GTX 670 or HD 7970 on a low end CPU & RAM

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kalash156

kalash156

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Jan 29, 2013
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I've always upgraded my graphics cards to just "good enough" cards. So I finally decided to get a good card. I'm pretty much decided on either a GTX 670 or Radeon HD 7970 card. The thing is, I'm running a Sandy Bridge Core i3 (3.1 Ghz) CPU and 8 gigs of 1333 RAM. I know there's going to be some bottlenecking as far as frame rate, so my question is, how much of a frate rate drop should I expect? And which of the two cards would you recommend (or other cards withing the price range)?

I've settled between:
This Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce
And this XFX Radeon HD 7970 Black Edition

A few points to note: I don't particularly care about PhysX, just wanna be able to play at max settings on most games with nice frame rate. I will be playing on a single 27-inch 1080p display. I might overclock the card if I need to, but if performance is there to begin with, I'll leave it stock. I will not be using the card for any professional video / graphics editing or modeling software. I wouldn't mind sacrificing a bit of performance for better cooling (hence why I'm interested in that Windforce card). My budget is around $450. Games I mostly play are: Skyrim (with a few graphics mods), Sleeping Dogs, Saints Row 3, Borderlands 2, Batman Arkham City, Far Cry 3, Civ 5, Anno 2070.

Other specs are:
Motherboard: ASrock Z75 Pro3.
PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower 675 watt.
Storage: Samsung 840 Series SSD (system) & 1 TB HDD (media)
Current graphics card: Saphire Radeon HD 6770 (overclocked to Core = 960; Mem = 1330)

I'll probably upgrade my RAM in the coming weeks. Maybe 8 or 16 gigs of 1866. I figured I'd wait to see what Intel has in store with their Haswell CPU's. Don't really feel that I need to upgrade since all I use my PC for is web browsing and gaming. I know Intel is primarily focused on laptops with Haswell, but I think they said that new line of desktop CPU's will be out by the end of the year. Correct me if I'm wrong on that one.

Any suggestions or recommendations are appreciated :)
 
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bigshootr8
CPU:
Yea I think the Ivy bridge scenario will be quite attractive I would imagine the pricing may be a little cheaper however it wasn't this last generation. The Sandy Bridge CPU's held there ground price wise due to there overclockability.

Physx:
Fair enough just thought I'd throw it in there since you brought up some major Nvidia based titles. In Batman I feel its more subtle but it adds to things here and there. With Borderlands 2 you can tell a little more guns reacting different effects against objects but your opinion is fair.

You would be bottlenecked more by the fact you have a dual core versus a quad core. I'm not sure how much FPS would be lost in games in games that benefited more from a quad core you could lose quite a...
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You would more then likely bottleneck your system with a i3 SB processor. I would get something more mid line for your system. Which isn't low end good enough to play kind of card. Maybe something like a GTX660Ti/or 7870. If you like batman a lot then maybe the nvidia option is more appealing to you.
[flash=560,315]http://www.youtube.com/v/thCWFXVCH3A?version=3&hl=en_US[/flash]

also a case could be made for borderlands 2 as well as the game is quite different with a nvidia card rendering the physx
[flash=560,315]http://www.youtube.com/v/9k1idbbr2pw?hl=en_US&version=3[/flash]
 
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Yes, I know that Haswell will be on a new socket. I'd upgrade my board if anything. But like I said, i wanna wait on the CPU to see the final products when they come out (chips and boards). Plus, the Ivy Bridge CPU's will most likely become cheaper as well.

As far as PhysX, it does look a whole lot better in Arkham City but I can get the same effect in Borderlands 2 on my current AMD card, and to me, it makes Borderlands look worse. I've seen the list of games which use PhysX, and the only ones I'm actually interested in playing, or care about better graphics are the Batman games.

Really the games I'm looking to increase performance, regardless of PhysX, are: Sleeping Dogs, Far Cry 3, Arkham City, and some future games like GTA 5, Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider.

Lets say I do get either of those cards, how much would performance be bottlenecked? I mean in terms of fps, in those games I listed?
 
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You can actually offload the PhysX to the CPU, so when you get your new board + CPU, it'd be a better value with the 7970.
 
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CPU:
Yea I think the Ivy bridge scenario will be quite attractive I would imagine the pricing may be a little cheaper however it wasn't this last generation. The Sandy Bridge CPU's held there ground price wise due to there overclockability.

Physx:
Fair enough just thought I'd throw it in there since you brought up some major Nvidia based titles. In Batman I feel its more subtle but it adds to things here and there. With Borderlands 2 you can tell a little more guns reacting different effects against objects but your opinion is fair.

You would be bottlenecked more by the fact you have a dual core versus a quad core. I'm not sure how much FPS would be lost in games in games that benefited more from a quad core you could lose quite a bit performance. The way I see it if you are going to make a CPU upgrade down the line it can't hurt to get the card you want now instead of holding back on a card that would fit your cpu now.

 
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As you may be able to offload physx onto the CPU he isn't really interested in it really so I wouldn't go pushing that. And you cant run batman on high physx not a chance on the CPU the computer would bog down. The only reason you can get medium physx settings stable on Borderlands 2 is because it the ever so ageing dx9 standard.
 
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You can run medium PhysX without any performance loss with an i5. OP said he doesn't really care about PhysX.
 
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As long as I can get more than 40 fps on maxed settings, I'm good.

So what about the actual cards? Out of the two I listed which one's do guys think is a better performer? They both have good coolers, so that's not an issue. I know the new AMD cards use more power than Nvidia's, though, that's also not really a big issue. I know XFX also has a Ghz edition of that card, which from everything I've read, is much better than any GTX 670. But it also costs a lot more...
 
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No I know Bigmack70 and I got on this exact discussion. And he gets around 50 FPS or something on his computer but he does some pretty crazy overclocking on his cards and CPU on medium settings however you don't get the full effects with medium you get that on high. And I commented on him not wanting Physx above so if he doesn't care for it its cool.
 
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The 680 isn't a very good value. The 670 is the value high end chip and then the next valued chip would be the 7970 or 7970 ghz edition because the 680 is poorly priced. However if you were doing something that used CUDA computing the 680 would be the way to go.
 
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While I do agree some people just don't like the feature so its okay its not something people have to use.
 
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If the graphics and debris from an explosion "gets in your way" and you have a problem with that, I don't think you understand what maxing graphics means.

Better environments = performance hit. If you want max settings, you need the GPU handle it. What's the problem there?
 
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I've already touched on that. The only games which use PhysX that I'm actually interested in playing are the two Batman games and Borderlands 2. And in Borderlands 2, I can get PhysX on my AMD card, but I don't use it because it makes the game look worse (and gives enemies an advantage in some situations). What about all of the other games which don't use PhysX?

samuelspark
Thank you for the suggestion, though I'm not sure I'd trust a brand I've never had any experience with on a card which had a number of DOA's reported. I did find this Gigabyte Ghz edition for only $30 more. Spec-wise, it seems to be same. Actually it has a slightly higher Mem clock than that Powercolor card (75 MHz more). Thoughts?

Edit: forgot to add the actual link
 
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That's actually not a bad deal. If you can afford it, go for it. However. Gigabyte GPU's are usually excessively long with the triple fan setup so make sure it fits.
 
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No, you can't get PhysX on an AMD card. You can get fake PhysX or run it off the CPU, but it runs like shite.

"Gives the opponents an advantage?" I don't even...

"Looks worse?" If more destructive looking explosions and devastating power weapons is a negative in your book, you might want to reconsider why you want a video game maxed out.

Borderlands-2-PhysX.jpg


RVdGa0RyS3ZCUlUx_o_borderlands-2-geforce-gtx-physx-trailer.jpg


borderlands-physx-2.jpg


physx-off-2-borderlands-2-560x315.jpg

physx-on-2-borderlands-2-560x315.jpg


Looks better to me.
 
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Its a matter of opinion. And I would imagine that it would seem that the enemies had an advantage of it because you were not running at the same speed as those using the GPU's to render the info. However if the visuals don't appeal to you they don't appeal to you. Physx doesn't give the enemy any advantage its a detail setting.
 
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