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Thread: £140 credit @ Scan.co.uk - Which GPU to buy?

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    £140 credit @ Scan.co.uk - Which GPU to buy?

    Hey all,

    I pontificated for absolutely ages before deciding to go with the MSI 6850 Cyclone OC on my then new build a few months back. Unfortunately, i've had to return the card and they have confirmed it as faulty.

    I now have £142 credit to spend on a new card, i'd prefer to stick with Scan as the RMA process was very quick (they received it two days ago) and customer service has been very good throughout.

    So, what card to buy now? I have a few extra £ to put towards a replacement card but am slightly restrained (i think) by my 600w Cooler Master Gold Modular Power Supply.

    I'll be looking to play BF3 on it's release, is there any standout card from what they have in stock?

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    Re: £140 credit @ Scan.co.uk - Which GPU to buy?

    AFAIK,MSI cards do have a decent warranty.

    I would look at this HD6870 1GB:

    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-m...ssors-dvi-hdmi

    I would also wait until it appears on the Today Only page too.

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    Re: £140 credit @ Scan.co.uk - Which GPU to buy?

    Thanks for the quick reply, I seem to recall you helping with my original build questions too, appreciated.

    How does the card you posted measure up to the EVGA GTX 560 SC - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-e...res-plusfree-b

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    Re: £140 credit @ Scan.co.uk - Which GPU to buy?

    Quote Originally Posted by brduk View Post
    Thanks for the quick reply, I seem to recall you helping with my original build questions too, appreciated.

    How does the card you posted measure up to the EVGA GTX 560 SC - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-e...res-plusfree-b
    What parts did you get in the end??

    If you get a few more posts you can get free delivery from Scan:

    http://forums.hexus.net/scan-care-he...-delivery.html

    ATM,the HD6870 1GB seems a better choice than a GTX560 for BF3:

    http://www.techspot.com/review/448-b...nce/page5.html

    Newer drivers might change the situation.

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    Re: £140 credit @ Scan.co.uk - Which GPU to buy?

    Sorry CAT but 34fps vs 36fps is an inconsequential amount

    Overall the non-ti gtx560 and 6870 are neck and neck performance wise.

    Both are factory overclocked cards, so we can pretty much rule that out.

    The Msi Hawk has a better cooler, than the stock cooler on the EVGA card.
    However the KFA2 gtx560 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-k...-mhdmi-plusfre has a good cooler as well and near enough the same price as the Hawk.

    So it just comes down to which you prefer nVidia or ATi and which card brand you trust more.

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    Re: £140 credit @ Scan.co.uk - Which GPU to buy?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pob255 View Post
    Sorry CAT but 34fps vs 36fps is an inconsequential amount

    Overall the non-ti gtx560 and 6870 are neck and neck performance wise.

    Both are factory overclocked cards, so we can pretty much rule that out.

    The Msi Hawk has a better cooler, than the stock cooler on the EVGA card.
    However the KFA2 gtx560 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-k...-mhdmi-plusfre has a good cooler as well and near enough the same price as the Hawk.

    So it just comes down to which you prefer nVidia or ATi and which card brand you trust more.
    It is still ahead and matches a GTX560TI,consumes less power at load and comes with a better aftermarket cooler.

    Both cards come with the same percentage overclock,so the performance figures still stand. Like I mentioned newer drivers may change things.

    On top of this BF3 is AMD sponsered:

    http://sites.amd.com/us/game/games/P...lefield-3.aspx

    If the OP is buying the game at launch I would suspect this might help the lower end AMD cards more than say the higher end ones.

    The MSI card also has a three year warranty as opposed the the two year warranty the KFA2 card has. The KFA2 card might be a tad faster due to the 6% to 7% additional overclock over the EVGA card.
    Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 19-10-2011 at 05:18 PM.

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    Re: £140 credit @ Scan.co.uk - Which GPU to buy?

    I went for;

    Cooler Master 430 Elite case (seems excellent for a budget case)
    Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 600W Modular Power Supply
    Gigabyte P67A-UD4-B3 Mobo
    Intel Core i5 2500k CPU
    Cooler Master HYPER 212 PLUS COOLER
    2x2GB Corsair CMX4GX3M2B1600C9 Memory
    1TB SAMSUNG HD103SJ SATA F3
    Samsung Optical drive
    MS Win 7 Home Prem 64bit OEM
    Cooler Master Storm Sentinal Gaming Mouse
    Speedlink Medusa 5.1 Surround Sound Headphones

    Went a bit Cooler Master crazy, however the only item i'm regretting slightly (though no problems with it yet) is the Power Supply as it may limit me in the future, but otherwise it got great reviews across the web and was on a 'today only offer' so got it at a decent price. Really disappointed about the 6850 Cyclone being faulty, looked like a great card.

    I already get free carriage from Scan through AVForums and have just ordered the replacement card you suggested, might even be here for tomorrow!

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    Re: £140 credit @ Scan.co.uk - Which GPU to buy?

    Quote Originally Posted by brduk View Post
    I went for;

    Cooler Master 430 Elite case (seems excellent for a budget case)
    Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 600W Modular Power Supply
    Gigabyte P67A-UD4-B3 Mobo
    Intel Core i5 2500k CPU
    Cooler Master HYPER 212 PLUS COOLER
    2x2GB Corsair CMX4GX3M2B1600C9 Memory
    1TB SAMSUNG HD103SJ SATA F3
    Samsung Optical drive
    MS Win 7 Home Prem 64bit OEM
    Cooler Master Storm Sentinal Gaming Mouse
    Speedlink Medusa 5.1 Surround Sound Headphones

    Went a bit Cooler Master crazy, however the only item i'm regretting slightly (though no problems with it yet) is the Power Supply as it may limit me in the future, but otherwise it got great reviews across the web and was on a 'today only offer' so got it at a decent price. Really disappointed about the 6850 Cyclone being faulty, looked like a great card.

    I already get free carriage from Scan through AVForums and have just ordered the replacement card you suggested, might even be here for tomorrow!
    Your 600W PSU will run a GTX580 fine IMHO.

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    Re: £140 credit @ Scan.co.uk - Which GPU to buy?

    How about a 2nd 6870?

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    Re: £140 credit @ Scan.co.uk - Which GPU to buy?

    Quote Originally Posted by brduk View Post
    How about a 2nd 6870?
    AMD recommends a 600W PSU as the minimum for two cards:

    http://www.amd.com/us/products/deskt...verview.aspx#3

    AFAIK,AMD and Nvidia usually overstate the requirements for PSUs. How far your Core i5 is overclocked is also important.

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    Re: £140 credit @ Scan.co.uk - Which GPU to buy?

    Quote Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH View Post
    It is still ahead and matches a GTX560TI,consumes less power at load and comes with a better aftermarket cooler.

    Both cards come with the same percentage overclock,so the performance figures still stand. Like I mentioned newer drivers may change things.

    On top of this BF3 is AMD sponsered:

    http://sites.amd.com/us/game/games/P...lefield-3.aspx

    If the OP is buying the game at launch I would suspect this might help the lower end AMD cards more than say the higher end ones.

    The MSI card also has a three year warranty as opposed the the two year warranty the KFA2 card has. The KFA2 card might be a tad faster due to the 6% to 7% additional overclock over the EVGA card.
    CAT read my post fully please.
    The KFA2 card has a very good after market cooler, costs the same, the warranty is less I'll give you that, I'll also give you that the ati cards have lower power draw under load.
    While the gtx560 might be slightly slower on BF3, I'm sure that's not going to be the only game he plays.
    And more to the point, the difference between 34fps and 36fps is nothing, you will not notice it.
    Granted those numbers don't look at a full break down and are probably just a mean average, so you could have real low fps+high fps on one card and a more consistant level on the other, both would give similar mean averages but the consistant card would be better to play on.

    I don't say the 6870 is a bad card far from it but it's not head and shoulders above a gtx560, they are pretty much equal.
    If you're happy with the performance of one then you'd be equally happy with the other, which is why I say it's more down to brand preference.

    EDIT:
    A 600w should be fine for two 6870's, although how far you push your cpu overclock will come in. anything under 4-4.2ghz without voltage increases shouldn't be an issue.

    One other thing I'll say in ATi's favor over nvidia is crossfire tend to be a lot more forgiving than sli, sli can be quite fussy over cards

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    Re: £140 credit @ Scan.co.uk - Which GPU to buy?

    Presumed it would require a lot more juice than that. It's probably doable as i'm running pretty lean just now 1xHDD, 1x Optical drive, USB keyboard and mouse, headphones and thats it.

    Not going to worry about it now though, if I can pick up the 6870 cheap down the line I might give it a try.

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    Re: £140 credit @ Scan.co.uk - Which GPU to buy?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pob255 View Post
    One other thing I'll say in ATi's favor over nvidia is crossfire tend to be a lot more forgiving than sli, sli can be quite fussy over cards
    The flip-side, SLI normally works better and in more games, sooner, then CFX.

    It's all swings-and-round-abouts TBH and it's all moot anyway when you get a shiny new game and it doesn't work 100% strait away....no matter which you choose, sooner or later you will hit a problem with some title or another.
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    Re: £140 credit @ Scan.co.uk - Which GPU to buy?

    I'd put it towards the higher end of the GeForce GTX series

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    Re: £140 credit @ Scan.co.uk - Which GPU to buy?

    AMD 6870's are available at around £140 and according to reviews have really great value for money certainly more so than some of Nvidia's graphics card of the same price range, and they dont have the added stigma of the gpu failures nvidia had some time ago.

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