up with multi GPU configs. Also, you are a bit optimistic if you think they'll last 6 years before needing replacement because of either failure or lack of performance.

Battlecruiser, on 18 June 2012 - 06:01 PM, said:

there's also the dangerous overclocking option for experienced computer enthusiasts but really, this is not the thing you should be doing if your budget is tight.

Overclocking is really only dangerous if you have no idea what you're doing.

Battlecruiser, on 18 June 2012 - 05:55 PM, said:

they're still ***.

the only feature they added was a "cpu auto overclock" feature that's guaranteed to ruin your computer to the point of repairs if you use it- and for about 5 months there the most recent drivers broke anti aliasing into making everything horrid and blocky

It's called turbo boost, and you have no idea what you're talking about. I'd like to see you try and find evidence to support that claim. Intel offers a similar feature, and you failed to mention that, which shows you've got a bit of an agenda.

Edited by Homeles, 18 June 2012 - 06:16 PM.

[Vulpesveritas]

Homeles, on 18 June 2012 - 06:11 PM, said:

Disagree with a few things there.

Firstly, the 670 is equal to the 7970 in speed (faster with Nvidia's most recent beta drivers) at stock. You even linked a chart showing that they're on par, so I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. Everything else that you said there I agree with. OP didn't list his resolution, so it's not possible to say which is faster. Only at 2560x1600 and above does the 7970 pull ahead above margin of error, and it's quite possible that the aforementioned beta drivers negate the 7970's lead anyways. If the OP overclocks and plays at higher resolutions, the 7970 might be the way to go. As the OP mentioned though, the 7970 GHz edition will be out within 30 days, so it might be worth waiting for. It's doubtful that it'll drop in at a higher price.

Second, XFX RMA service is notorious for having ridiculous RMA rejections. If you're looking for the highest quality on the AMD side of things, ASUS and MSI are the way to go, particularly MSI. HSI has been stepping it up recently though. As far as the Nvidia side of things go, I agree. I have a personal vendetta against EVGA, but they do have a lifetime warranty that you can take advantage of and offer a step up program.

The 7970 is hundreds of times faster in GPGPU and overclocks higher versus the 670. Hence why I said it was faster.
I haven't heard anything bad on the XFX RMA service before to be honest, although I have heard bad things about ever trying to get anything out of a mail in rebate from them.
HIS has the best factory cooler for a 7970, and overall their IceQ line of coolers are very good. Customer service from them is above average. They have the best cooled card and among the quietest cards.
Powercolor have the highest factory overclocks on the AMD side of things, with very quiet, very highly rated coolers on their PCS+ line.

[Reported for Inappropriate Name]

Homeles, on 18 June 2012 - 06:11 PM, said:

Overclocking is really only dangerous if you have no idea what you're doing.



It's called turbo boost, and you have no idea what you're talking about. I'd like to see you try and find evidence to support that claim. Intel offers a similar feature, and you failed to mention that, which shows you've got a bit of an agenda.

and that's why I said experienced. you lecture me like you think that experienced people have no idea what they're doing

as far as intel goes- I've never owned intel outside of my quake machine so yeah, as far as intel goes i'm still in the early 2000's at best, but it's only safe to assume that they would have something similar considering they are competitors. I'm sorry you're getting all buttmad about one thing or another but maybe you should check that ego instead of attacking others.


but besides that. you basically say "overclocking is really only dangerous if you have no idea what you're doing" which is true, but then you go on to defend automatic overclock software?

Edited by Battlecruiser, 18 June 2012 - 06:29 PM.

[Vulpesveritas]

Battlecruiser, on 18 June 2012 - 06:23 PM, said:

well I've never owned intel outside of my quake machine so yeah, as far as intel goes i'm still in the early 2000's

Intel actually came out with turbo boost first. Heck Nvidia does the same thing now with their "dynamic clocks"

Basically, when there is enough power and heat overhead the processor self-overclocks until there is no such overhead available.

[Reported for Inappropriate Name]

Vulpesveritas, on 18 June 2012 - 06:26 PM, said:

Intel actually came out with turbo boost first. Heck Nvidia does the same thing now with their "dynamic clocks"

Basically, when there is enough power and heat overhead the processor self-overclocks until there is no such overhead available.

which is completely different from "click this button and we'll automatically overclock your computer! It's super easy!"

which is what amd overdrive basically amounts to

Edited by Battlecruiser, 18 June 2012 - 06:38 PM.

[Homeles]

Vulpesveritas, on 18 June 2012 - 06:19 PM, said:

The 7970 is hundreds of times faster in GPGPU and overclocks higher versus the 670. Hence why I said it was faster.

Hundreds? Try 2-3, and also its lead in compute is quite dependent on workload. Remember, the 670 also consumes less power.

Battlecruiser, on 18 June 2012 - 06:23 PM, said:

but besides that. you basically say "overclocking is really only dangerous if you have no idea what you're doing" which is true, but then you go on to defend automatic overclock software?

Turbo boost isn't overclocking... nor is it a software level implementation.

[Vulpesveritas]

Battlecruiser, on 18 June 2012 - 06:37 PM, said:

which is completely different from "click this button and we'll automatically overclock your computer! It's super easy!"

which is what amd overdrive basically amounts to

which is an optional program , not a built in feature. Not to mention, there is a big ol' warning message you get telling you it can fry your system.

Homeles, on 18 June 2012 - 06:38 PM, said:

Hundreds? Try 2-3, and also its lead in compute is quite dependent on workload. Remember, the 670 also consumes less power.

Okay, the hundreds was an exaggeration of expression. But in many cases it is five times to dozens of times faster.
http://www.theinquir...870-gpu-compute
http://muropaketti.c...amd-vs-nvidia,2
http://www.tomshardw...rk,3161-14.html
http://parallelis.co...n-gpgpu-gtx680/

[Reported for Inappropriate Name]

Homeles, on 18 June 2012 - 06:38 PM, said:

Turbo boost isn't overclocking... nor is it a software level implementation.

but I was talking about software implementation. maybe next time you should stay on topic.

Vulpesveritas, on 18 June 2012 - 06:45 PM, said:

which is an optional program , not a built in feature.

which is... what I said? like 3 posts ago when I was talking about drivers? what in particular am I getting attacked about again?

Edited by Battlecruiser, 18 June 2012 - 07:18 PM.

[Vulpesveritas]

Battlecruiser, on 18 June 2012 - 07:18 PM, said:

but I was talking about software implementation. maybe next time you should stay on topic.




which is... what I said? like 3 posts ago when I was talking about drivers? what in particular am I getting attacked about again?

well, it seemed implied that it would burn a processor... anyhow. That aside, did not mean an attack here.

[Reported for Inappropriate Name]

Vulpesveritas, on 18 June 2012 - 07:30 PM, said:

well, it seemed implied that it would burn a processor... anyhow. That aside, did not mean an attack here.

I've heard of these programs over volting things and burning them out. I would never trust them

if it's built into the hardware however, that's an entirely different matter. hardware engineers usually adhere to a better standard and no company in their right mind would release defective hardware intentionally and expect to last long

unless you're amd and it's common practice to release damaged multi core wafers as less cored but still functional products

Edited by Battlecruiser, 18 June 2012 - 07:43 PM.

[Vulpesveritas]

Battlecruiser, on 18 June 2012 - 07:41 PM, said:

I've heard of these programs over volting things and burning them out. I would never trust them

if it's built into the hardware however, that's an entirely different matter. hardware engineers usually adhere to a better standard and no company in their right mind would release defective hardware intentionally and expect to last long

unless you're amd and it's common practice to release damaged multi core wafers as less cored but still functional products

Nvidia does the same thing. Ever see the 670, 560ti 448, or 570? all of those are damaged wafers technically
And intel has the i5-2550k which has a damaged iGP.

As far as the program over volting things... that's only if you select the over volting option when overclocking and it is in the advanced user options section.

[Reported for Inappropriate Name]

Vulpesveritas, on 18 June 2012 - 07:57 PM, said:

As far as the program over volting things... that's only if you select the over volting option when overclocking and it is in the advanced user options section.

well I guess They've advanced since the last time I looked at them then. I havent even bothered looking at the settings in many years on some of these programs because I prefer to do things myself and the stories i've heard. but I personally wouldn't trust software to do things for me when it actually matters