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fonebone10

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So today, my GTX 295 crapped out on me, so I'm in search of a replacement - and fast.

So, I've got $700 to spend. If you had $700 to spend on graphics cards, what would you choose? Keep in mind, I can push the budget a little bit over, but not too much, so lets say, $700 preferred, $800 max.

Keep in mind I have air cooling.

Case: Mountain Mods Pinnacle
Motherboard: Asus Rampage III Extreme
CPU: Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping Overclocked 4.2 GHz
CPU Cooler: Spire Thermax Eclipse II
Video Cards: ???
RAM: 12 GB Corsair DDR3 1600 mhz 8-8-8-24

I play games and edit videos on this build. I also do a bit of 3D rendering.

Sucks that it happened right after Starcraft 2 came out, but that's probably the reason why it broke... (24 hour gaming session FTW?
 
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Helltech

Helltech

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I thought these weren't supposed to come out till mid-August? Are they out? Where did you get it?
 
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fonebone10

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Just ordered 2 EVGA GTX 470's... hope they're as powerful as a HD 5970, that was what I was actually planning on buying, but then I realized the SLI'd 5970's could be just as good.

Also, I ordered the Antec 1200 PSU. Since the Corsair AX1200 is coming out August, I figure I can return it and get the AX1200 within 30 days.
 
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Helltech

Helltech

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SLI'ed 5970?

Do you mean a single 5970 or Crossfired 5970?

5970 in CF is going to utterly destroy Dual SLI 470s, but then again you would be paying like 700 dolars more for that....


EDIT - Oh I see what you meant, you meant SLI 470s would be better then a 5970... and you are right, SLI 470 is better.
 
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jyjjy

jyjjy

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SLIed GTX 470s are actually significantly faster than an HD5970 in a lot of games, mainly because SLI scales much better than crossfire:
1920_total.png

The red lines are vs the HD5970. Here is the whole article;
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/geforce-gtx470-sli.html
 
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jyjjy

jyjjy

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Bah, they really aren't worth the money. The thing about the GTX 470 is it can OC a huge amount. Usually with the voltage bumped they can get up to around 850mhz. From the stock 607mhz that is a 40% increase. In general the GTX 480 OCs to the same speed so all you are gaining is 7% more shaders(480 vs 448) while spending over 50%+ more. Really not a good call unless you have a trust fund or something.
 
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jyjjy

jyjjy

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That's a pretty crazy overpowered card to use for Physx really. The heat/power/noise situation with OCed SLIed GTX 470s is already going to be something to deal with. There's only a handful of games where Physx even matters. If you really want a dedicated Physx card I would seriously consider selling the GTX 295 and replacing it with something with a more reasonable power/heat profile. A GTX 260 maybe, or better yet a GTX 450 or whatever they call it when it is released. I believe there will be no actual difference in performance.
 
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mortesv

mortesv

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Remember that Nvida card have better AA in SC2 - I have an "old" Radeon HD4870 and there is no way to get AA running in SC. The Radeon 5000's can AA in SC2 but they are taking a performance hit - not that performance seem to be any concern of yours with that monster - gratz man:)
 
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