Good Dual Graphics cards or gaming

[ToxicXGL]

Hey lately ive been trying to help my brother build his rig and im stuck at the graphics card he wants somthing for some moderate gaming not for high demanding games like crysis 3 on max settings but more like med-high settings. Ive been thinking of going the radeon way but i still think geforcecould be better. For the Geforce way im thinking maybe 2 650s Geforce is limited with the middle end cards so not much choice and with Radeon im thinking maybe the HIS HD 7770 with the icooler or the or the xfx 7750 depending on the color scheme of the computer but for sure want to run 2 graphics cards together, dont really know how the crossfire thing works is it like SLI where you need the bridge?

 

[AstaLaVista]

This may not be pertinent but I would think that there are a few important things you left out...

1.- Budget you have to purchase the two cards

2.- System specs of the Rigs you have now or will built for your brother

3.- Is he playing Online or more like Solo Campaigns... what Genre does he plays the most?

Does he (or you) want two cards because you think or heard its better or because you know for a fact that it would be better for gaming? just asking. Personally, I have gone the SLI way and I found ZERO progress with them. People tell me that it was because I did it when Games did not worked well with SLI and today they do.

Then I ask myself... I only play Shooters and most of them are Unoptimized/Bad coded Console ports so do I really want to believe they are programmed to take advantage of SLI/Xfire? if my system specs are on the low side, would I do better with 1 card than perhaps bottlenecking the system with two? See... more questions than answers at the moment

 

[Stephanie]

Hi ToxicXGL

SLI or Crossfire is only needed when using very high resolutions (eg - two 50" TVs) one high end GPU will play about all your Brother will need.

PassMark Software - Video Card Benchmarks - High End Video Cards

 

[linnemeyerhere]

Take the budget you can afford and get a single card with as much memory as the budget affords. Later if needed and affordable you can play with Crossfiring or SLI'g. I love my new 7870 XFX card but just one of many great cards you'll get advice on.






What is the PSU in the rig, if it's the 650 mentioned it could get risky with two SLI'd or Crossfired cards with only 650.....my two cents best to start with 800 watts + for GPU and CPU headroom !

 

[ToxicXGL]

He says mainly Crossfire, StarWars The Old Republic, League Of Legends, COD, and lots of photo editing. I dont think these games are very demanding. Looking for a sort of low budget i think 300$ is the max for graphics, most games are online. Yea ive heard and seen the benchmarks for sli and crossfire most seem higher i believe if its dual cards its less stress then if it was a single card. System specs havent been fully decieded yet as he wants to build a new system but this is what we got so far.

-i5-4670K @ 3.40
-Gigabyte GA-Z87X-D3H
-ThermalTake Armor Revo Case Black
-3TB Barracuda @ 7200 RPM
-Viper Black Mamba 16GB PC3-15000
-PSU not known yet

 

[linnemeyerhere]

If this wouldn't blow his gaming mind then I say there's no hope !

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GV-N760OC-4GD GeForce GTX 760 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready WINDFORCE 3X Video Card

 

[bobland]

I've got an AMD Radeon 7870 that I bought for around $200+. I'm running it on an i-920 no overclocked using 2 ASUS 25" monitors. I also have the HDMI going to my 50" LED HDTV. Everything is fine. The card is quiet and I'm running Crysis 3, which came with the card. Aside from the fact that I'm super lousy in games...I die frequently, the Crysis looks fantastic. I'm using all the defaults except I've cranked up the brightness pretty high so I can see better "in the dark."

I will admit that if I did it all over I might stick to nVidia and get one of the 650 series cards as they cost about the same. The AMD software is not well documented so if you want to do more then just run the card you'll have to do a lot of trial and error.

I use the presets in Catalyst to change from dual screen 1920x1200 to single screen 1920x1080 to output to the HDTV. I finally found a way to set a preset to do this. At any rate, you can get a butt kickin' card for around $200 that will be more then enough.

 

[ThinkARM]

If you want to go with a multi gpu option, both (sli & xfire) are going to require a bridge. To address your current options. I see your considering a 7750, 650, and the 7770. If you are dead set on choosing between one of these. I would recommend the 7770. It will give you more performance than the other two cards specifically for Call of Duty

As mentioned above, in some games an Xfire or SLI config may give you or your brother some trouble. Depending on how much googleing and tinkering you or he likes to do I would also recommend a single gpu option. At the budget you have set of $300 you can get a GTX 760 with some money to spare. The 760 is on par with last generation's 670 which is an excellent card, and CUDA will give you an edge if you use CS5.

What photo editing software does he use?

 

[ToxicXGL]

linnemeyerhere that sure is one godly graphics card! Well i guess we will go with the single GPU probably that 760. I dont even thing my local reseller sells that windforce card the best we can get is the Evga one not that im complaining. I love Evga always will. Will the 760 bottlenecked by the cpu? its only 3.40 and will have to go with a 700+ watt PSU just in case

 

[linnemeyerhere]

I agree that it's a monster and likely pushes the budget. Shopping is always good and EVGA is topflight I just liked that the mobo and GPU where from the same mfg'r. Likely a silly point but who knows? ASUS, Diamond, XFX, MSi are also great card manufactures. What ever you go with please take pictures and post this and your rig in "Show Us Your Rig" section, I can't wait to see this rig and find out how it all came out !

 

[ThinkARM]

the 4670k is a good CPU. It won't bottle neck your new 760.
Also you may want to consider these video cards
Search Results for GTX 760 at TigerDirect.ca.

I know they're not like the Gigabyte beast above, but I think these cards are good for what your brother will be using them. Especially the Twiin Frozer looks great at a price cheaper than the Galaxy & PNY reference cards. I'm working on project called uthink pc to single out video card price to performance leaders and if we were getting an equivalent price for the MSI card here in the US. I think this one would lead at this price point.

 

[AddRAM]

Get this and you won`t need 2.

Newegg.com - EVGA SuperClocked 02G-P4-2765-KR GeForce GTX 760 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support w/ EVGA ACX Cooler Video Card

or this 660

MSI N660 TF 2GD5/OC GeForce GTX 660 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card - Newegg.com

 

[linnemeyerhere]

It's one of those riddles if you'll spend 259.00 you'll surely spend 40 more for much much more performance.....oh and don't call me Shirley !

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GV-N760OC-4GD GeForce GTX 760 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready WINDFORCE 3X Video Card

 

[Solarstarshines]

He says mainly Crossfire, StarWars The Old Republic, League Of Legends, COD, and lots of photo editing. I dont think these games are very demanding. Looking for a sort of low budget i think 300$ is the max for graphics, most games are online. Yea ive heard and seen the benchmarks for sli and crossfire most seem higher i believe if its dual cards its less stress then if it was a single card. System specs havent been fully decieded yet as he wants to build a new system but this is what we got so far.

-i5-4670K @ 3.40
-Gigabyte GA-Z87X-D3H
-ThermalTake Armor Revo Case Black
-3TB Barracuda @ 7200 RPM
-Viper Black Mamba 16GB PC3-15000
-PSU not known yet

Get a HD 7870 or even a 7950 that should be plenty

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150671


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121649

 

[AddRAM]

And for another $20

Newegg.com - EVGA 04G-P4-3768-KR GeForce GTX 760 FTW 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card w/ EVGA ACX Cooler

I think I`ll replace my 660 with this one.


There you go, some great suggestions.

 

[kbrady1979]

Never SLI/Crossfire two low-mid range cards....never ever ever. The GTX 760 series Nvidia cards will complement the 4670K perfectly. If he is only going to use a single monitor, you really don't need the 4GB card, you can get a 2GB card and be more than fine @ 1080p. Also, a good 550-650 watt PSU will be more than enough for those components. Here is a great PSU....it is on sale fairly often and can be found for less than $100. SeaSonic X650 Gold The PSU is NOT the component to cheap out on.

 

[smarteyeball]

moderate gaming not for high demanding games like crysis 3 on max settings but more like med-high settings.

He says mainly Crossfire, StarWars The Old Republic, League Of Legends, COD, and lots of photo editing.

Since he's not interested in full bells and whistles and those are the games he plays - a single geforce is the way to go.

Most photo editing software will take advantage CUDA cores which is another plus for nvidia.

The GTX 760 is indeed a great card to choose.

And as KBrady mentioned, don't Crossfire/SLI mid range cards. For games that don't take advantage of dual cards you're are still stuck with the processing power of one weak card. (Been there, done that lol)

Also correct is the VRAM required. Unless he's running higher than 1080P, 2GB is plenty.

For your brothers needs, one good strong card is perfect.

 

[M1GU31]

Yea those games are pretty easy to run, no need for dual cards, if you get one really strong card like the one suggested. He would have more then enough power if he decided to play stuff like battlefield 3 or something else with equivalent or more demanding graphics unless he's going to be running like 3 monitors and running everything on high with a bunch of aa in dx11. Though with those games, the card is going to run very little and won't even stress out. I use to run crossfire on integrated intel graphics and a Pentium 4 back in the day when i use to play that game and get good fps so it's not demanding.

 

[AstaLaVista]

Toxic, perhaps this is not here nor there but I hope that it will shed a more real life (not so much benchmark) experience for you... not that benchmarking is unreal

I had a Q9650 + EVGA 780 SLI FTW Mobo + 8GBs DDR2 RAM + EVGA GTX260 GPU + MSI 9500GT for PhysX only and I was playing most of the shooter games out there in good FPSs and Mid to High settings... Campaigns only

Crysis 3 came in and I was out because it was DX11 only (bastids), so I fret and frowned for a while but then an awesome deal came on a Asus 2GB GTX660 OC and I took it... C3 played decent, low to mid settings, fairly amount of FPSs. Again, all in Solo/Campaign only.

Newegg had a deal I couldn't pass up (see my system specs now) and I took it thinking that I was going to blow up C3 now and when it didn't I had some remorse on the purchase. Well, after doing all of the updates on all the drivers (mobo + Audio + Video), I came to one conclusion and I am much happier than before.

The difference between 60 FPSs to 300 FPS is hardly seen by the naked eye, even with only the GTX660 for primary and PhysX, C3 does not twitch/freeze momentarily at the beginning of each level, I have more eye candy than before and where I used to feel the character being or getting burnt, now I see the actual fire more vivid and the fire particles in the air as well.

Hell, I don't know if I help or hinder my gaming experience but I even put the onboard GPU to good use and it is helping the PhysX now... I think it helps, then again, this is only seat of the pants benchmarks.

If I had money to burn or throw away I would probably have a much more better system, why not, enjoyment is purely in the eyes of the beholder but I got to be honest... I am as happy as a pig on, well, you know right about now.

I could understand you going SLI or even Triple SLI if you had Multiple GPU with higher than 1080p res but if you don't... spend the money somewhere else and you'll be happier.