Advice - What Card - Performance/Watts

[mikeo01]

Hey all,

Thinking about ditching my HD 7850 1GB.

I have a couple of cards in mind for different reasons; here goes:

GTX 660 - Free AC game and Splinter cell - Lower power consumption
R9 270 - Free BF4 but superior performance

Similar prices, however, wattage is my main concern. As long as the card will perform the same if not better than my current then woo hoo.


The most demanding game I have is ARMA 3, real time rendering bla bla, which card will cope better?


Again it's the power usage I'm most concerned about; the goodies are goodies both bundles are great. I don't want the one card to keel over; I don't know the fine details but I don't want one feature to be keeping either card back if I go for it


Thanks all

[sqwerty]

There isn't really a lot of, (if any at all) difference in terms of raw power between the card you have and your suggested cards.
The 270 is essentially the same gpu with 2GB vram. 660 is similar performing again with 2GB vram.

[herulach]

Power wise they're basically the same draw, and performance wise neither will be an upgrade from your current card, except for the VRAM. Either save up a bit more to get you into R9 290 territory, or keep the card you have - you realise that a card with an extra 250W draw is only going to cost you an extra 14p every 10 hours its on, assuming its maxed out?

[sqwerty]

Just a guess, but I bet the OP is more concerned about upgrading PSU too

[herulach]

Just a guess, but I bet the OP is more concerned about upgrading PSU too

XFX Pro 550 is a seasonic M12II in a different box, easily capable of handling any single card solution going.

[Bonebreaker777]

If you are that concerned to have the best performance per watt, I would suggest to read some reviews with AMD HD 7000 series cards and compare the overall performance to the average consumption of the test system with the individual cards, you will see that the performance/Watt will steadily increase from the HD7770, trought HD7790 and HD7850 and finally HD7870.

(reference: GPU consumption and GPU performance)

[sqwerty]

XFX Pro 550 is a seasonic M12II in a different box, easily capable of handling any single card solution going.

Oops, forgot to click system specs before posting.

Your claim is a bit wild though considering how much high end GPU's can draw when overclocked.

[mikeo01]

14p? Most of the time the GPU is used for general day to day things. However now and again the games I do fire up are GPU intensive so I am worried it'll build up.

I think it's the thought of a rig pulling 300w+ whilst gaming

Admittedly I was looking at these two, XFX 7870 Tahli and VTX3D 7870 Tahli

I do like the look of the R9 270X though.

It kind of goes against the whole "green" thing I've wanted to head towards. I don't know maybe my rig doesn't actually eat that much as I am thinking of?

EDIT: Hang on let me check my actual power max power consumption (rig only)

[sqwerty]

14p? Most of the time the GPU is used for general day to day things. However now and again the games I do fire up are GPU intensive so I am worried it'll build up.

I think it's the thought of a rig pulling 300w+ whilst gaming

Admittedly I was looking at these two, XFX 7870 Tahli and VTX3D 7870 Tahli

I do like the look of the R9 270X though.

It kind of goes against the whole "green" thing I've wanted to head towards. I don't know maybe my rig doesn't actually eat that much as I am thinking of?

EDIT: Hang on let me check my actual power max power consumption (rig only)

300w is average load draw for a rig with a stock high end gpu, you should be looking at at least 50w less than that.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

With a Xeon E3 1220 and a GTX660 I am drawing under 200W at the wall when running games like TR and Crysis3. That is with a less efficient PSU than the XFX.

The R9 270 only uses a single PCI-E power connector and has the same performance as an HD7870. It is bascially the same GPU.

[mikeo01]

Thanks for the input everyone.

Prime and Furmark up it draws 225W.

My PSU definitely has room.

The R9 270X is more like a HD 7950? That said what should I expect my draw to be? If it isn't significantly higher then it isn't going to be as bad as I thought.

[sqwerty]

Furmark is not a real world usage scenario either, I've seen 50w+ higher when running that compared to say Crysis 3.

[mikeo01]

Fired up ARMA 3 did some general things and the max it hit was around 180W (hovered around 150-160W generally).

Not exactly the most intensive scenes though.

Hmm maybe it isn't as bad as I originally thought then.

Definitely considering the R9 270X now, that's around 180W isn't it?

[herulach]

14p is the price of 1kwh of leccy on British gas standard tariff. So an extra 100w for 10 hoursn= 14p. For my money just turn the light off in the room if you're worried about electric costs.

[sqwerty]

Fired up ARMA 3 did some general things and the max it hit was around 180W (hovered around 150-160W generally).

Not exactly the most intensive scenes though.

Hmm maybe it isn't as bad as I originally thought then.

Definitely considering the R9 270X now, that's around 180W isn't it?

I think you will be disappointed, you could probably reach 270X performance or thereabouts by overclocking your 7850 if the cooler can cope.

I made a mistake a while ago going from a 580 to 680 at launch. There was more of a performance boost than what you would see but due to the £400 price tag, I felt disappointed it wasn't more of a difference.

[mikeo01]

I've attempted overclocking my card before but got all sorts of results (bad). But truth is I don't have the time any more to be playing around with overclocks so I feel stock cards are plain and simple for me nowadays

That said my system idles at around 55W (been watching it for past hour whilst writing some stuff up).

OK what card does everyone think will suffice for 1080P? My card is already great, just no AA.