[Conan Kudo]

I use a Radeon HD 6000 series card right now, but I've heard excellent things about the Radeon HD 7000 series.

I've got a few recommendations within the $100-$200 budget range:

• XFX FX-775A-ZNP4 Radeon HD 7750 1GB VRAM Core Edition - $120
• XFX Double D FX-775A-ZDP4 Radeon HD 7750 1GB VRAM Black Edition - $115 after MIR
• XFX CORE Edition FX-777A-ZNF4 Radeon HD 7770 1GB VRAM GHz Edition - $130 after MIR
• XFX Double D Black Edition FX-777A-ZDB4 Radeon HD 7770 1GB VRAM GHz Edition - $140 after MIR

If the Radeon HD 7000 series isn't what you want, then I recommend the following Radeon HD 6000 series cards:

• XFX HD-657X-CNH3 Radeon HD 6570 2GB VRAM - $80
• HIS iSilence 5 H667PNS1G Radeon HD 6670 1GB VRAM - $95
• XFX Double D HD-695X-CDFC Radeon HD 6950 2GB VRAM - $200 after MIR

[Jay T.]

Sorry to bump this extremely old topic.

Honestly, I haven't upgraded my computer yet, mostly due to spending money left and right on various things, especially the Wii U (plus I kind of forgot). It's 2013 now, and to my knowledge, I don't think I need to spend a huge amount of money unless I buy a game or two. Anyway, I've been thinking about my system and looking around for a few things, and I might be able to get something good out of it, maybe. Just in case, here's my specs from the first page.

Jay T., on 23 May 2012 - 05:37 PM, said:

My computer specs:
OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB)
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-M68MT-S2P AM3 NVIDIA GeForce 7025/nForce 630a chipset Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
CD/DVD Drive: ASUS 24X DVD Burner
Power Supply: Antec EarthWatts EA-500D Green 500W
Hard Drive: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3R HE103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM
Case: NZXT Apollo Black SECC Steel Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

So after looking around on Newegg, I found these.

1. CORSAIR Hydro series H50 High Performance CPU Cooler - $64.99
2. CORSAIR GS600 600W PSU - $99.99
3. HIS iCooler H777F1G2M Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition - $134.99

I added a liquid cooling system because my computer tends to heat up easily sometimes. Might be due to it being in computer desk with a magnetic door in the front, and a hole in the back that's close to the wall, but just in case. When idle, it's around 39-40C, but when I'm doing something like browsing, sometimes it'll go above 50C, and there been a few times like when moving files that it has hit above 60C. Plus the fan in the back can get a little loud above 50 and I guess it contributes to the heat in my room.

I may have to move the 120mm fan on the side of the case to the front, but that shouldn't be a problem, or should I remove it? At least to my knowledge, I think the fan on the side can be removed. I gotta double check later on.

When it comes to the PSU, first I want to thank HeartAttack for the link. I figured I should I get a 600W and it seems like Corsair is the way to go. Although, the type is bugging me. For a 600W on Newegg, there's two CX series and one GS series. From what I'm reading up, the GS is slightly better in quality, but below that of a TX. I dunno if there's any major difference other than that between the two. Should I go for the GS? Also, is 600W more than enough?

And as for the video card, that should be able to play games like Sonic Generations and Minecraft pretty well under high quality settings, right? It should fit in the case too, I believe.

So, what's your opinion on this?

This post has been edited by Jay T.: 14 January 2013 - 03:45 AM

[Meat Miracle]

The pre-made fixed loop cpu water cooling blocks actually do not offer better cooling than a decent air cooler; drop the h50 and get a coolermaster 212 evo instead.

I wouldn't go for a new PSU unless the old one gives you troubles. And note that a good 500w PSU can power literally any single gpu setup, though the split rails are a concern on the one you have. Online power supply calculators are almost always bullshit. That 600w would be "safer" technically but not necessarily needed; especially for a phenom 2 + HD 7770 combination. Unless you want to pop in a second card into crossfire later on, I'd wager your PSU is good enough.

Just to put this under perspective: I was running a e6550 with a 35% overclock, 8 drives, and a HD 6950 for years on a Corsair hx520 power supply, which has THREE rails. It never exhibited any problem, not even when I unlocked the card to a 6970 and overclocked/volted it to way beyond 6970 speeds and used it for password cracking (which puts higher load on it than any other game, almost as high as furmark). And I was running it like that for half a year 24/7.

This post has been edited by Meat Miracle: 14 January 2013 - 07:16 AM

[360]

You want a new graphics card bro? A new graphics card bro? The 3Dfx Voodoo 3 3000 is the shit. It runs Quake 2 on max settings for MAXIMUM DAMAGE. You'll get frame rates so fast you'll feel like you're on a fucking rollercoaster. The Voodoo 3 is going to run the upcoming Quake 3 Arena so fast you're going to smash your face into your computer screen. Your face bro. Your face. Don't hate the player. Hate the game. 360 OUT.

This post has been edited by 360: 14 January 2013 - 01:18 PM

[Ultima]

Go for the GS series. Hexus forumers, who know their shit, hate the CX series and warn to avoid them. 600W on a decent PSU is absolutely plenty - most people overcompensate way too much in that department, and though a little overcompensation is cool, there's no reason to go more than 600W unless you plan to run a crapton of hard drives or optical drives (or have a quad-cpu server).

Also, stay the fuck away from AMD graphics cards. I have never NOT had massive problems with them, and have given them a chance every 3 years or so. I also don't know anyone who has not had problems with them. Their drivers suck ass, they're poorly built and often DOA.

This post has been edited by Ultima: 14 January 2013 - 12:26 PM

[winterhell]

If you can afford it go for GeForce GTX 660 or 660 Ti. Awesome bang for the buck I have 660 Ti and I'm maxing Generations at 2560x1440.

[Jay T.]

Phew, okay. Back from class. Thanks for responding.

@Meat Miracle: Okay, I'll change to the fan. As for the PSU, I was pretty much going by Overlord and HeartAttack's posts. I do want to keep using this computer for as long as possible, and there is always that possibility I may have to change parts for better ones, so may be good to get a slightly higher wattage. As for the rail, well, HeartAttack pretty much explains it.

@360 I don't see the card on Newegg, but I do see it on Amazon. Although, looks like they only have used video cards. I personally would rather get a new video card. I dunno how good used ones are and I kind of don't want to risk it. I'm guessing the card you suggested is quite an old model, right?

@Ultima Alright. I'll keep those in mind.

@Winterhell Quite expensive cards, but we'll see. For now, I'll try to get a cheaper, but still powerful one.

This post has been edited by Jay T.: 14 January 2013 - 09:19 PM

[360]

@Jay T. Dude. I was joking. For the love of God don't actually buy a Voodoo 3. It's a card from 1998. I thought the references to Quake 2/3 would be enough of a giveaway. I even said "the upcoming" Quake 3; a game from 1999. You get an old 3Dfx card and you won't be able to run anything dude. It's 15 years old. I was trying to make everyone laugh and ultimately it appears I failed. On a serious note just get a high-end Nvidia card. Choose the highest priced GeForce card you can afford and you should be set.

This post has been edited by 360: 14 January 2013 - 09:38 PM

[Jay T.]

360, on 14 January 2013 - 09:36 PM, said:

@Jay T. Dude. I was joking. For the love of God don't actually buy a Voodoo 3. It's a card from 1998. I thought the references to Quake 2/3 would be enough of a giveaway. I even said "the upcoming" Quake 3; a game from 1999. You get an old 3Dfx and you won't be able to run anything dude. It's 15 years old. I was trying to make everyone laugh and ultimately it appears I failed. On a serious note just get a high-end Nvidia card. Choose the highest priced GeForce card you can afford and you should be set.

I'm not too familiar with the Quake series other than the name and it's a FPS (which I'm not into, honestly). Sorry. XP
But yeah, probably the best idea. I'll just save up as much I can and get a good one. I believe the recommended card for something like Generations is a GTX 460, so I can probably get one in the 500 series, if I don't feel like saving up for the 600s. Thanks!

This post has been edited by Jay T.: 14 January 2013 - 09:59 PM

[Meat Miracle]

Ultima, on 14 January 2013 - 12:24 PM, said:

Go for the GS series. Hexus forumers, who know their shit, hate the CX series and warn to avoid them. 600W on a decent PSU is absolutely plenty - most people overcompensate way too much in that department, and though a little overcompensation is cool, there's no reason to go more than 600W unless you plan to run a crapton of hard drives or optical drives (or have a quad-cpu server).

I have a 3570k that I use as a server/seedbox with 5 hdds + 2 dvds + 1 ssd, and a radeon 6950, and my corsair hx520w is never even at HALF load, unless I set the 6950 to 6970 mode/speeds/voltages, and run furmark and linpack at the same time.

PSU usages are seriously overestimated nowadays. As long as you get a quality PSU (google for some tests), that is rated for 80plus bronze at the very least, you'll have no problems with the setup you are planning even with a 400-500w PSU. You'd only need higher if you were considering SLI/Crossfire, but even thats redundant because by the time you need more gpu power, single cards will be 2-3x ahead of what you can buy today.

Quote

Also, stay the fuck away from AMD graphics cards. I have never NOT had massive problems with them, and have given them a chance every 3 years or so. I also don't know anyone who has not had problems with them. Their drivers suck ass, they're poorly built and often DOA.

I've been using mostly Radeons for the past ten years, and this is complete and total bullshit. I've had some of my cards survive hazardous conditions without breaking a sweat that would've made Geforce cards burn down (as many have been documented to do so, sometimes caused by nvidias own drivers, sometimes with stable drivers just on their own). See if you can run a benchmark in any game with a Geforce 560 with only a passive Accelero S1 heatsink on it and no fan; the old first gen 5850 I used to have could do that without breaking a sweat. It hit as high as 130c on the VRMs, and then clocked the card down until temperatures were low enough - Geforce cards would spontaneously combust on the spot if you've tried this with them.

Yes, Radeon drivers do have some stupid issues, but Geforce cards have plenty of their own share of idiocies. The driver "stopped working and has recovered" almost every day is one such problem.

[Jay T.]

Kind of forgot there was a debate about AMD vs nVidia...I think. Seems like most of the time, it boils down to preferences. I do know the on board card on my motherboard uses nVidia.

I went through various sites like Tom's Hardware forums, Newegg, and various other forums, and it seems like for under $200 (minus taxes), AMD Radeon seems to be the most popular. Specifically, the HD 7850. Well, I don't have the money just yet, and I probably won't buy this stuff till the end of the month. What do you guys think? I know what Ultima said, but I'm curious to hear from more.

Looks like the GeForce GTX 660 does beat it, going by this chart below, although it does cost a little bit more.

This post has been edited by Jay T.: 15 January 2013 - 05:26 PM

[Hez]

I'm terrible with video cards, but I am debating on replacing mine. Money isn't an issue, but I don't want to waste any.

I was considering buying two GeForce GTX 680's. Right now I have two GeForce GTX 560's in my computer. Would it be wiser to just buy one and SLI it to one of my 560's? Or would the 560 drop it down in performance. Also, I have room for three video cards. Would it be even wiser to buy two 680's and then sli one of the 560's with that? I really am not one to talk about video cards...

[TmEE]

I have had best experience with Radeons myself, and my experiences have been pretty much like what Meat Miracle described.

One thing I saf here is that when you get a long (near) full length card I suggest you add someting to support it on the end, I have seen many cards that have died from PCB flexing from their weight...

[Ultima]

Meat Miracle, on 15 January 2013 - 02:48 PM, said:

Ultima, on 14 January 2013 - 12:24 PM, said:

Also, stay the fuck away from AMD graphics cards. I have never NOT had massive problems with them, and have given them a chance every 3 years or so. I also don't know anyone who has not had problems with them. Their drivers suck ass, they're poorly built and often DOA.

I've been using mostly Radeons for the past ten years, and this is complete and total bullshit. I've had some of my cards survive hazardous conditions without breaking a sweat that would've made Geforce cards burn down (as many have been documented to do so, sometimes caused by nvidias own drivers, sometimes with stable drivers just on their own). See if you can run a benchmark in any game with a Geforce 560 with only a passive Accelero S1 heatsink on it and no fan; the old first gen 5850 I used to have could do that without breaking a sweat. It hit as high as 130c on the VRMs, and then clocked the card down until temperatures were low enough - Geforce cards would spontaneously combust on the spot if you've tried this with them.

Yes, Radeon drivers do have some stupid issues, but Geforce cards have plenty of their own share of idiocies. The driver "stopped working and has recovered" almost every day is one such problem.

Just sharing my experience, as I said, I've had nothing but problems with them and I don't know anyone who has had a good experience with Radeon cards, be them old ATi or new AMD ones. I'm not going to be buying any in future - but maybe I've just been unlucky. For the record, I've never had an nVidia card go above 80 degrees C (and have in fact never had a problem with them driver-wise either, unlike my current computer which is an absolute disaster running anything except catalyst 11.5).

Hez, on 16 January 2013 - 07:11 PM, said:

I'm terrible with video cards, but I am debating on replacing mine. Money isn't an issue, but I don't want to waste any.

I was considering buying two GeForce GTX 680's. Right now I have two GeForce GTX 560's in my computer. Would it be wiser to just buy one and SLI it to one of my 560's? Or would the 560 drop it down in performance. Also, I have room for three video cards. Would it be even wiser to buy two 680's and then sli one of the 560's with that? I really am not one to talk about video cards...

Unless you're running at some ridiculous resolutions or 3d or something, one 560 should be enough for most of today's games at absolute max. 2 is definitely enough - you won't see much (if any) of a performance difference in upgrading to two 680's. If you are having problems with performance in games, it's very likely that your GPUs are NOT your bottleneck.

This post has been edited by Ultima: 17 January 2013 - 10:55 AM

[Hez]

Ultima, on 17 January 2013 - 10:52 AM, said:

Hez, on 16 January 2013 - 07:11 PM, said:

I'm terrible with video cards, but I am debating on replacing mine. Money isn't an issue, but I don't want to waste any.

I was considering buying two GeForce GTX 680's. Right now I have two GeForce GTX 560's in my computer. Would it be wiser to just buy one and SLI it to one of my 560's? Or would the 560 drop it down in performance. Also, I have room for three video cards. Would it be even wiser to buy two 680's and then sli one of the 560's with that? I really am not one to talk about video cards...

Unless you're running at some ridiculous resolutions or 3d or something, one 560 should be enough for most of today's games at absolute max. 2 is definitely enough - you won't see much (if any) of a performance difference in upgrading to two 680's. If you are having problems with performance in games, it's very likely that your GPUs are NOT your bottleneck.

My video cards are the only thing I haven't upgraded, so I'm assuming they're the problem. Have an 8 core with 16 gigs of ram that I just bought 2 or 3 months ago.

EDIT: Also, I have three monitors. Wouldn't I require two cards with Nvidia?

This post has been edited by Hez: 17 January 2013 - 12:33 PM