I'm currently looking to upgrade a part or two in my gaming pc, it still runs most games on medium to high settings but I'm looking forward to Star Citizen when it comes out. I would like to know if there is a particular part that anyone might be able to suggest.
So I'm looking at upgrading my gpu to a gtx 770/780 but am kind torn between four different cards the Asus GTX 770/780 DCU II and the EVGA GTX 770/780 with the ACX Cooler. I do normally have a slight over clock but nothing over the top.
Coming from a GTX 570 I know that the 770 is on a different tier to the 760 and 780 but if i could get a better explanation as to what the main differences are I could make a more informed decision.
Any suggestions on which one to go for or another gpu that anyone would be able suggest would be great. I've never had an AMD gpu but am open to ideas.
The other part is the case I need a new one as my Antec 902 is getting a bit on in years and is noisy as all hell. Currently looking for at the Node 605 for its form factor and nice styling or even the Define R4 (even though the form factor isn't the same) I'm really digging the Fractal Design cases at the moment.
One last thing would be to change the case fans for some Noctua NF-F12's.
Again if you have a suggestion for another case that you think might be worth looking at that would be great.
This is what is currently in my pc:
AsRock 79 Extreme 4
700W Thermaltake LitePower PSU
Intel Core i7-3820 @ 3.60GHz
Coolermater Hyper 412 Slim CPU Cooler
16 GB GSkill RAM 1600
GigaByte GTX 570 SOC
1 x 2TB HDD, 2 x 1TB HDD, 1 x 120GB SSD OCZ Vertex 3
Antec 902 Case.
By the way I have about $1500 to spend on upgrading
If it's between 770 and 780 you'll see a big performance leap when it comes to resolutions greater than 1080p so if you run a multi monitor setup or a 1440p screen i would suggest the 780 since it has 3gb vram as opposed to 2gb the 770 has. Nvidia also just announced price cuts and a holiday bundle with some games on the 7-series cards due to the imminent launch of the 780ti so maybe that's something you want to consider. Personally i can recommend the Gigabyte 3x Windforce gtx 780 OC but i don't know if gigabyte will support that holiday bundle.
EDIT:
I fetched you some direct comparison benchmarks between the different 780's and benchmarks comparing the 7-series cards at different resolutions. with current drivers the 780 actually beats the titan even at clock speeds in some applications
With a budget like that, you could wait a bit for the aftermarket R9 290x cards to arrive. For around 550USD you will get a card that can rival the GTX780 priced around the 650USD mark. Otherwise, just pick the GTX780 or wait for the new GTX780i, which was recently announced. The rest is more than fine to be able to play games for some years to come.
If you plan on a CrossFire setup or SLI setup, I would go for 2x GTX770 (SLI) or 2x R9 280x (CF). The latter is definitely less power consuming and cheaper. You could try it out with the current PSU, the wattage should be enough for 2-way CF but it also needs to have the ability for a second pair of power cables.
I'll have a look at the a 780 then and try and decide between one of the non reference cards, that will be a tough choice. But the 290x does look nice.
Striezel: thanks for the links to Linus' videos I watch so many of his that it becomes a blur after a while and completely forgot about his videos on ncix.
Krisis: I might wait a couple of weeks and check out some comparisons of the 290x it does look like a very nice bump in performance and then make a decision. Not sure about the SLI or CF, it sounds great but from what I have heard in the past the price to performance return doesn't seem to justify spending that much.
Thanks for your prompt replies really appreciate it!
Made a decision yet? IIRC LinusTechTips did a review of the first AMD Mantle release with some basic benchmarking. It seems a game like StarCitizen will be able to take full advantage of this new API for all Radeon GCN1.1+ cards. The GPU will be able to scale a lot better with thousands of units or agents on the screen at once.
Hey! Kinda dropped off the earth for a while haha. Yeah I ended up going with the EVGA GTX 780 ACX Cooler, picked one up on sale about six months ago. Was thinking of going for the 780 Ti but just the price difference was an extra ~ $150 here in Aus, we generally seem to get shafted on pricing "oh you want something nice or cool lets add some Australia tax on there for you". Anyway thanks for all the help and suggestions and sorry for the late reply all. May your games and music be brutal! Lou