Looking for a GPU that could get me through a year

[YoloSwag]

I was thinking the same thing about the GTX 660, but under some certain circumstance in context, I cannot disclose why I really sold it because it would be embarrassing It was essential that I sold it at that time. I was actually planning to buy an R9 270X 2 months after with the proceeds from the sale + some extra, but I ended up spending the money elsewhere

Well the R7 265 does beat the GTX 750 Ti, and may be a close or on par with a GTX 660. It's priced the same as the GTX 750 Ti so it would do better.

To cut the long story short, I don't think getting a new high-end mid-range card, namely the GTX 760, would benefit me much given the circumstances. I think I'd be going with somewhere between a GTX 750 Ti and an R9 270X. The R9 270X is really overpriced here but I'll try to find some cheaper ones I think the R9 270X performs close to the GTX 660 Ti and is much cheaper.

The $100+ difference between the GTX 750 Ti and the GTX 760 for me is not really justifiable. To be honest, I had a hard time selling my GTX 660 so what more with a more expensive card. So it all comes down to the R7 265 and R9 270X (I don't think getting the middle R9 270 would be great since it's close to the R9 270X, so why not push it?). If I find a great deal with the R9 270X I might get it right away. How do I get those free games anyway? Both AMD and Nvidia are giving away games with their GPUs.

And I don't trust 2nd hand part vendors. Its like that something where you want yourself to be the first one to open the box thing and I don't like the idea that they might have overclocked it a bit...

Most of you guys haven't upgraded your GPUs too. You guys waiting for Maxwell or something like that?

[MrRockliffe]

I've owned a sapphire card before and I can vouch for the cooler. It was top notch, really quiet and never had any issues with it. 7850 overclocked like a monster with it.

[YoloSwag]

I've owned a sapphire card before and I can vouch for the cooler. It was top notch, really quiet and never had any issues with it. 7850 overclocked like a monster with it.

Thanks for the info. I wouldn't want a hot GPU running in my case. Ambient temps in my room are around 35C in good conditions, and that's bad already It's one of my brands of choice at the moment, aside from the Gigabyte Windforce thing. I'm still checking out MSI's offering since it comes with BF4 but I'm having trouble finding one for the right price.

[MrRockliffe]

Where is it you live? (may have already mentioned but only skipped through the thread)

[Pob255]

You where saying you'd be getting a new card next year anyway, which is why I'd question the decision to buy a new card now.
A 2nd hand card should last you a year, but yes you don't know how much it's been thrashed, not just overclocking can effect the life span of a card, but that's the risk you run with 2nd hand.
It would pretty much come down to price, how much you can get a 2nd hand card for and if the cost is worth the risk?

That all said I would like to point out again, that nvidia cards tend to have a higher resale value than amd cards, although I think that's a general image/assumption thing.
I think it's due to the top end nvidia cards being regularly the fastest cards, so people tend to assume that an nvidia card is better than an amd card without taking the time to research or realising that different models of card perform differently.

It's something you're going to have to do some research on, check the last series see what the 2nd hand prices are where you are.
Like I said before generally the 7870 out performed the gtx660 (non-ti) and the 7850 was only slightly behind the gtx660 (non-ti) so how much are those 3 going for 2nd hand?

As to how often I replace stuff, depends on the money I have and the performance of my current stuff, I don't wait for new stuff, generally. I stick with what I've got until the performance is not longer up to it in my eyes.
The only time I've upgraded because of a new hardware release was the 1st gen i5, which was great up until it died, at the time I couldn't afford the new 2nd gen i5 so I went the cheaper option of a phenom II x4 I did originally plan on upgrading to a Bulldozer FX 8120 but I've still not found anything that really struggles so I've not bothered even after piledriver came out.

[YoloSwag]

Yes that's also my concern, I think I'd fare better selling an Nvidia card rather than an AMD one since most of the people here in my country are fanboys who don't really read GPU reviews and make certain assumptions like "it'll perform better because its Nvidia" without considering the facts.

For anyone who asks, I'm in The Philippines. Although cards are manufactured here in SEA, particularly in Taiwan, they remain to be expensive because retailers here, I think, get them from U.S. which is really stupid.

And by the way, I found something that may help you guys too here I wish Hexus had one of these. I don't think this reflects driver improvements though. So Hexus! I want something like this here, and update it from time to time to reflect driver improvements and other things, something like a buyers guide It takes a huge amount of effort to do this but the benefits outweigh the costs

There's a curve to components that I'm already familiar with. The GTX 760 is on the other half (the more expensive half) of that curve. I think the middle part here, sweet spot which they call it, would be - yes a GTX 660 Ti, a GTX 660, 7870, R9 265-270X, and a little bit on the lower part of the middle would probably be the GTX 750 Ti. So I'm leaning towards a custom R9 270X at the moment with it being in the middle part of almost everything, sometimes beating a GTX 760 in rare cases. It's on that graph thing too.

[DanceswithUnix]

Those graphs are very useful, though I prefer the Anandtech Bench that I have been linking to: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU14/815

Be aware though that these charts are always done with the biggest i7 the reviewers can get their hands on, and it looks like AMD have driver problems so performance drops off as the CPU gets slower. Obviously the same happens for Nvidia, but just not as much.

[mikeo01]

Haven't read too in depth into this thread, but basically you'll find a GTX 760 and GTX 770 to be higher cost up front than the R9 270X and R9 280X. Which makes resale absolutely pointless because you'd of paid the extra initially anyway.

Personally I'd stick with onboard until you really want to upgrade to Maxwell rather than wasting money on a current card just to sell it back on.


I'd either buy the card you want now, or wait until they drop in price or consider second hand. There will always be something new around the corner.

[MrJim]

Most of you guys haven't upgraded your GPUs too. You guys waiting for Maxwell or something like that?

I'm a casual gamer, & only update my GPU when it starts to struggle to play the games I want to play. My GTX 670 is a few years old now, but still does everything I need I'll be waiting to see how GPUs on the 20nm node perform before considering an upgrading, but it'll really depend on the games I'll be wanting to play in the future.

[YoloSwag]

I'm a casual gamer, & only update my GPU when it starts to struggle to play the games I want to play. My GTX 670 is a few years old now, but still does everything I need I'll be waiting to see how GPUs on the 20nm node perform before considering an upgrading, but it'll really depend on the games I'll be wanting to play in the future.

Heck, the GTX 670 still does the job so no worries there, Maxwell is said to be a leap in terms of efficiency. See the the GTX 750 Ti, if it wasn't crippled by the 128-bit interface and if they actually thrown in at least one 6-pin connector to raise the clocks, it would be close to the GTX 660 Ti maybe even closer to the GTX 760.

I saw a reference GTX 760 just $20 above the R9 270X I'm eyeing. And if I push it another $20 I'd get a Palit GTX 760 Jetstream Hexus did a review here, it may be just me but I think 70C during load is too high for a card with a custom cooler. The review is pretty old though. So what you guys think about that? I really don't like the blower type coolers, it sounds like a hair dryer when you're playing Metro: 2033

But I'm not really aiming for it though, I'm just curious on what you guys think about it.

Also I heard GPU Boost, in Nvidia and AMD, works better if cards are under 70C is that true? My old GTX 660 hits 1212Mhz with boost and temps at 64C during load.

[The Hand]

It might be worth seriously considering the R9 270 as the performance is only slightly slower than the 270X, but the power consumption is lower too. The 270 card is cheaper to begin with too.
Anandtech has a comparison between a couple of 270 cards and a 270x card here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7503/t...at-asus-his/16

Edit - I forgot to mention the R9 270 could be over clocked to 270x speeds if needed.

[YoloSwag]

It might be worth seriously considering the R9 270 as the performance is only slightly slower than the 270X, but the power consumption is lower too. The 270 card is cheaper to begin with too.
Anandtech has a comparison between a couple of 270 cards and a 270x card here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7503/t...at-asus-his/16

Edit - I forgot to mention the R9 270 could be over clocked to 270x speeds if needed.

It seems I forgot that the two are almost identical. Thanks for the tip, I'll search around for an OC'd R9 270 but if the price just comes near the R9 270X I'll get it instead for obvious reasons. Thanks again

UPDATE: It seems that my local retailer has ran out on R9 270s, the only one left is from MSI which is almost just as expensive as Gigabyte's R9 270X Windforce. But anything could happen, I think I'll start searching again the following week just before I have my final decision.

[Matthewb22]

Go for the gtx 760 you can run any current came on ultra and then are going to be able to handle next gen games on ultra too

[YoloSwag]

Go for the gtx 760 you can run any current came on ultra and then are going to be able to handle next gen games on ultra too

The same could be said with the R9 270X, Crysis 3 as an exception of course And since I don't have that game, just tried that beta multiplayer thing, it wouldn't really matter.
I heard the new Wolfenstein is a bit picky on hardware. I'm planning on getting it...in a year or two when its 50% off at Steam probably

[OneIT]

The R9 270X is a reasonable choice.

Its decent value for its performance and will probably be reasonably resalable for a not huge loss.

[Eldeblor]

I would go for the msi r9280. It is a good card which has a lot of overclocking potential with the twin frozr cooling. Once over clocked it is comparable to a gtx 770. There is a deal online for it at £170.