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4870x2 dead, buying a new graphics card - suggestions?

surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
edited April 2012 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
Yo broskis and broskettes - my old 4870x2 has finally given up the ghost, and I think the thing for me to do is just replace the graphics card for now and wait for an ivy bridge upgrade in a year or so for the other parts.

However, I really have not been keeping up with graphics stuff - I have heard rumours of a new type of nvidia card (fermi? idk) coming out soon, suggesting that waiting might be wise there too, but I'm simply not sure.

so

a) is it worth buying now, or should I wait
b) if I were to buy now, what would probably be the best nvidia card for my buck? I like physx, and after the experience I've had with ati cards I just can't handle any more of their shit :/

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surrealitycheck on

Posts

  • a5ehrena5ehren AtlantaRegistered User regular
    All the new stuff is out now, though not necessarily common or easy to find, so it really just comes down to budget. Since you're coming from a 4870x2, I assume you like to play at high resolution/high detail?

    You're looking at a minimum of a GTX 570 (~$280 on Newegg) to see even a minor performance increase from your existing card, by the way. If you're willing to drop $500 (and can find one...) the GTX 680 is the king at the moment. Another option would be to SLI two 560 Tis, but that would probably bring back a lot of the headaches you had with the ATI card.

  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    edited April 2012
    To be honest, the 4870 ran pretty horribly - it really did not deliver the fps it should have done really ever. And the amount of wrangling I had to do on game releases... oh lawd.

    I might try a gtx680, but it is a little pricey - between£400-500 here. I might just buy one when I'm next in the states.

    And as a bonus, I actually have an 800w psu with 2 6-pin pci-e connectors free when i remove the 4870x2. And I already took bolt-cutters to the drive bay to get the 4870x2 in, so I bet I have space in the case.

    surrealitycheck on
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  • a5ehrena5ehren AtlantaRegistered User regular
    edited April 2012
    surrealitycheck wrote: »
    To be honest, the 4870 ran pretty horribly - it really did not deliver the fps it should have done really ever. And the amount of wrangling I had to do on game releases... oh lawd.

    I might try a gtx680, but it is a little pricey - between£400-500 here. I might just buy one when I'm next in the states.

    And as a bonus, I actually have an 800w psu with 2 6-pin pci-e connectors free when i remove the 4870x2. And I already took bolt-cutters to the drive bay to get the 4870x2 in, so I bet I have space in the case.

    You may be especially sensitive to microstutter, which is an unavoidable issue with multi-GPU setups, unfortunately. But yeah the 680 is still hella expensive (especially in GBP...damn).

    Yeah, any single GPU card should fit pretty easily within the profile of a 4870x2. The GTX 680 is 0.5 inches shorter in length, FWIW.

    a5ehren on
  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    I mean there are some in stock at overclockers:

    http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-151-MS

    and then I see this one, and it has all these bigger numbers

    http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-180-EA

    WHY YOU DECEIVE ME BIGGER NUMBERS :(

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  • a5ehrena5ehren AtlantaRegistered User regular
    edited April 2012
    surrealitycheck wrote: »
    I mean there are some in stock at overclockers:

    http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-151-MS

    and then I see this one, and it has all these bigger numbers

    http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-180-EA

    WHY YOU DECEIVE ME BIGGER NUMBERS :(

    From what I've read, the 680 overclocks pretty well, even for users. I wouldn't pay the extra 140 for a factory-OC.

    Especially since that 2nd one requires a water cooling system. That explains the crazy OC :P

    a5ehren on
  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    I'm actually probably going to get one of the out of the box corsair water cooling kits for the ivy bridge system that I imagine I shall be building. A friend of mine got one and it is actually really easy to use - I was pretty amazed. In my head water cooling was always one of those "too complicated to be worth it" type things but it really seems to be a consumer level technology now.

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  • a5ehrena5ehren AtlantaRegistered User regular
    surrealitycheck wrote: »
    I'm actually probably going to get one of the out of the box corsair water cooling kits for the ivy bridge system that I imagine I shall be building. A friend of mine got one and it is actually really easy to use - I was pretty amazed. In my head water cooling was always one of those "too complicated to be worth it" type things but it really seems to be a consumer level technology now.

    Well those Corsair kits, as far as I know, wouldn't be able to handle a CPU + GPU combined loop. You see some crazy people online who have a separate kit for each part, but it requires some modification to fit on the GPU apparently.

    If you're really considering that second card, you would be better off building a custom water system to handle the combined load and get better performance.

  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    I was thinking of the cpu specifically. I'm probably not going to hazard water near GPUs with my luck!

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  • a5ehrena5ehren AtlantaRegistered User regular
    edited April 2012
    surrealitycheck wrote: »
    I was thinking of the cpu specifically. I'm probably not going to hazard water near GPUs with my luck!

    Ah. Yeah I'm curious about the H100 specifically, but I'm way too lazy to take apart my current system to remove the current heatsink to try it. Maybe try it out on my Haswell system (2013)...

    a5ehren on
  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    Why don't intel just release those things now and stop their tick-tock nonsense! Silly intel!

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  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    Sir Reality, if you do go with the GeForce option, I would suggest EVGA. Despite them being obstinate in some respects, they're still well above other manufacturers in many regards, and their lifetime warranty while not free (you have to pay shipping) does work (I just got back one of my GTX 470s, no problems so far).

    Just my two cents. You may wish to go AMD also, though I think Nvidia has the edge presently in support software (or rather, they're just not as bad as AMD currently is), and EVGA releases some very nice custom software and drivers (like their overclocking interface, EVGA Precision, which is pretty boss).

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  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    edited April 2012
    Danke broski. I ended up getting the KFA2 option, because they have full RMA support and stuff in the UK as they're an EU-based outfit. Plus they were £10 off... that's a whole bonus pizza with my order!

    If they offered that I would never stop buying upgrades holy shit

    either way still £430

    surrealitycheck on
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  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    Given that's a lot to drop on a card, I can't say I blame you for taking a discount where you can.

    EVGA Precision should still work with it, though. If you plan to overclock.

    Synthesis on
  • surrealitychecksurrealitycheck lonely, but not unloved dreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered User regular
    edited April 2012
    I'll give it a try, I like shiny UIs on my cards.

    I really wanted to go for the 600 quid option but waiting 3 weeks to pay £170 more wasn't appealing to me I WANT TO BUY IT NOW sense

    surrealitycheck on
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