Best GPU config for £600?

[TheDigitalRealm]

Right, pretty self explanatory, building my first gaming rig, my GPU budget is £600 and I will initially be gaming on a 120Hz 1080p monitor. By Christmas I'll probably have moved to a 2560 x 1440 monitor.

Any suggestions on a config that would allow me to play games maxed out at decent frame rates?

And: Yes, the board I'm planning on getting will be at least a 2 way CF/SLI capable.

 

[Spiderz]

GPU budget of £600? GTX 770 or 780 seems to be the way to go. 780 if you really want to push it with the 1440p screen.

 

[antihero]

Well, you'd rather need two 780s to get playable frame rates in 1440p. I think a lot of people underestimate how big of a hit resolution takes on your performance. But to be fair, all hi-res benchmarks are with anti-aliasing turned to max, which is arguably the most GPU intensive setting. A single OC 780 should be enough to play most games maxed out @ 60 fps in 1080p ( except for games like Crysis 3 ). However, if you do choose to get a WQHD monitor, you need to invest more into graphics - get a second card, maybe put them under water.

 

[Silver Sparrow]

Depends really. If you need it right now, I'd go for the GTX 780. No hassle, fast as hell and looks the gonads. If you can hold out and wait I'd see what AMD will show with their 8000 series desktop GPU's [not the OEM rebrand gpu's]. The 8970 looks promising should the rumourmill be somewhat accurate and be within your budget. Release date speculated for q3 this year.

 

[theDTP]

780 is a terrible card in a price/performance ratio. Rather spend a little extra on 770 sli. You would see 50% more performance over the 780 for about £90 more which would be £40 over budget but should even run Crysis 3 at 60fps on 1440p

 

[Zaim]

If you're moving to 1440p I'd be tempted to pick up two 4GB GTX 770's tbh. If you want a Single GPU then the best you're going to get for £600 is a GTX 780, as mentioned above the price/performance ratio is not good compared to the 770.

 

[theDTP]

I've just looked at prices and they are on sale for as low as £350 for the Palit Jetstream. £370 for the Zotac and a whopping £450 for the Phantom! I see no reason for people to even consider the 2GB version.

 

[{SAS}TB]

7970 crossfire? Under budget, 3GB of VRAM of plenty of grunt to play everything maxed

 

[Zaim]

7970 crossfire? Under budget, 3GB of VRAM of plenty of grunt to play everything maxed

That's an option, i didn't recommend that due to the frame time/rate issue people have been complaining about.

 

[{SAS}TB]

I've read the article and not personally experienced the issue with 2 or 3 cards

Definitely no (to me) noticeable difference between sli, tri-sli, crossfire or tri-fire

7970s are still awesome cards, especially with current price point and second hand sales

 

[iBeInspire]

770's, 670's or 660ti's

 

[Netroxen]

If you want two cards then dual 7950's would work pretty well. Otherwise a single GTX 770 or 680 will do nicely aswell...

 

[ShaunB-91]

Isn't there a current issue with Crossfire? Same performance as having one GPU when you have two.