7870 or 7950

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KaniceFPS

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Mar 7, 2013
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Hi, i am currently building a computer and i am choosing 2 parts per week.
I currently have bought a Seagate Barracuda 1 TB harddisk, a 650w PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207022
and a 3570k processor with an intel motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157330


So my question was if i should buy a 7870 or 7950.
I want my PC to be future proof and handle the most games. That's why i chose a crossfire ready motherboard and PSU. I don't know if my 650w PSU can handle 2x 7950 or 2x7870.
So is my PC future proof to handle more games or not?
 
I hope it's a good 650w psu, if you've already bought it go with the 7950 it can overclock quite well and handle most games, if you haven't bought the psu yet then go for a 750w just to be safe you don't want to constantly push your psu to full load
 
Compromise - get the 7870 XT. It's a 7950 with a few cores disabled, so it performs like a 7930 or so, and is only $220.

That being said, if you want more oomph, the 7950 has an enormous amount of overclocking headroom and can match a 7970 GHz with ease.

 
Yeah 650 watts won't be enough for 2 of either, so I would go for the 7950. The best option is the 7970, but I'm not trying to spend your money. You can overclock the 7950, and worry about crossfire when you need to. My favorite model for the 79** series is the Sapphire vapor-x version. It runs the coolest of any card I have seen and overclocks well.
 


It's XFX, which is a good brand, and you could run a 7950 and 3570k, both overclocked, on 550w.

That being said, OP, if you plan to put a second card in there, you might have to upgrade your power supply to a quality 750w.
 
I would go ahead and get the 7950 for the time being and worry about a new psu when you feel that you need an upgrade. You may decide to just get a new card altogether.
 


Buy a new gpu. What else? OR buy a new psu and another 7950 and crossfire but it would be cheaper to sell off your 7950 or put it into a budget build and buy a new gpu by then.
 
probably, you really shouldn't we worrying about buying another gpu and having power problems, as said before your system can run at roughly 550w that's about 100w headroom, if gpu's in the future are more power hungry you'll still be good to go.
 
Chances are that future gpus will have similar or lower power requirements, so you should be fine. cpus will also likely keep about the same power requirements, and eventually you will have to buy a new psu anyways, probably along with a whole new system.
 
I actually would do a little more googling you maybe able to run 7870 (non LE/XT models) on your PSU. AMD over states the power requirement cause assume you have a average to crappy PSU so if you had a quailty psu I bet you would be fine.
 
Even so, I wouldn't skimp on power. According to newegg's wattage calculator, you would need about 700 watts to crossfire 2 7870's, and I don't believe that takes overclocking into account.
 
If your in to Xfire with the 7950s and 3570k with mild OC you perfectly can but stressing the PSU to say 85% when your system in full load is not a wise thing to do.
I would suggest if you want to use a 650 range PSU go with a HX650 or Enermax 80 Gold series. or 7870 xfire root.
Being said that the XFX is 85 bronze rated so should be able to powerup 2x7950s But you want to be on the safe side with some room Also a important factor here is that 85 bronze rating was @ 50% load as the load rises the rating gets gradualy lower. :non:
 
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