Some advice with new Graphics card upgrade?

I'm on the brink of buying a new gpu, been playing Assassin's creed 4 with my HD4870 and its chewing it apart, low fps etc, strangely though every other AC I played as well as other games like crysis 2 played at high settings on my ati.

Anyways to my questions, I don't want to spend loads, so I've found a GTX 580 new for £120, but haven't' purchased it yet though. And there's also ebay...but used 580's don't go for much cheaper there.

Q1 - This 580 is a stock model, how does it compare to the oc versions? Am I right to believe that the oc'd versions will only give me a few extra fps and probably not worth it for the extra price I'll pay. And surely I can oc myself If I even need to?

Q2 - GTX 580 is an older card, albeit still powerful, it compares roughly to a new GTX 760 (various benchmarking sites) A GTX 760 is £180 at cheapest, is spending an extra £60 gonna give me any advantages over a 580? i.e. better and more updated support....future proofing?

Also I should note that I am an architecture student and do a lot of 3d modelling/graphics/presentation/animation on 3ds MAX/Rhino/Sketchup/photoshop and I've heard the GTX 580's architecture perform better for this kind of stuff compared to the new 600 and 700 models. (I know about quadros too, but I'm not spending that much lol)

Also this is why I'm going Nvidia this time, they have better support for 3ds max as I have been told, but correct me if I am wrong

current specs
i7 920 OC 3.4ghz
ati HD 4870 1gb
PSU Corsair 650w
6GB RAM

PCIE slots are 2.0 also, this should still be fine for newer generation gpus?

Thanks, any help is appreciated and merry christmas :)

You'll get a lot of opinions and facts with your question, so here are mine. A GTX 580 is a very capable card, but is also several generations old. A 700's version is newer and will be supported longer than the 500 cards. Just that part is worth a few extra pounds to me. As far as the modeling part, I know nothing about it. Also to consider is that Nvidia is 'supposed' to come out with the new 800 cards in the next couple of months. If you can wait, I would wait and see what they have to offer. Also, whatever you decide, be sure and check the PSU requirements and make sure you have ample PSU support. I recommend staying about 30-50% higher than their minimum recomendations. That will allow the PSU to run cooler, last longer and allow for future upgrades. And always buy a quality brand. Never try to save money on a PSU. Stay with Seasonic, Corsair, Antec or XFX. Modular if your budget allows.

Robwan said:

Do you think the age of the psu is really a problem?

Thanks

Since it's a TX650 I'd say you'd be fine since Corsair tend to under rate their PSUs capability. So even with capacitor aging, it should still be able to handle a 580 without issues.

Id still have to recommend an amd card, more power for less money, have a look at the r9 series, brother got a saphire 280x and its simply amazing.

NVIDIA created G-Sync because they are now focused on Experience while AMD is focused on performance. GO WITH AMD!!

Since you're using apps designed to take advantage of nvidia - I'd stick with them.

I had 3 gtx 670's, but did test with one and they are equivalent to the 760. Performance is quite good for single screen gaming. You won't have to lower too much to get good frames in most games.

The 280X is a nice card - but as you know, it's not optimised for your design apps. Same goes for a 7950.

An r9 280x is on the same wave length as the gtx770 but its also cheaper, also i wouldnt buy the stock one:)