Solved Which graphics card to choose?

[RaviR]

Hey Guys,

Planning on building a new system and wanted to know which of these cards should i choose. Looking for the best performing card at a reasonable cost. System is mostly for gaming.

I am going with this motherboard+processor combo Motherboard + Processor.

The choices for the graphics cars are:

GTX 660 Superclocked
GTX 660Ti
Radeon HD 7870

Given the price range i really don't want to cross the 250us mark but if the 660Ti is really worth putting the extra $$ I guess I would. If any other card I may have overlooked around the same price range would perform the same or better please share it.

Thanks!

 

[Chalky Emultion]

The GTX 660 is a bit slower than the HD 7870, but the GTX 660 Ti beats the Radeon HD 7870.

I'll go for the GTX 660 Ti. Nvidia has got better support for games in drivers and it will perform better.
But, for the price of the GTX 660 Ti, you could find a Radeon HD 7950, which is a high-end card. If you can find an HD 7950 for this price ($289.99, as the GTX 660 Ti), then go for it.
The Radeon HD 7950 will outperform the GTX 660 Ti.

 

[RaviR]

Thank you for the reply. Never had a Radeon card hmm but based on what you are saying its the better performer. What bout my mobo+cpu combo is it ok? Or any other improvements can be made?

 

[Chalky Emultion]

I didn't see your specs.

With your Pentium 4 CPU, any of these GPUs will be bottlenecked. You need a CPU upgrade, and maybe you need to add some RAM...
Pentium 4 are really old processors, and their performance level is really poor.

The best CPU you can put in this motherboard is a Core 2 Extreme, which is an enchanced version of the Core 2 Duo family, which are the minimum requirements for today gaming.
To use the power of these GPUs, you need at least a Core 2 Quad or an Core i3 CPU.

My suggestion is to change motherboard and build a new system... or, to search for a decent Core 2 Duo CPU, since your motherboard doesn't support Core 2 Quad CPUs.
If you want to upgrade only the GPU, I would suggest you a low-mid end GPU like a Radeon HD 5670 or a GeForce GTS 450 (low profile one), but nothing more, because your CPU will bottleneck all.

 

[RaviR]

Thank you for reply.

Please disregard my current system specs as I am building a system from scratch. That computer somewhere in another room doing nothing lol.

The parts that I linked are what I am thinking about getting, so wanted to know if they are a good combo or are there better performing parts for around the same cost.

 

[Chalky Emultion]

For the GPUs you linked and for this price range, the HD 7950 is faster compared to GTX 660 Superclocked, GTX 660Ti and Radeon HD 7870.

I prefer Nvidia to Ati because it has got a better driver support than ATI, especially in games, but the HD 7950 is a high end card, the GTX 660 Ti is a upper-mid end card, and they cost the same price.

I'll go buying an HD 7950 in this case. But it needs to work with a good CPU too.

 

[RaviR]

This one? Amazon.com: Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 DVI-I/HDMI/2x Mini-Displayport PCI-Express Graphic Card GV-R795WF3-3GD: Computers & Accessories

The CPU I am planning on getting is the i5 3570k. Would that work?

 

[Chalky Emultion]

This one? Amazon.com: Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 DVI-I/HDMI/2x Mini-Displayport PCI-Express Graphic Card GV-R795WF3-3GD: Computers & Accessories

The CPU I am planning on getting is the i5 3570k. Would that work?

Yes, it will be perfect with this GPU.

 

[RaviR]

Ok noted! The only draw back is the drivers for Ati cards? Don't want to end up buying a card only to be fustrated with driver issues. If that's the case the 660ti is the best bet?

 

[Chalky Emultion]

Amazon.com: HIS Radeon HD 7950 3 GB (384bit) GDDR5 Eyefinity 2x Mini-Displayport HDMI DL DVI-I (HDCP) PCI Express 3.0 X16 Graphics Cards (H795F3G2M): Electronics

This is HIS' edition, but personally i prefer Gigabyte...
Also Gygabite has got better cooling solution (triple fan) and core clock should be higher by 60 MHz (or 100 MHz for the Windforce edition) than the HIS edition.

 

[RaviR]

Ah i see. Thank you for the helpfull information!

 

[Chalky Emultion]

Ok noted! The only draw back is the drivers for Ati cards? Don't want to end up buying a card only to be fustrated with driver issues. If that's the case the 660ti is the best bet?

Nvidia is actually enchancing his drivers to increase performance in games and to keep updated Physx, Surround, SLI, 3D vision profiles and other visual effects (like ambient occlusion) in games. Ati does it, but not like Nvidia. If you play a game with 2 GPUs with identical graphics performance, one Ati and the other one Nvidia, the Nvidia one will perform better.

Also keep in mind that Nvidia cards supports Physx technology and are able to use it in games, providing extraordinary phisics real effects. With an ATI card, if you want to use PhysX technology (and sometimes you can't without an Nvidia card), it must be rendered by the CPU.

Also, in my experience I always had issues with Ati cards. I owned a Radeon 9600 AGP which was running in 4x mode instead of 8x, an HD 3450 AGP which had the same problem, a MSI X1650 which worked well (the only one! ), an HD 5670 which didn't display anything on-screen and I returned it back to my vendor, and now in my second pc I'm using an HD 4870 X2, which is giving me power issues and I spent last 15 days to keep it working perfectly (and I reinstalled Windows for it).
I hope that with Radeon HD 7000 series, AMD solved these issues...

I owned also 2 Nvidia cards, a GTS 450 which was a really good mid-end GPU, and now I own a GTX 690 on my main pc, which provides extreme performance and good configuration via Nvidia control panel.

But, Nvidia cards are really more expensive than Ati cards... So, this time, if I must choose, I'd go for the HD 7950, because the performance gap between it and the GTX 660 Ti is not small. Anyway, Radeon HD 7000 Serires GPUs should be well supported...
But i prefer Nvidia

 

[RaviR]

Ok noted! The only draw back is the drivers for Ati cards? Don't want to end up buying a card only to be fustrated with driver issues. If that's the case the 660ti is the best bet?

Nvidia is actually enchancing his drivers to increase performance in games and to keep updated Physx, Surround, SLI, 3D vision profiles and other visual effects (like ambient occlusion) in games. Ati does it, but not like Nvidia. If you play a game with 2 GPUs with identical graphics performance, one Ati and the other one Nvidia, the Nvidia one will perform better.

Also keep in mind that Nvidia cards supports Physx technology and are able to use it in games, providing extraordinary phisics real effects. With an ATI card, if you want to use PhysX technology (and sometimes you can't without an Nvidia card), it must be rendered by the CPU.

Also, in my experience I always had issues with Ati cards. I owned a Radeon 9600 AGP which was running in 4x mode instead of 8x, an HD 3450 AGP which had the same problem, a MSI X1650 which worked well (the only one! ), an HD 5670 which didn't display anything on-screen and I returned it back to my vendor, and now in my second pc I'm using an HD 4870 X2, which is giving me power issues and I spent last 15 days to keep it working perfectly (and I reinstalled Windows for it).
I hope that with Radeon HD 7000 series, AMD solved these issues...

I owned also 2 Nvidia cards, a GTS 450 which was a really good mid-end GPU, and now I own a GTX 690 on my main pc, which provides extreme performance and good configuration via Nvidia control panel.

But, Nvidia cards are really more expensive than Ati cards... So, this time, if I must choose, I'd go for the HD 7950, because the performance gap between it and the GTX 660 Ti is not small.

As I suspected, Nvidia is the way I think I'm gonna go. The 690 really is a beast just the price is a little out of my range I'll wait a while and make a final decision on which one I'm going to get.

Thanks again for the helpful information!

 

[Chalky Emultion]

You're welcome