My budget is currently $300 for this. I've been looking at the AMD 7870 and AMD 7950. Both are currently on sale and come with two games, so pretty good deal.
Going to be used mostly for gaming. My goal is to get the majority of games, newer ones mostly, as I want this card to last a couple years. Gaming will be done on ultra settings (hopefully), be at 1920x1080, and have playable frame rates. Looking for at least 25fps during major action areas.
I'm currently running two ATI HD 5700s that I've had for a few years running in crossfire.
Any suggestions on what I should get?
Definitley a 7950 and OC it, should last you quite awhile!
Oh, forgot entirely about over clocking. Is over clocking on that card easy to do?
You could also go with a 7870XT to complicate things...
All three of these cards are very overclockable.
7870XT seems to be out of stock on the couple websites I checked, or very few remaining.
I'm thinking about just deciding on the 7950 to make it easier on me. The free games really have me tempted, even though I already have them. I'd sell them to a friend or something for cheap.
Well any way you go you've got a beast card.
I have one last question, on AMD's site it says the wattage requirement is 500W. I have a 525W psu, will that be good enough?
You should be fine but overclocking would be out of the question, maybe upgrade to a 600W or 650W? :)
Ahh.. Well to do that I would have to get a new case first. Essentially my current case is an off brand.. thing.. that makes it almost impossible to get to anything inside besides the GPU and ram. I'm currently thinking taking out the old PSU is impossible without using a hacksaw.
Edit: I'm retarded. I actually experimented a bit and my psu popped right out after taking out four screws. For some reason I thought the screws were physically a part of the psu and were for taking it apart, not for removing it. But I would still like a fancy new case before a new psu.
How does the 7950 fare without overclocking on games like Bioshock Infinite?
It will perform probably at the highest setting with no lagg at all to be honest.
That's excellent to hear. So I can work on new case and new psu at a later date.
This should be the last question. Which brand of the card should I buy?
Sapphire and Asus generally offer the best build quality, coolers and aestetics however, it all depends on how much you're willing to pay and what falls into that price range. With the Sapphire card being the cheapest on PCparts picker, I'd go for that.
Well to put it simply 7950's are know to have rediculous Overclocking capability, the stock clock for a reffrence 7950 is 800Mhz, but most can get up to around 1200Mhz if you tweak the voltage, thats a 50% increase on the Core clock, not to mention the fact that the memory can oc a good 25% aswell.
the 7870XT would be another good option but if your looking for something thats gonna last its always better to get the more powerfull card, one thats also been tried and tested many many times.
I've been looking at a Gigabyte and Sapphire card, the Sapphire one being only $10 higher, and having many more reviews.. I guess I'll go with that.
Thanks for all of your help!
if the Gigabyte is Cheaper buy it, the only cooler better than the Windforce 3X on the Gigabyte is the DCUII triple slot on the ASUS cards, and its not that much better overall.
Okay thanks. I'll go with the Gigabyte then. All of the reviews I've been reading have been pretty good too, besides the couple DOA cards that happen with pretty much everything from time to time.
You do realise there's no actual way for your video card to use THAT much power, right? It's gonna be way less than that, you can look it up yourself.
You have a few questions to ask yourself.
1. Is your current CPU up to date enough to even push a 7950 without seeing a big bottleneck?
2. What type of PSU do I have? Single rail quality brand, or multiple rail no-name?
You could be saving or wasting money depending on the answers to these questions.
First thing, yes I do realize my video card isn't using 500W of power, however AMD's site recommends that size of psu to run everything, including the graphics card.
If anything, my hard drive is the only thing lacking in my system once I get the new video card.