Graphics card upgrade advice

TheDoc

Howdy folks,

Looking to upgrade the GFX in my PC after the release of BF3 where I want more smoothness on high settings.

Here are some pictures of my spec. I think the GFX in it at the moment is a 5770





PSU is OCZ ZS 650w PSU I think

Looking to buy from overclockers as they are my number one stop and pexcellent service. They also run some deals on weekly so any advise would be great.

Looking for a substantial boost considering I'll probably be paying between £150-180 , although I've no real budget outside of not paying a truckload

At thie moment this caught my eye but I havnt done any comparision or reading online yet

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-275-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=

thysol

Good choice. I would go for this one though:

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/info/p727155/pid/geizhals

But yours is also a good choice, you choose.:)

Monotype

How about the 560 ti? It's nearly as powerful as the 6950 which is the recommended for ultra settings in BF3. I haven't looked at BF3 doing better with ATI or nVidia though. 6950 is a bit over budget though and seem to be especially dear on OCUK.

£174 for the Asus
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-247-AS

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-GeForce-560TI-DirectCUII-Graphics/dp/B004K8R8DA/
£169.38 from amazon incl free delivery and IRL VAT.

or £160 for the OCUK branded
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-173-OK

TheDoc

hmm, I've been happy with ATI to be fair and havnt had a problem with them. I used to be with Nvidia and remember alot of problems with drivers and stuff, and I recall last week all my mates freaking out about some drivers that came and were causing serious issues : /


Nvidia ahead in the game these days ?

Monotype

It's really down to games themselves. There's always one that has a problem somewhere where the other doesn't. I've used both over the time - more AMD recently because of better value at that particular time.
Their 500 series is looking very good in general with performance and efficiency. I can't tell you about recent drivers as I don't have a new card.

TheDoc

I'll do a little more research and reading before making a decision, the 6870 definitely tickling my fancy at the moment

TheDoc

Should mention I'm only considering buying from Overclockers.co.uk, really don't trust anyone else and this place to good so they get all my business.

Trevor451

Have you considered buying a MSi twin frozr iii 6950? They have a high success rate of unlocking to a 6970.
Around €260 delivered from Overclockers though :O

cdb

This Asus 560ti is another decent Nvidia option @€;204, factory overclocked to 900 MHz with free shipping Link

allen175

I bought the Asus gtx 560Ti overclocked the other day, i have to say it is fantastic for bf3, i can run everything on high and get a steady 60fps, or turn it to ultra and get around 30 fps. Runs nice and cool, idles at 31 degress and doubles under load, the only bad thing is the fans like to get abit noisy at about 50 degrees.

Shamo

I ordered the Asus 560 ti 900Mhz as part of a system upgrade after researching for a few days. Ordered it from dabs but won't have it until end of the week.

Gives even more overclocking potential as well. Good review where they found 970Mhz to be stable: http://www.geeks3d.com/20110207/asus-gtx-560-ti-dc2-gpu-overclocking-vddc-voltage-clock/

TheDoc

aHave a few friends who bought that 560TI recently, might give it a nosey

Blair

Shamo wrote: »

I ordered the Asus 560 ti 900Mhz as part of a system upgrade after researching for a few days. Ordered it from dabs but won't have it until end of the week.

Gives even more overclocking potential as well. Good review where they found 970Mhz to be stable: http://www.geeks3d.com/20110207/asus-gtx-560-ti-dc2-gpu-overclocking-vddc-voltage-clock/

I ordered one yesterday also, when I placed the order it said in stock, now it’s stuck processing as they are waiting on a 1-2 week delivery of stock. I probably won’t get it for a few weeks now. :mad:

Serephucus

I've been using the 500-series NVIDIA cards since about a month after their release. I haven't had a single driver-related problem so far. (except for a low 3DMark score when I forgot to downloaded the latest ones after a reinstall, but I'm not counting my idiocy here. :P)

I've heard great things about the Ti from quite a few people. Seems to be a nice card.

TheDoc

Well kinda too'ing and fro'ing, looking at investing in a tablet aswell

Might pickup the 560TI around xmas

Thanks for the advice guys I'll let you know how I get on

( Tenner says I dont hold out for xmas and buy soon)

Serephucus

Off-topic: The ASUS Transformer is a fantastic bit of kit. I've got one, and I love it.

Monotype

If you're going to wait until Christmas, there's rumours of AMD's 7000 series at the beginning of December.

farna_boy

You could always pick up a second 5770 if your board supports crossfire and your PSU is large enough ( I just bought my second one last week to crossfire). Two 5770's are roughly equivalent to a 5870, depending on the game (but the 5870 is probably slightly better).

A 6950 is about 2% better than a 5870 so overall I think a second 5770 could be good value. For it to be worth it though, you have to ensure three things:

1. Your board supports crossfire
2. Your PSU is large enough
3. You don't spend more than €100 (possibly less) getting a 5770.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't get a 560 or a 6950, I am just providing a potentially cheaper alternative that will give you similar results. Either of the other two cards could be a better option in the long run but if you are tight for cash it may be worth considering.

Blair

Got to laugh at Dabs, My Asus 560ti 900 MHz arrived today even though it was still in the processing stage on the website. Can’t wait for the rest of the upgrades to arrive. Have to say it is very well packaged and presented.

PseudoFamous

Monotype wrote: »

If you're going to wait until Christmas, there's rumours of AMD's 7000 series at the beginning of December.

I really wish tech companies would just come out and say when they're going to release a product, with a full and proper date. Not doing it is just dickery of the highest order.

TheDoc

farna_boy wrote: »

You could always pick up a second 5770 if your board supports crossfire and your PSU is large enough ( I just bought my second one last week to crossfire). Two 5770's are roughly equivalent to a 5870, depending on the game (but the 5870 is probably slightly better).

A 6950 is about 2% better than a 5870 so overall I think a second 5770 could be good value. For it to be worth it though, you have to ensure three things:

1. Your board supports crossfire
2. Your PSU is large enough
3. You don't spend more than €100 (possibly less) getting a 5770.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't get a 560 or a 6950, I am just providing a potentially cheaper alternative that will give you similar results. Either of the other two cards could be a better option in the long run but if you are tight for cash it may be worth considering.

I was contemplating doing that, my card now costs roughly about €50 on ebay, I'm just wondering how exact the cards have to be, dont they need to be identical.

AFAIK
1) My board supports crossfire
2) My PSU is large enough
3) I wont spend over €100

Also starting to look at my CPU aswell, once you start I guess you look at everything

TheDoc

Looking at this

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-267-AM&tool=3

and this

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-275-AM&tool=3

Currently the one I'm running might be a little dated, these two go nicely into my motherboard aswell.

Nearly tempted to just go for the CPU since I think my GFX is still pretty decent, and the bump in CPU power might make things run a bit smoother,

Thoughts?

Or should I just ****it and buy a new CPU AND GPU

EDIT **:::

For the love of god somebody stop me

farna_boy

TheDoc wrote: »

I was contemplating doing that, my card now costs roughly about €50 on ebay, I'm just wondering how exact the cards have to be, dont they need to be identical.

AFAIK
1) My board supports crossfire
2) My PSU is large enough
3) I wont spend over €100

Also starting to look at my CPU aswell, once you start I guess you look at everything

As far as I know, (and you should probably check this yourself) as long as they are both 5770s you should be fine.

In fact, it is also possible to use any other ATI graphics card in crossfire, but they will both run at the performance of the lowest card i.e. if you put a 5450 in crossfire with your 5770, it would be the equivalent of having two 5450s in crossfire. I'm not sure if it would work with a 5 series card and a 6 series card but I don't think that really matters as a second 5770 is probably cheaper than an equivalent 6 series card anyway.

As for the CPU, I started doing that when I bought my second 5770 as well. I was even contemplating getting a Q9550 for €150 on ebay but after looking at the gaming benchmarks, I wasn't sure I could justify it. I think for the moment I will probably just try overclocking and if that isn't good enough, I'll re-evaluate.

Monotype

Your board doesn't support crossfire. It doesn't have two PCI-E slots.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3447#


The 1055T isn't a bad price but the additional cores won't do you that much good if gaming is your priority.
What about overclocking the processor that you have? Maybe you should be buying a good heatsink.

TheDoc

Monotype wrote: »

Your board doesn't support crossfire. It doesn't have two PCI-E slots.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3447#


The 1055T isn't a bad price but the additional cores won't do you that much good if gaming is your priority.
What about overclocking the processor that you have? Maybe you should be buying a good heatsink.

The 1055T is? Is that the CPU I linked?

I already have a Quad core no? So I'm not getting additional cores, I'm getting faster speeds.

I did just yesterday pop some new case fans into the case so I might look into possible overclocking and see where it gets me, hopefully a nice litle bump or something

Monotype

The 1055T is the 6 core CPU. You won't see a gain in most games going from 4 to 6 cores.
Your current athlon is 2.9GHz. You should be able to overclock that up to 3.6GHz without too much difficulty.

The phenom II X4 line would give you an extra bit of performance over the athlons because of their Level 3 cache. Not a massive difference, only about 5-10%.
The 980 is a bit expensive and I would go for the 955 over it.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-244-AM
It's an unlocked CPU too which means that you can change the multiplier - i.e., easy overclocking, so you should be able to get the same speeds as the 980 with little difficulty.

Want to save some money - keep what you have and overclock.
Want to get something new with a little more power for gaming - X4 955
Want to get more power overall, not just gaming in mind - X6 1055T

The X6s also overclock a bit better.

TheDoc

Must have a look into the overclocking my current one to see what the crack is with that?

So I'm kinda looking for a bump for mostly gaming, although I wouldnt mind something to help me stream my gaming better aswell which can be stream intensive.

CPU
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-244-AM
GPU
Not sure, I guess the 560TI from Nvidia looks the business now its just deciding on the actual manafacturer.

The reason I'm looking to upgrade I guess is these two parts are the oldest part of my system.

Also I'm getting into streaming my gaming more, and it is more CPU intensive.

Thanks for the help, I'll be looking to buy around Christmas possibly January so maybe there might be a price shift in stuff that might change the above haha

BTW I did a little install of a prog and my CPU is showing at 70C , is that high? Should I look into maybe a CPU cooler?

Thanks

TheDoc

Put an order just there for these parts. Thanks all for the advice.

Was look at the MSI twin forzr card but after reading some reviews and me getting concerned lately at the tempeture of my components this looked like a good investment.

Looking at ebay will get a bit of dosh for my old stuff so negates the price a little.

Thanks for the advice guys and I'll post pics when it arrives.

Another solid transaction with overclockers who say I'll have my items by Tuesday/WEdnesday

kfish2oo2

In the performance reviews on BF3, the Frostbite 2 engine tended to favour AMD cards. The trend is higher minimum FPS across corresponding nVidia/AMD cards.

However the difference tended to be less than 10fps so whatever fits your budget would be a solid choice. I've been using a GTX 460 for the last year or so and I have to say its a bloody good performer and overclocks like a demon (anecdotal evidence: my housemate overclocks his, I don't. If you do plan to overclock ensure the card has a decent non-reference cooling solution.)

TheDoc

Parts be here tomorrow...excited??!?!?!?!

TheDoc

Problems problems problems

I'm pretty pissed off consdering anytime i do something like this, a simple straight forward upgrade, something goes wrong.

2 hours installing components.

The new CPU heatsink was a pain but now thats sorted.

Now the big problem is blue screens, jsut when I thought id seen enough when I installed my new sSD and ram a few months ago its back.

The PC is just constantly looping, I can get to the login screen and when i enter my password it goes into a blue screen and then constantly loops.

New components were a CPU and a GFX, literally cant get into anything.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

At this point reformatting is not an option I want to look at, but it might be a last resort.

Oddly enough pc has been running fine previous, however I did notice this

My mobo memory spec from the website
4 x 1.8V DDR2 DIMM sockets supporting up to 16 GB of system memory

The ram I use that I bought few months back
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MH

Weird, I'm running DDR3 in a DDR2 mobo, is that right/ ok ? No problems before plonking in the new CPU and GPU.

I always get so excited for these new pc parts then forget how much toruble i have with them