intel/nvidia or amd/radeon

[mojothejester]

Hi :-) I Wang to upgrade my PC on a budget of around 500. I've seen 3570k, z77, 8gb ddr3 1600 and gtx 660 ti, but I've also been looking at an FX 8320, 990 mobo, 8gb ddr3 1600 and either a 7870 or 7950. I know the Intel is more powerful than the amd, but do radeons work better with amd cpus for gaming? I want to use PC for gaming, music and browsing internet. I'd get a decent cpu air cooler too, and would possibly crossfire/sli in the future...

[Willzzz]

You can mix and match as much as you like. Nvidia cards work perfectly well with AMD processors and AMD cards work perfectly well with Intel processors.

With the possible exception of a dual graphics system on an AMD APU.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What sort of games though?? What is your budget though?? You don't need to overclock.

[mojothejester]

Ideally, I'd want to spend close to £500, and as for which games, I'd like to play stuff like skyrim, witcher, bf3, metro 2033, crysis 3, far cry 3, dishonored... I want to change from a console gamer to pc gamer. I'd love to be able to get a 7970ghz and an i7 3770k, but can't afford that :-( I only ask about fx 8320 as i've heard that radeons and amd cpu's run together better than intel and radeons...

[Willzzz]

Does this £500 need to include monitor, windows, keyboard, etc?
If you have a monitor what resolution is it?

Actually I think I can see most of that on your profile, still a lot of unknowns though.
What are you planning on doing with your old system?

[SOOMRO]

What items you are willing to buy under this budget & which PSU you are using?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What PSU and what motherboard do you have??

[mojothejester]

I've got 22" 1080p monitor, got basic keyboard, mouse and a saitek Cyborg command unit, got hard drive (although I'll end up getting an ssd in a month or two) and I'm basically just going to take all them bits off my old PC and use them in new one. I've got a 750w psu that I've never had a problem with, and I'll use my cooler master case. All I want to buy is the motherboard, CPU, cooler, ram and gpu for now. My system now is probably only just on the minimum for crysis 3, so I thought it's time to upgrade. Well, I've thought that for years, but never had money to do it...

[Willzzz]

OK, well in that case, suddenly you have loads of money

I'd suggest an i5 3470
A bog standard H77 board
8GB RAM
7950 of your choice

Personally I'd be tempted by this one:
http://www.dabs.com/products/sapphir...m_content=Q200
especially with 4% cashback from quidco

[Willzzz]

You might want to read this:

http://techreport.com/review/23981/r...0-ti-revisited

I was quite surprised how well the 660Ti did really and also just how small it is!
The 7950 should have the edge in Crysis, although performance tends to be a lot more spikey than the 660Ti.

[Macadee]

You might want to read this:

http://techreport.com/review/23981/r...0-ti-revisited

I was quite surprised how well the 660Ti did really and also just how small it is!
The 7950 should have the edge in Crysis, although performance tends to be a lot more spikey than the 660Ti.

Interesting, I like the 99th percentile test methodology, although it appears to be written with green tinted glasses if you read the comments.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I've got 22" 1080p monitor, got basic keyboard, mouse and a saitek Cyborg command unit, got hard drive (although I'll end up getting an ssd in a month or two) and I'm basically just going to take all them bits off my old PC and use them in new one. I've got a 750w psu that I've never had a problem with, and I'll use my cooler master case. All I want to buy is the motherboard, CPU, cooler, ram and gpu for now. My system now is probably only just on the minimum for crysis 3, so I thought it's time to upgrade. Well, I've thought that for years, but never had money to do it...

What PSU model is it?? 750W on its own means nothing if it CiT,EZ Cool or Powercool for example.

Also,the Elite 334 has limitations in the card length it takes. It was an OK case years ago,but I have known people who have ditched it for something a bit more modern.





It seems Scan should offer a free games bundle with the HD7950:

http://blogs.amd.com/play/this-holiday-never-settle/

They don't advertise it,but they should give you it according to the AMD website.

The components are from Scan and Amazon. Once you get to 20 posts,you can get free postage from Scan.

The build cannot be overclocked,but I don't even overclock TBH and a Core i5 at stock speeds is not slow IMHO.

The Merc Alpha can take cards as long as an HD6990:

http://i.imgur.com/88MYp.jpg

http://forums.iamextreme.net/f10/bit...e-review-1651/

The PSU is made by Seasonic.

The total comes to around £540 includig postage.

[scaryjim]

I was quite surprised how well the 660Ti did really and also just how small it is!
The 7950 should have the edge in Crysis, although performance tends to be a lot more spikey than the 660Ti.

I think the killer for me was this throwaway comment at the end:

"The transition to Windows 8 could play some role here, but we doubt it."

Hang on a minute - they make a big issue of how they did all sorts of additional testing to eliminate possible causes of the unusual Radeon latency patterns. They swapped the cards to different rigs, used a different 7950, even gave some background on the same spikes being seen with earlier drivers, none of which apparently had any influence. Yet the change to a different OS merits only a "doubt" that it makes a difference? If Radeons have unusual latency patterns under Windows 8, doesn't that deserve some investigation?

*sigh*

[Willzzz]

My understanding is that the 7950 Boost has always had very spikey performance because the boost state uses such high voltage and then has to throttle back very quickly.

http://techreport.com/review/23419/n...ard-reviewed/9
Mind you nothing like the spikes on the 7870!

I can't remember where it was, but someone showed that a 7950 can only stay in boost state for a few seconds at a time.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6152/a...0-with-boost/3

[scaryjim]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it must be Win 8 to blame, I'm just suggesting that it isn't the most professional journalism I've ever seen It's almost like they just got to a point where they couldn't be bothered any more, and they just started shrugging off any other concerns - "Could it be Win 8? Ah, I've done enough work already, let's just assume it wasn't..."

Anyway, they say they swapped in a non-boost 7950 and got similar results, so I don't think it's down to the boost mode...

[Willzzz]

Yes, the fact that the 7870 is very spikey indicates that it probably isn't boost mode also, I guess it must be a driver issue.

660 Ti also looks good on Far Cry 3:
http://www.techspot.com/review/615-f...nce/page3.html
Despite all those concerns ppl had about it having the 192bit bus.

Sounds bad on paper, but does remarkably well in real life (with a few exceptions).