7850 or 7950, or something else?

[docsthaname]

Ok, I recently did a new build, replacing my old motherboard, cpu, and memory. I have a 3570k now. I used my old power supply (but it's not a great one, however it works), as well as my old video card (a 9800gt). My question is, I can't decide on a video card.

When I upgrade, I really like to go "WOW", and feel good about the money I spent (for comparison, I went from a AMD Athlon X2 7850 to the 3570k...very much a "WOW" experience). Obviously, I know going to the 7950 would be a "wow" and a huge upgrade. However, I'm also going to upgrade my no name piece of crap PSU, probably to a 750 corsair PSU or something along those lines (future proofing a bit).

What I mostly do now with my computer is play League of Legends, and some streaming. I'd definitely however play the free games that come with the card. I'm getting some money for my birthday from my family and wife, probably around a couple hundred, I also have a $50 gift card on newegg I've been saving. Any extra I'm gonna cover with my tax return. However, an extra $50 isn't a big deal (around $300'ish for the PSU and 7850 combined). I could probably stretch it a bit more and get the 7950, but how much of a difference is it for the extra $100? Am I going to notice almost no difference? I just can't decide, if there's going to be little noticeable difference it might not be worth it (other then I'd probably rather have Crysis 3 then tombraider). Any help or opinions would greatly help!

 

[spartanmk2]

7850 is a great card for the money, It would be a big upgrade from a 9800gt and will play your games well.

7950 will also be a huge upgrade, but what size resolution are you using? Under 1080p its probably not worth it, but if you want to play Crysis 3 at max settings and alll the eye candy I personally would get that, and a second or third monitor xD.

 

[anthonyorr]

What resolution is your monitor?

 

[geofelt]

I think a 7850 @$180 would be a very nice jump.
It will require a psu as small as a 450w unit.

The 7950 is a $300 card that will need a 500w psu.

Since you already have a NVidia card, their options would be
GTX660 @$200 GTX660 or a $280 GTX660ti.
They would need a 450w psu.

It is not wrong to overprovision your psu a bit.
But a GTX690 will run on a psu as small as 620w.
650W is about as high as I might go.
Future graphics cards will be even more power efficient.

FPS performance is not all there is to measuring performance.
There is an interesting article on measuring that:
http://techreport.com/review/23981/radeon-hd-7950-vs-geforce-gtx-660-ti-revisited

 

[anthonyorr]

If you can find a 7870 XT or 7870 Myst go for it.

 

[docsthaname]

My screen resolution is 1920 x 1080. I thought about the 7870 on the tahiti board, but honestly for one I figured if I'm going that far, might as well drop the extra 30'ish bucks and get the 7950. Another piece of info, I'm a family man and not making huge bucks or anything, so honestly I can really only upgrade every few years. Why I was thinking the 7950, give me a card that wouldn't be "meh" anytime soon. I still haven't decided yet, I know the 7850 would be a pretty good upgrade, and do what I need it to. But for a little over $100 more I could get the 7950, which would be an even bigger upgrade, just can't decide if it's worth it or not.

 

[cdrkeen]

FPS performance is not all there is to measuring performance.
There is an interesting article on measuring that:
http://techreport.com/review/23981/radeon-hd-7950-vs-geforce-gtx-660-ti-revisited

I just started a thread in this section 7970 or 7850 crossfire....after reading this it seems like switching to an nvidia card like a 670 or 680 is probably worth it.

 

[appletoo]

I wouldn't count out the AMD cards they are very comparable and definitely worth the price in a world of ever changing upgrading graphic cards.

Check a new X-Bit article testing all the cards in the new 3D Mark

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/3dmark-2013.html

 

[cdrkeen]

yeah that's true but benchmarks definitely don't always equate to real world performance in mainstream games

 

[docsthaname]

Ok, I think I've made up my mind. Here's what I'm looking to get:

Sapphire 7950

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202026

SeaSonic M12II 620W

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151095

Thoughts/opinions? Any suggestion/reason I should go with something different/different brand or anything? Just wanna double check before I drop 400'ish bucks lol

Don't...

Bump posts


http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/283384-33-read-first

 

[appletoo]

That power supply is solid!

The card, well I've never heard anything really that bad about sapphires. They also look like a good overclocking cards which is a plus!

I personally would only buy a 7950 over a 7870 XT if you want the games included in the price making a deal and a half (Which I recently did, but the 7870 XT was out of stock to be fair when I ordered).

But it looks like that card has a 20 promo as well so, I really can't see how you can go wrong.

If you do want to save 60 dollars and don't want the game, there's no reason not to get the solid 7870 XT especially since at some point sooner or later we will all be upgrading our video cards and trying not to feel stupid about it lol,

Here's the 7870 XT reiview here http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/tahiti-le-7870-7930-benchmark,3401.html

and at HardOC http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/01/01/powercolor_radeon_hd_7870_myst_edition_review/