so Im building my first gaming PC and theres no hard budget except that no single part can cost more than $300. which is fine no real problem except when it comes to graphics cards. since its my first id rather not overclock uless completely necessary to get what i want. I want to be able to play the average game on a single 24" 1920X1200 (i assume thats an average screen) monitor at full graphics at a bearable framerate.
if this is ridiculous or impossible just say so i wont be too heartbroken i mean what do you expect on a budget.
I origionally wanted a Radeon HD 7950 but it really kinda breaks my price range and that $300 cap is a hard cap (im unbelievably aweful at saving money so it has to be purchased in the spare money from one weeks pay or it wont be purchased at all) the cheepest i could find was $305 and then a $20 rebate but that would be really shaving it close.
my other option is a Radeon HD 7870. I was checking out the GHz edition but it seems most of the reviews of it on newegg have been about having serious problems with it. problems that i may not be able to afford to fix.
so my question is this.. should i risk it and go for the 7870 and hope for the best or is it not going to perform the way i hoped and i should just bit the bullet and get the 7950, or is there some other card that may achieve my goals that i could use?
depends on what you mean by 'average game'. some games are more graphics intensive than others, and some really don't care about graphics. minecraft, for example, will run fine on just about any gpu, as long as you have enough ram and a fast cpu. many fps games (such as crysis), on the other hand, will eat up all the performance of any graphics card and still be hungry.
for a budget like yours, i'd get a 7850 or 7870ghz, the only problem is with the default bios. if you update the bios when you install, you should not have a problem.
ya its hard for me to define what i meant by average game. while i will most deffinately be playing minecraft on this and many MMO's I would also like to play battlefield, skyrim, and other resource heavy games like that. truthfully id really just like to not regret getting them for the PC as opposed to a PS3 or somthing.especially in the future.
k so 7870ghz it is then. any suggested brands?
the his iceQ is usually a good buy. logan reviewed the 7950 iceQ i think http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161423
the aftermarket cooler is supposed to be one of the best, and it's smaller that the triple fan gigabyte model. it comes factory oc'd by 100mhz
you might not even have to update your card bios, but make sure you install the latest catalyst drivers
never heard of per item budgets much usually u just use one budget and distribute the cost cuz somethings will cost more than others naturally
well, he's paying with leftover paycheck money, so it makes alot more sense if you think of it like that