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Upgrade ponderages...

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Post  MJDixon Thu Apr 14, 2011 9:43 am

Birthday again soon, been pondering some graphics card upgrades (need more graphics card memory aparantly, as I'm running at high resolution - also CloD needs 2gb odd Razz ), narrowed it down to three but they all have their issues.

The Safe Option

Gainward GeForce GTX 560Ti 2048 MB GDDR5Dual

This is the safe option as it's not exactly top tier, apparently uses 20w less power (the basic 1gb version at least) than my current card (ASUS ATI HD 4890 1024mb) and is the cheapest, however the stats don't seem to be massively better than my current card (a basic ATI HD 4890 vs a basic 1gb 560Ti anyway) but I don't really know how much better the Gainward 2GB one is and is it worth £250 compared to what I've got? Although seemingly the 560 was only released a few months ago, where as the ATI 4890 is about two years old, so it seems a bit odd if the 560 is only a little better, unless I've go the stats wrong.

(The main advantages over my current card seem to be that it has 2gb ram compared to 1gb and is DirectX 11 compatible, where as my current is DirectX 10 I think.)

The Hard Option

Asus HD 6970 2GB GDDR5

This one is a lot better than my current card and is only about £30 more than the first option, however it uses 60w more than my current card, so I might have to buy a new PSU (not sure what my current one is, I'll have to open it up and look - 500w I think) and also my Motherboard (ASUS P5N-e SLI) has issues running ATI 6XXX series cards and required a BIOS update (or else it takes about 40 seconds for it to start up) which I'm not to keen about as I hear they can cock up the Motherboard.

The Silly Expensive Option

Palit GTX 580 3GB GDDR5

This one is similar to the second one I think, and has about the same power consumption - but has 3gb memory and I won't have to update my BIOS.

Of course the question is, with this PC:

Intel Core 2 Duo 3.33Ghz
ASUS P5N-e SLI
4GB DDR2 Ram
Windows XP SP3 (Thinking about getting Windows 7.)

Would the other components in the PC be holding back the better two cards so much that there's not much point in me getting them, compared to the first card?
MJDixon
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Post  speedy77 Thu Apr 14, 2011 6:53 pm


This chart may help you decide:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/20293/14


It suggests the Gigabytes SOC edition of the 560Ti, gives good bang for your buck. But if you can stretch to it the 6970 (or dare I say 570Ti) will give you better performance.

Having your choice of those cards is a nice position to be in MJ!
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Post  MJDixon Thu Apr 14, 2011 10:50 pm

Thanks for the link, Speedy!

Seems to suggest that there isn't much difference between a GeForce GTX 560 Ti and an ATI 6970 other than about 2 FPS, which isn't much in the grand scheme of things, I was thinking about a 570 Ti, but they all seem to be about 1GB of VRam and I'm after 2GB or more, which is a shame.

I've opened my PC and discovered that I have an Enermax 485w PSU, however I've also discovered that the ATI 6970 and GTX 580 might not even fit in my PC, as my current ATI 4890 is 9.5 inches long and only has about 1 inch clearance behind it - where as the ATI 6970 is 10.75 inches long and the GTX 580 is 10.5 inches long, which is a bit tight it must be said!

However, the GTX 560Ti is only 9 inches - which is shorter than my current card (although it's quite tall with that fancy cooling crap on it.)

Think I'm reaching the limit of what I'm going to be able to squeeze out of my current PC, as to get a new Intel CPU in future I'd need a new motherboard with a newer LGA connection - which also means I'd need new RAM to go with the Motherboard I think, so I'd probably be better off getting a new PC if I wanted to upgrade anything else.
MJDixon
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Post  MJDixon Fri Apr 15, 2011 12:14 am

The more I imagine myself buying them the more I lean towards the GTX 560 Ti as it will fit my PC, won't need to update my BIOS, and probably won't need a new PSU if the stats are correct - also I've been meaning to try out an NVidia card for awhile, as my last three or so have all been ATI, so I'm interested to see the difference.

Plus it also happens to be the cheapest, which means I can get something else like a new Saitek Throttle Quadrant (the one I've got at the moment is having issues with the throttle jumping around - which isn't good in Fighter Combat I can tell you! I'll probably still keep my current one and stick it next to a new one, that way I have 6 levers for fancy sims like Clod (Throttle, Mixture, Prop Pitch, Flaps, Radiator, etc) and multi-engine stuff.)

Or maybe a new Airbrush!
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Post  MJDixon Sun Apr 17, 2011 5:17 am

Decided to go for the GTX 560 Ti 2GB, arrived this morning and seems to work with my current 485w PSU, however I keep getting big slow-downs every now and again when I'm looking at websites and the like, everything starts freezing up - think that might be underpowered? Might get a 650w one instead...

As for if there's much of an improvement over my ATI 4890, well...



Yes! Very Happy

I even get those fancy shadows now in Cliffs of Dover, I used to think I didn't get them because I was on DirectX 9 rather than DirectX 10, but guess it was my Graphics Card!
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Post  speedy77 Mon Apr 18, 2011 6:01 am

Thanks looks amazing. Really shows how dated BE looks! How is the game generally MJ?

PS..Even Mrs Speedy was impressed!
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