Finally, new graphics card on the horizon

emperor76

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Hi all, I will have £150 at most to spend on a graphics card in about a weeks time, I was wondering what the best graphics card for that money is, thanks in advance
 
NVIDIA: Asus NVIDIA GTX 960 STRIX DirectCU II OC Graphics Card - 2GB - STRIX-GTX960-DC2OC-2GD5 - Scan.co.uk

OR

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-...5-gpu-1241mhz-boost-1304mhz-cores-1024-dvi-dp

(£19 over but I wanted to provide a team green option since on the whole i prefer them. Asus and MSI are my two favorite GPU board partners also)

AMD: MSI Radeon R9 380 GAMING AMD Graphics Card 2GB - R9 380 GAMING 2G - Scan.co.uk

(£8 over 150, but it's the MSI custom PCB which is a really good overclocker, besides coming factory-overclocked as is. Plus really nice Twin Frozr cooler and sweet backplate)
 
NVIDIA: Asus NVIDIA GTX 960 STRIX DirectCU II OC Graphics Card - 2GB - STRIX-GTX960-DC2OC-2GD5 - Scan.co.uk

OR

MSI NVIDIA GTX 960 GAMING Graphics Card - 2GB - GTX960-GAMING2G - Scan.co.uk

(£19 over but I wanted to provide a team green option since on the whole i prefer them. Asus and MSI are my two favorite GPU board partners also)

AMD: MSI Radeon R9 380 GAMING AMD Graphics Card 2GB - R9 380 GAMING 2G - Scan.co.uk

(£8 over 150, but it's the MSI custom PCB which is a really good overclocker, besides coming factory-overclocked as is. Plus really nice Twin Frozr cooler and sweet backplate)

Thanks for the reply, I've just found two of the cards you mentioned on Amazon for £160 free delivery and the radeon for £165, is there any advantage to using a radeon over the gtx as I have an AMD cpu? or would it not make a difference, I can maybe stretch to £160 if the extra £10 will future proof it more
 
The R9 380 is basically a refresh of the R9 270/270X (same GPU, different PCB, new design on the cooler from MSI, Sapphire also with a slightly different cooler design).

Personally, I'd always go with NVIDIA over AMD in the future if your budget will stretch to meet NVIDIA's usually-higher price points. I would safely say that the 960, especially the STRIX or the MSI-G will out perform the radeon and stay cooler.

There would be no discernable benefit from opting AMD based on having an AMD CPU :)


I bought the 270X a short time ago because i needed something to game on since my GTX570 was showing it's age, and I had little funds at the time and found a good deal. In hindsight I sort of wish i'd gone for the GTX960 and spent those extra few pounds.
 
The R9 380 is basically a refresh of the R9 270/270X (same GPU, different PCB, new design on the cooler from MSI, Sapphire also with a slightly different cooler design).

Personally, I'd always go with NVIDIA over AMD in the future if your budget will stretch to meet NVIDIA's usually-higher price points. I would safely say that the 960, especially the STRIX or the MSI-G will out perform the radeon and stay cooler.

There would be no discernable benefit from opting AMD based on having an AMD CPU :)


I bought the 270X a short time ago because i needed something to game on since my GTX570 was showing it's age, and I had little funds at the time and found a good deal. In hindsight I sort of wish i'd gone for the GTX960 and spent those extra few pounds.

Well, since this will be the third graphics card I've ever bought, I'm going to take your advice on this, thanks, the build before this, I had a GeForce 7600GT, it served me well for the time, it was when my Athlon 4600+ was the most powerful cpu I could find at the time, it played Civ 4 pretty well, so I was happy with it.

When I built this computer, I bought the graphics card last when my funds had nearly depleted, paid £50 for a HD6450, I think I was ripped off as I bought from a shop, I still have this graphics card in now and I get slowdown when I put it past half graphics on Dragon Age 2, I'd like to play Awakenings at some point and I don't think mine will cut it.

One more thing I was wondering, I noticed it's 2gb, is this just for multiscreen displays and the such or is it something that will make a difference to me.
 
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2GBs refers to the VRAM (frame buffer). More VRAM means you can play with higher anti-aliasing settings and at higher resolutions.

for 1080p, 2GBs is fine unless you have a huge urge to run like 8xMSAA. Basically the more anti-aliasing you want to utilise and the larger resolutions you want to play at, the more VRAM you need.

playing at 1080p, 2GBs is a decent enough frame buffer, sometimes to play games on entirely maxed settings 4GBs would be required to allow the card to render the textures fast enough to give good frame rates.

I Had a 1.5GB GTX570 until recently, then a 2GB R9 270X... and I can play some of the newest titles on medium/high without hitting the top of the frame buffer at 1080p.


Also, once you get your new card, you may want to squeeze a bit more performance out of it, because often the GPU clock is set back to an overly-safe limit to pass quality control. You play the silicon lottery when you buy a GPU as to whether you get a cracker of a chip or one that can only just run at it's stock frequency. Either way it's worth trying to eek as much out of it as you can. Performance per £ matters!

Guide I wrote (it's posted in the overclocking forum here too):=
https://jaklawrencetech.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/gpu-overclocking-how-to/
 
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2GBs refers to the VRAM (frame buffer). More VRAM means you can play with higher anti-aliasing settings and at higher resolutions.

for 1080p, 2GBs is fine unless you have a huge urge to run like 8xMSAA. Basically the more anti-aliasing you want to utilise and the larger resolutions you want to play at, the more VRAM you need.

playing at 1080p, 2GBs is a decent enough frame buffer, sometimes to play games on entirely maxed settings 4GBs would be required to allow the card to render the textures fast enough to give good frame rates.

I Had a 1.5GB GTX570 until recently, then a 2GB R9 270X... and I can play some of the newest titles on medium/high without hitting the top of the frame buffer at 1080p.


Also, once you get your new card, you may want to squeeze a bit more performance out of it, because often the GPU clock is set back to an overly-safe limit to pass quality control. You play the silicon lottery when you buy a GPU as to whether you get a cracker of a chip or one that can only just run at it's stock frequency. Either way it's worth trying to eek as much out of it as you can. Performance per £ matters!

Guide I wrote (it's posted in the overclocking forum here too):=
https://jaklawrencetech.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/gpu-overclocking-how-to/

Thanks, well, my monitor doesn't support anything past 1080p anyway, it's an Acer G7, I haven't had much luck overclocking in the past, putting my cpu from 3.2 to 3.6 in bios resulted in massively higher temps as I only had a stock cooler, I also noticed my graphics card had an AMD boost feature which allowed me to put the clock speed and memory clock up, this improved my gaming a little bit, but I think I remember it reporting 99% usage, although it won't let me do this at the minute for some reason, and again, temps went right up, although it doesn't quite have the awesome cooling the card you suggested has got, I'd like to see Sims 4 and Dragon Age 2 on full graphics, I'd like to get GTA 5 on the PC, and maybe be able to play some of the new games coming out, I don't often play first person shooters, so hoping I should be okay with this.

I've been wondering, how would this card match up against the PS4?
 
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The GTX960 outperforms the graphics in a PS4 by a decent length. The only real benefit of the PS4 is that it's silent.

thanks, when I upgrade my graphics card, I'd like to think it at least beats the current next gen consoles.

I do have a ps3 in here for films and music and a few games I can't get on PC, connected to the tv, if had the money to throw at a ps4, I'd feel crazy not throwing it all at a graphics card.
 
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