What graphics card??

[QKGH]

If you had the chance to pay a good amount but not -THAT- expensive, and wanted a graphics card say around just before christmas or around january, and were going to get one -or two- to last for roughly a year or more, what would it be?

When I get my computer i'm trying to think long term but not too expensive that my parents can't afford, and i'm looking for it to last so I have time to try get a job in the next year+ and then start upgrading or buying parts that I want, and can afford.

Was thinking 570s Sli for the price being roughly expensive, but do-able if shifted the other items around, OR I was looking more into the evga 580 3gb, though I dont know if it would be smart to get two 570's or a 3gb 580, though still looking towards lasting for a long time, I would prefer to wait for the newer series, but timing and how long till I could upgrade -possibly- again is taking factors to a different route.

But yeah, your take on what card for a decent price justified why, or however, and yes I want it for gaming, graphics and video editing. (Love gaming, only 16 and do alot of photoshop and love video editing, trying to get into more cinema 4d motion graphics)

God I need to learn to type less, sorry.

Please and thank you!

 

[fcb]

If I really had the money to spare and wanted to have some fun, I would probably go for a GTX 590. I haven't tried SLI or a twin GPU single card before so I think I'd have some fun with gaming and lots of video converting from one format to another or high resolution photo cropping.

Coming back to reality, I think I'd opt for a single Gigabyte GTX 580 SOC. I don't think you'd really need 3GB unless you are aiming for really high resolutions like when you have multiple screens. That'll definitely be eating up a lot of video memory when gaming using the max settings possible.

 

[QKGH]

If I really had the money to spare and wanted to have some fun, I would probably go for a GTX 590. I haven't tried SLI or a twin GPU single card before so I think I'd have some fun with gaming and lots of video converting from one format to another or high resolution photo cropping.

Coming back to reality, I think I'd opt for a single Gigabyte GTX 580 SOC. I don't think you'd really need 3GB unless you are aiming for really high resolutions like when you have multiple screens. That'll definitely be eating up a lot of video memory when gaming using the max settings possible.

Mmm, well realistically as you said a GTX 590 would be abit over board on price, I need to try even everything out to fit pricing, so going through lots of parts and seeing my options, I don't think I would run more than two monitors, I might buy just two monitors and give my old monitor to my brother, since I would want a nice quality monitor for gaming in 1080p and just a second one for everything else, it's why I thought of the 3gb version, but i'm not too sure about if you get more performance out of it, but going back to the fact that I want a pc that would last for around a year or more, just because I wont upgrade for along time sicne i'm 16 and next time i would be paying, mm and they dont have that gigabyte 580 near me.

Maybe the 6970? That card and the 570 is always reffered to me, generally I doubt there is anyway to predict the future and if games would be heading in a direction where a 570 or 580 wouldnt do the job atleast on low within the next say 2 years, >

this ol laptop was doing the trick till battlefield 3 came out. lol

 

[yassarikhan786]

Hi,

A 6970 is a good choice too. But I would personally choose an Nvidia card as I've heard that the AMD cards (6000 series) are louder and hotter than the Nvidia 500 series (I have only used one AMD card and that was a 4350, so I can only go on what others have said about the 6000 series in general).

I think a 1.5GB 580 would be your best bet for the long term if you will be gaming at 1080p. I play BF3 and other visually stunning games at 1920 x 1200 and 1.5GB is more than sufficient at such a resolution. If your thinking about the next 2 years than a 580 will be more than capable of playing future games on at least medium-high settings.

Have you considered the MSI 580 Lightning. It performs similarly to the Gigabyte GTX 580 SOC and is similarly priced. If you can get hold of a lightning I'm sure you will be impressed by the performance

.

 

[QKGH]

Thanks for both of your guys help. Sounds like i'll be hunting down a 580

 

[fcb]

Hi,

A 6970 is a good choice too. But I would personally choose an Nvidia card as I've heard that the AMD cards (6000 series) are louder and hotter than the Nvidia 500 series (I have only used one AMD card and that was a 4350, so I can only go on what others have said about the 6000 series in general).

I think a 1.5GB 580 would be your best bet for the long term if you will be gaming at 1080p. I play BF3 and other visually stunning games at 1920 x 1200 and 1.5GB is more than sufficient at such a resolution. If your thinking about the next 2 years than a 580 will be more than capable of playing future games on at least medium-high settings.

Have you considered the MSI 580 Lightning. It performs similarly to the Gigabyte GTX 580 SOC and is similarly priced. If you can get hold of a lightning I'm sure you will be impressed by the performance

.

Yup totally agree with you. 6970 is another great card to have. Not so much for the reference card as it does get quite toasty. If it were a 6970, I would consider getting one that has a nonreference cooler on it.

The nVidia cards under stress/load testing have proven to perform quieter and a bit cooler than the AMD cards. In the end, it's really a matter of preference and within your budget/willingness to spend. Either brand of cards are still great.

 

[QKGH]

Right now i'm facing two options, one is to go with a 580 and build the computer I want to last, depends on how my parents go towards all this, but I also thought 'realistically' do I need all of this right now? So i'm also considering instead of splurging money out for a good system I want, I might go with just a cheap amd build, just because technology moves fast but being i'm use to laptops I don't move as fast as technology does.

If I do, do just a budget amd gaming pc to be my main rig for a year or two, the graphics card I might go with is this -

http://www.pbtech.co.nz/index.php?z...hire-Vapor-X-HD5850-1G-DDR5-PCI-E-Video-Card-.

I recon it can run all the games now days with no hassle, atleast on low graphics, what do you think?

If I do go all out on a expensiveish build i'm picking the 580 though, but I think I really don't need one right now and I should spend my money on a nice amd gaming build with that graphics card and wait a year and save up to upgrade to ivy bridge around 2013, or what ever comes out around then. (GOD DAMMIT I need to stop writing long posts :[ )

 

[QKGH]

Or a Sapphire 6770

 

[fcb]

If you want a good enough PC for now and not planning to OC yet or want to save up more for the Ivy Bridge CPUs later on, you could always go with an i3 2100 and a P67 or Z68 mid range motherboard. Also, if you're not going to go all out on gaming, you can thing about a mid range video card as well. For example, something like a 6850 or 6870 will be good enough for very playable settings with all the current games.

Hey, no worries. Long posts are fine.

 

[QKGH]

lol, sounds good, I wanted to atleast get a 4.0ghz overclock but being that I might not be able to get alot of money, I wouldn't have a aftermarket cooler to support it, nor do I know how to overclock lol, and the 212+ I could get but I find the stock one would do for now, plus I wanna be playing lots of games, lol don't mind the settings, just want to be able to play them

!

I wanted either the i3 2100 or a i5 2400, or just go amd and get a cheap processor and motherboard, then get a 120gig ssd to hold everything, and then get what ever graphics card I can, but ivy bridge I wont get for another year+, this year I plan to try get a job, being 16 it's hard around but till then, i'll need a machine to stick with for the long run.

6870 sounds nice.

 

[fcb]

Yup I understand. A Z68 motherboard may be better if you want to save a bit more instead of getting a larger SSD, you can try the Intel Smart Response that allows for SSD to be the cache for mechanical hard drives. In other words, you can spend some money for a large storage drive that will be split into partitions and also contains your OS, and you can have a smaller SSD to be its cache.

A single 120GB SSD won't be able to fit that many games. You'll be able to fit a few games without using up the SSD, which probably isn't recommended.

The i3 2100 will be able to play all games. Graphics performance is much more important now. If you really need a system at this moment, you can go for a decent budget build and then when you are ready for a future full upgrade then you can rethink how much you're willing to spend on that system. For example, you can get a good case now that you won't be changing for a few yrs. This means you can save some money for other things and don't necessarily have to get a new case for a completely new system. Hard drives for storage and SSDs are transferable as well so you won't have to spend more on certain aspects of your future system.

 

[QKGH]

Yup I understand. A Z68 motherboard may be better if you want to save a bit more instead of getting a larger SSD, you can try the Intel Smart Response that allows for SSD to be the cache for mechanical hard drives. In other words, you can spend some money for a large storage drive that will be split into partitions and also contains your OS, and you can have a smaller SSD to be its cache.

A single 120GB SSD won't be able to fit that many games. You'll be able to fit a few games without using up the SSD, which probably isn't recommended.

The i3 2100 will be able to play all games. Graphics performance is much more important now. If you really need a system at this moment, you can go for a decent budget build and then when you are ready for a future full upgrade then you can rethink how much you're willing to spend on that system. For example, you can get a good case now that you won't be changing for a few yrs. This means you can save some money for other things and don't necessarily have to get a new case for a completely new system. Hard drives for storage and SSDs are transferable as well so you won't have to spend more on certain aspects of your future system.

Sounds good, I recon a 60 gig SSD and a 1TB WD Cavier Black with that smart response technology you were talking about would be a good idea, though had no idea what you were meaning by making partitions though lol really noob here

but I do know what they're, and I think i'll probabally get the Asus p8z68-v Pro motherboard, since I would get a asrock and I know its like run by asus or something but I much prefer asus branded stuff, not sure why, also I saw their gen3 board came out at my store, so it has pcie 3.0, not sure if it is fully working properly being the 7000/600 series cards ain't out for testing yet, but I like that motherboard so least it's future ready, i'd like to spend either alot or less on graphics card being that I either want something worth the money or something under priced like you say, a 6870 most likely lol, and im defo getting a antec 902 v3 or that dark fleet case.

 

[QKGH]

Found a decent priced 6950 at my store, I think i'll go with that, and I was gonna get a p8z68-v pro/gen3 and a i3 2100, however, my friend persuaded me into a asrock z68 motherboard (not sure which one it is) and told me to get a better processor like the i5 2500K, which I will do, I won't overclock till I get a cooler and proberly till i'm more confident lol, or get a nice guide, but I think it's a better idea to do this, i'll show a list on the new build advice section afterwards, for now i'm going to sleep.

Just wanted to say thanks to all your help, and everyone elses help.

 

[fcb]

I would suggest an Asus board over AsRock as they're just not as reliable. AsRock has separated many yrs ago I believe. Gigabyte has some great boards as well. Looks like you're going for a pretty powerful system there.

Partitions are just to separate your hard drive into different spaces/sections to hold your different data. I can't remember if you can partition a hard drive while using the Intel Smart Response feature though. Maybe you'll have to partition the drive respectively before you set up the Intel Smart Response.

PCIE 3.0 is backward compatible with all current video cards. To get full benefits, you'll have to wait until actual PCIE 3.0 video cards are released.

For cases, I recommend the Fractal Design R3, Arc Midi cases. Those are fantastic cases for the price.