[Professor Clio]

I'm thinking of finally upgrading my trusty old 6950 after four years of awesome performance its finally starting to show its age. My desktop currently has an i5-2500K (not currently O/H but will do if I upgrade the card) and 8gb of ram. I'm a little out of touch with current gen cards, anyone has a recommendation for the best bang for buck upgrade I can get here?

 

Edit: I should add that I have a corsair 750w PSU

[Korrey]

Someone can challenge me on this, but it depends on your price range. In my opinion, there's a huge gap in card prices right now.

 

You can get a ATI 7870 (also now rebranded as an R9 270) / GTX 660 series cards for around $150+.

 

Then there appears to be a huge gap before the next group of cards (760's etc) starting at around $240+.and then the $400+ cards.

 

Best bang for your buck (sub $200) is, sadly, still probably the 7870 or a GTX 660.

 

Just my thoughts

[Vash Aideron]

I just got the R9 270X about 3 months ago and would describes it as an upper mid range at 255 USD haven't had a single problem and like AMD's and MSI's supporting software for overclocking and monitoring perfromance

 

Edit: also you can google a PSU calculator where you add all the things it runs and see what kind of overhead your left with

Also my biggest problem with my PSU was ensuring I had the right modular plugin for the GC. ( IE some of the newer cards demand an 8 pin or two)

[Professor Clio]

Unless I'm mistaken my PSU will run any single card out there (maybe not a titan). I could wait a few months if something is coming out soon.

[Vash Aideron]

they have kind of slowed down on putting out a lot of new things for the moment so there's nothing on the horizon that i know of

[Rejuice K]

I can only say I have an old I5 760 running at just over 3,1ghz and a club 3d  HD7870 (its a tahiti) and it runs anything I have encountered at 1920x1200 with high or more details..

 

Not long ago I actually considered changing GFX aswell but come to the conclusion that it just wasnt worth it yet unless I startet to play with multiply screens (read eye infinity) 

[Professor Clio]

I can get a R9-280x for about 300 CAN. That should be a big upgrade over my 6950. I might watch sales over the next couple months and grab one. I'm in no real rush I suppose.

[Vash Aideron]

the only warning I would give on the R9 series is it seems a lot of the MSI and Gigabyte cards are having lots of problems with fans going on the fritz right after your 30 days is up

[Professor Clio]

I can get this one for 299 (+taxes and shipping of course) http://www.newegg.ca...0-678-_-Product

[Vash Aideron]

almost 12" long hope you got some room

[Professor Clio]

I have a full sized tower case.

[Vash Aideron]

my only other complaint would be the average core clock for that price but that extra memory is nice

[Professor Clio]

For 30$ more I could go to this faster clocked version http://www.newegg.ca...N82E16814150690

[Vash Aideron]

Im not trying to tell you what you should get im just trying to point out things I look at when I research what to buy. (Im real heavy on best performance per dollar) I say it has a low clock speed for the price based on the 270x series averaging a clock speed of 1080 for 50$ less. but your also losing that extra gig of mem

 

Edit: so its all about whats important to you

[Professor Clio]

I appreciate the feedback, I'm still trying to figure out what I want/need. That 280x might be too much card for my needs really. Though I tend to keep my hardware 3-4 years so going more powerful might be a good investment.

[Arjar Ammar]

http://www.tomshardw...ew-32899-7.html

 

Have a look at this page Prof, gives a very good idea if you upgrading how much you have to go to see a noticeable difference, (3 tiers according to them which takes your 6950 up to the R280 never mind the 280x). 

 

If you're going to be keeping hardware any length of time I've always gone for the best I can afford and it's stood me in good stead.

 

NB What screen resolution are you going to be using, and/or intending to use in the future?

[Professor Clio]

My main monitor is a 27 inch at 2560*1440. I do have flanking 24inchers that I might want to try to set up with eyefinity though. (the sides are 1920*1200)

[Arjar Ammar]

Hmmm, my OCD would go into overdrive if I had a mismatched multi monitor set-up - but I suppose with the big one in the centre and the two smaller ones at the side...... 

 

However if you are going to be powering that amount of screen real estate, at decent settings, then you will want as much power as you can afford, overclocked R280x might do it but I'd be tempted to do a little more research.

[Professor Clio]

Funny enough I love the slightly bigger in the middle setup. The 24s aren't that much smaller than the 27 and if it was 3x 27s I'd run out of desk space! 

 

Anything more powerful than the 280x is starting to get expensive so that's probably my top end. I'll mull it over a bit longer I guess.

[Galenwade]

My main monitor is a 27 inch at 2560*1440. I do have flanking 24inchers that I might want to try to set up with eyefinity though. (the sides are 1920*1200)

 

 

for this sort of setup you will need more than a 270 at least if you try to game across it . 

 

 

you will want a 4gb card at the min , I hate saying that because i rather go bang for buck  ( i love my 270 oc version) 

 

when comparing cards , don't compare your card vs the new card... the new should always win !  Compare the different new cards

 

if you go to 

http://www.anandtech...ct/1043?vs=1056

 

you can compare two cards and see if it is worth the money, you can also set a resolution ( so your 3 screens combined and look at some results that way.

 Untitled.png   51.25KB   8 downloads

 

of course the standard disclaimer that not all benchmarks are equal ... anandtech tend to be a little Intel and Nvida fanboys