4830 to 750TI on AMD x3 720BE

[Wolfsbane2k]

Hi.

I'm trying to find a suitable mini-upgrade from my extant ATI 4830 that will support playing star-conflict and Tomb Raider at 1080p resolutions on a single display ( i have a second 19" monitor that i don't use when playing games)
My current desktop is an AMD x3 720 BE running at 3.2 Ghz, with 4GB ram. I would love a full upgrade, but can't afford the full cost, and don't use the CPU hard that often ( photoshop/lightroom somewhat, but CPU & memory will have to wait)

I'm looking (ie just reserved) an Nvidia 750ti 2GB StormX by Palit at novatech (http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages...review,23.html) for £109.99 , thinking this is probably the sweet spot, but would like some feedback before i actually go pick it up.

Any thoughts?

Ta!

[Goobley]

You won't be maxing out tomb raider with that card but with a mix of mid to high settings, I can see you getting a decent frame rate. It's also a good price for that card, as they're still quite new.

Looking at your other options: it's a big jump up to a 760 - very costly almost doubling the cost of the 750 Ti, so that's not going to happen. However if your power supply and case support it then maybe something along the lines of an R9 270 may have better longevity than the 750. It'll cost a bit more ~£130, but the 270 is considerably more powerful - also considerably hotter

[Bonebreaker777]

I think is good as any choice in this price segment. Your other choices would be either a R9 260x or maybe a R9 265.

About the rest of the PC, you wouldn't have the option to unlock your 4th core and/or overclock your CPU? If not, never mind...

If you are buying from Novatech, don't forget cash back.

If you would by any chance rather have one bigger FAN instead of two smaller ones > http://www.ebuyer.com/618542-msi-gef...n750ti-2gd5-oc

[Wolfsbane2k]

I think is good as any choice in this price segment. Your other choices would be either a R9 260x or maybe a R9 265.

About the rest of the PC, you wouldn't have the option to unlock your 4th core and/or overclock your CPU? If not, never mind...

If you are buying from Novatech, don't forget cash back.

If you would by any chance rather have one bigger FAN instead of two smaller ones > http://www.ebuyer.com/618542-msi-gef...n750ti-2gd5-oc

Hi, thanks for the response. I was looking at a 265, but finding them in stock is a needle in a haystack at the moment, something about bitcoin

This PC has been running of at 3.6 with 4 cores since the day I bought it (3 days after unlocking became possible) , but recently has been less stable so reverted to baseline to rest it for a while as wasn't needing the cpu power any more.


As my long term goal is a quiet, efficient PC using a 4770s or similar for Photoshop and re-encoding, this feels like the better balance longer term.

[Wolfsbane2k]

You won't be maxing out tomb raider with that card but with a mix of mid to high settings, I can see you getting a decent frame rate. It's also a good price for that card, as they're still quite new.

Looking at your other options: it's a big jump up to a 760 - very costly almost doubling the cost of the 750 Ti, so that's not going to happen. However if your power supply and case support it then maybe something along the lines of an R9 270 may have better longevity than the 750. It'll cost a bit more ~£130, but the 270 is considerably more powerful - also considerably hotter

Thanks for the reply.

I was looking at the 270 but the power draw on it doesn't align with my long term goals.

I also meant to mention that my occasional reboots are being diagnosed as being caused by the ati legacy driver, so confidence in ati is a little knocked at the moment.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What PSU do you have??

Are you located in the UK??

Hi, thanks for the response. I was looking at a 265, but finding them in stock is a needle in a haystack at the moment, something about bitcoin

This PC has been running of at 3.6 with 4 cores since the day I bought it (3 days after unlocking became possible) , but recently has been less stable so reverted to baseline to rest it for a while as wasn't needing the cpu power any more.


As my long term goal is a quiet, efficient PC using a 4770s or similar for Photoshop and re-encoding, this feels like the better balance longer term.

Thanks for the reply.

I was looking at the 270 but the power draw on it doesn't align with my long term goals.

I also meant to mention that my occasional reboots are being diagnosed as being caused by the ati legacy driver, so confidence in ati is a little knocked at the moment.

You need to be careful getting too much into the energy effiency hype - not when it saves relatively little money each year.

The GTX750TI is slower in many games,meaning the hardware will need to be replaced quicker. Nvidia has its fair share of both software and hardware problems in the past. The 320 branch of drivers for my GTX660 gave me issues in some games(even for FF). The 330 branch is far better,but its only swings and roundabouts when it comes to drivers.

My GTX660 and Xeon E3 1220 in an ITX rig,consumes 150W to 200W at the wall when gaming,and that is with multiple drives and a AIO water cooler for the CPU.

[watercooled]

Thanks for the reply.

I was looking at the 270 but the power draw on it doesn't align with my long term goals.

I also meant to mention that my occasional reboots are being diagnosed as being caused by the ati legacy driver, so confidence in ati is a little knocked at the moment.

I wouldn't base your opinion/limit your choice of any company on one occurrence - search for any brand and you'll find people complaining of problems.

TBH I've had four defective products in a row from a certain memory company, which has thrown their QC into question for me, but I'd still consider them in future purchases. People are kidding themselves if they switch brands thinking they're immune to problems.

As CAT said though I wouldn't focus too heavily on efficiency alone, especially when you have to spend more to get it; the difference is very over-stated in a lot of places. If you're purely after quietness at full load in a small system for example, that's a different matter of course, but you'll pay more to get it generally.

Take the S version of CPUs for instance. Sure, if you're maxing both, the S version will consume less power, but it will also be slower, so spend longer using full power. The difference between the two in terms of energy expended for a given task, the difference generally isn't all that great (although actual comparisons are hard to find for the newer CPUs, but I'll have another look now). Also if you're only partially loading the CPU e.g. gaming, chances are the two will have fairly similar power draw. IMO areas they make sense are if you're severely power or thermally limited and can't afford for the system to draw more power.

[Wolfsbane2k]

What PSU do you have??

Are you located in the UK??





You need to be careful getting too much into the energy effiency hype - not when it saves relatively little money each year.

The GTX750TI is slower in many games,meaning the hardware will need to be replaced quicker. Nvidia has its fair share of both software and hardware problems in the past. The 320 branch of drivers for my GTX660 gave me issues in some games(even for FF). The 330 branch is far better,but its only swings and roundabouts when it comes to drivers.

My GTX660 and Xeon E3 1220 in an ITX rig,consumes 150W to 200W at the wall when gaming,and that is with multiple drives and a AIO water cooler for the CPU.

Hi Cat-The-Fifth.

Yes, in the UK.

I agree, the low power vs long time thing is something I understand, and i remember when Tomshardware first tested SSD's "supposed" performance increase... and forgot to check how much additional work was done, as the ssd laptop vs the hard drive laptop ran out at almost the same time. The drive for me is not really "power", but quietness, and therefore thermals, and therefore power. If they did the 750ti in a low profile card i'd be over it like a shot. I've been looking at the xeons in a ITX rig, and this was going towards that idea.

Wolfsbane2k.