1080p Gaming, would a 7950 be overkill?

[djfluff]

I am planning on getting a new graphics card for playing on a 1080p TV.
Would a 7950 be overkill? I play games like Skyrim with all the HD addons etc,
and it's struggling on my 6870.
I was also considering a GTX 670. but I have read that the 3GB video memory on the 7950
suits games with HD textures, but would it matter at 1080p ??

[scaryjim]

Depends on what you consider to be an acceptable framerate, tbh. A quick whizz through a recent Hexus review of an ovetrclocked 7950 suggest that a 7950 will garner you 40+ fps in most games at 1080p, and 60+ in a fair few. Given it produces less than 50fps in a couple of games I'd say it's not overkill, particularly if there are any new games coming up that you're interested in playing - a 7950 should last you a few years.

[Zak33]

I think the upgrade path from 6870 (1120 cores / approx 900 mghz core speed) to a 7950 (1792 cores / 800 + core speed) is probably the right step up tbh.

the 6870 WILL sell on Ebay... so I say go for it.

[djfluff]

Cheers for the feedback. I will get hunting for a deal on a 7950. I had heard that they might be retro fitting the existing 7950's with 'boost' via a firmware upgrade too...

[scaryjim]

Yup, there's an official BIOS that you can download to add PowerTune with Boost to any 7950. That said, 7950s are reputed to overclock like nobody's business, so I think I'd be more inclined to just go down the permanent overclock route than mess with a boosting BIOS...

[DLUK]

Yep 670 and 7950 will spit 100+ fps in loads of games but the new more complex games with HD textures with a bit off AA_AF the 670-7950 stay the right side of 50 FPS where as pretty much all the other cards don't.

The extra 1GB vs 670 is handy for Skyrim as quite a few people playing mods can get Skyrim @ 1080p+ well past 2GB VRAM at 1080p without going mad. But the 670 and 7950 are both excellent cards it's more about who you like best out of nvidia and AMD really, than any major FPS difference right now.

[djfluff]

This looks like a good deal : http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...56&subcat=1673


On a side issue, the TV is 3D. I had a play with the ATI 3D (like the 3D HUD in Deus EX) but I found the hit on performance unacceptable.
Has anyone tried either AMD/Nvidia on a 3D Tv, as opposed to a 120mhz monitor ?

[shaithis]

I've tried both on a 3DTV. Performance hit is big and that's because it's rendering 2 viewports.

nVidia 3DTV Play has the best performance by a mile for me but suffers from not being configurable, making it useless for people like myself who want the best image quality.
HDMI cannot do dual-link and this causes issues as there isn't enough bandwidth in the spec for 2 x 1080p images plus audio. nVidia detect the connection method and force 720p frame-packed mode. if you have a native 1080p panel (like who doesn't these days?) then you do not get 1:1 pixel mapping....substantially altering IQ.

What you want is 1080p half-SBS mode. Only selectable in iz3d and TriDef, although iz3d stopped trading recently :S

[djfluff]

I had a play with the IZ3D software. It took a lot of messing about with the TV settings before I could get a 3D image, and it wasn't consistent between games / apps so I gave up on it. I will do some reading on 3DTV Play, and see if it floats my boat '

[asderferjerkel]

Agreed on the 7950 being a good step up. I got the MSI Twin Frozr edition, which was factory overclocked to 880MHz. It's handled everything I've thrown at it so far without issue, though I bumped it up to 1GHz (and 1575MHz memory clock) to play GTAIV with all settings maxed out - it works fine without, but with a little stuttering occasionally. Didn't need to up the voltage either, so it's probably fairly safe.

[deejayburnout]

If your budget can buy one, go for it. Will be futureproof for a while yet.

[ladcrooks]

1080p Gaming, would a 7950 be overkill? - seen similar threads elsewhere. - if you want the most FPS and 60 seem to be the least then i consider my card Gigabyte ATi Radeon HD 7970 Windforce still the best for 1080p Gaming, let alone 2 - 50 monitors, ha!

And to those that do use more than 1 monitor - how do you put up with the bezels in between? I would hate it!