Looking for a graphics card upgrade

[heero yuy]

my computer currently has an XFX pine group nvidia GTX295

i'm currently wondering what graphics card i should get that is not too expensive but good enough that i will see a definite improvement and also not create as much heat (as you can see on idle it is sitting at 60 °C - does not get much higher when actualy playing a game though)
my full specs are as follows

Operating System
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1
CPU
Intel Core i5 2500K @ 3.30GHz (ocd to 4.6ghz)
Sandy Bridge 32nm Technology
RAM
8.00 GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 573MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. P8P67 PRO REV 3.1 (LGA1155) 24 °C
Graphics
S24B300 (1920x1080@60Hz)
896MB GeForce GTX 295 (XFX Pine Group) 61 °C
896MB GeForce GTX 295 (XFX Pine Group) 60 °C
ForceWare version 310.70
SLI Enabled

 

[bigshootr8]

A couple of things if you don't mind me asking. I could recommend any of the following. Nvidia 660ti, 670 AMD 7950, 7970 at least given your sli setup.

What resolution do you run at?

And what is your budget currently set at?

 

[heero yuy]

its actually one card but it has two gpus so it reports as SLI

I currently run at 1080X1920 with no plans to increase it pretty much ever due to my desk being small

not really got a budget just wanting to know what to go for because benchmarks wise the 295 is still quite strong against a lot of the newer cards

 

[bigshootr8]

Oh gotcha yea because you have a 9 card. I see yea I would recommend perhaps a middle of the line card. Something like a 670, or 7970 would be the way to go upgrade wise at the moment. However if you aren't having any issues now I would say perhaps wait for the next series of cards then jump into that market. If anything if you were to purchase a new card I would sell off the one you currently have and the jump into the market for a new card.

 

[BeastLeeX]

I would say a GTX 670, since the GTX 295 still sells for around $160-$200 i think, but not 100% sure. If you are still satisfied with frames, and not worried about the few games that use tesselation, then you could wait for the GTX 700 series to come (possibly Q4 2013)

 

[bigshootr8]

If you could get that for a 295 then most definitely would make the jump to a 670 or 7970. Although judging ebay completed listings you wouldn't get nearly that at all.

http://www.ebay.com/csc/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=gtx295&LH_Complete=1&rt=nc

 

[BeastLeeX]

If you could get that for a 295 then most definitely would make the jump to a 670 or 7970. Although judging ebay completed listings you wouldn't get nearly that at all.

http://www.ebay.com/csc/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=gtx295&LH_Complete=1&rt=nc

yikes! I thought they were going for more than that. $100 aint bad for around 460 SLI performance though, just gotta play in DX10

 

[heero yuy]

they are selling in America for $100 all the ones over here are over £100 D:
and the 700 series is already about to drop on us?
wait when did the 600 series come out... i'm sure it was the middle of last year...

 

[BeastLeeX]

rumor is actually Q4 for the 700 series, but im not 100% sure, and if they do drop Q4, then we should hopefully see some nice performance gains over this gen.

 

[Cakesok]

Take a look at the gtx 480, it's still in the top 5 for benchmarks and in pretty cheap to get. It shouldn't get too hot either.

 

[bigshootr8]

gtx480's were notorious for being hot cards.

 

[heero yuy]

^ any hotter than my 295? it idles at 60 and while gaming gets to almost 90

I just had a look at the 295 appears to destroy the 480 :/

the 590 looks more like an upgrade but I don't know how much it is atm

wait... I the 480 is cheap I can get two and sli I think my motherboard support sli (i'm forgetting the 295 is effectively two graphics cards in 1)
do both cards have to be the same make?

 

[BeastLeeX]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/660?vs=518

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/309?vs=306

GTX 660>GTX 570>GTX 480. for $200 buy a GTX 660, Its cooler, more power efficient, and should overclock better.

 

[bigshootr8]

At this point the amount of money it would take to get a 590 isn't a economically sound choice. Going from a high end card to a middle end card doesn't make much sense. I would get something more meaty and the reason is he had a 295 for a while and now is looking for a new card so buying something that will last would probably be the way to go something like a 670/7970

 

[heero yuy]

actually I have only had it for like a year but an upgrade for my main machine means an upgrade for my secondary (but not for my tertiary because I just sold that one)

I think I will wait for the 700 series to see what they are like

 

[bigshootr8]

Yea that sounds like a good idea. At this point your card is still capable. By the time the 700 series cards come around it would be a decent enough leap up. 200 series, 400 series, 500 series, 600 series, 700 series thats 4 generations up.

 

[heero yuy]

I managed to persuade my friend o let me borrow his 670 so I could see if there is any improvement
I lost about 5-10 fps in tera online
I lost about 10-15 fps in skyrim (with a lot of graphics mods including an ENB)
and I gained about 5-10 fps in world of warcraft (I don't really play it any more so kinda useless)
planet side two did not appear to lose any fps but it also stopped completely screwing up on my after a few hours of play (screwing up = tanks people and aeroplanes jerkily flying around doing summersaults and backflips and everything visually not being there (it sort of flickers) apart from my HUD what I see of my current vehicle from a first person perspective and the skybox everything else (ground trees buildings people etc) disappear this could be due to heat I need to find my screwdrivers and take the card apart so I can give it a good cleaning and apply some high quality thermal paste)

so yeah... the 295 being slightly better on hwcompares benchmarks than the 670 appears to actually mean something

 

[bigshootr8]

Looks like the 295 is still a pretty good workhorse. As far as I know you didn't test in DX11 games so that is probably why the 295 is head barely.

 

[heero yuy]

world of warcraft has a direct X11 mode and apparently direct x 11 is backwards compatible with dx 10 but it does not have things... (or something I think its why things like saints row the third have a dx9 mode and a dx10&11 mode) on the 295 I run it using dx11 (but it actually uses dx10 because there is no 11 on my system) i'm thinking the better frame rates is because the 670 actually has dx11 and so wows dx11 mode works to its fullest
or something

I will stop there because I know nothing apart from half remembered conversations and guessing if anyone knows more about it please enlighten me but I am guessing its similar to how direct x worked before dx 10 (where something that used 9 would work on 7 or something like that)

 

[bigshootr8]

No you are right. Your logic is sound. You don't need to second guess yourself. DX9 is still the common DX used in games. So for something like a 295 to hold up to a 670 in that sort of environment is not unheard of. I'm trying to thing of games you would feel it in. Far Cry 3 perhaps or Crysis 2 with the dx11 and texture pack, Batman AC to think of a couple. But for the moment you seem just fine with a 295 and when the 700 series of cards roll out you will be able to probably re look at this and look into where you stand.

 

[heero yuy]

if I remember the patch notes for when the dx11 mode was put in I does not give any more graphical bells and whistles it just makes things run better in the background
if what I said about something made to run using 11 (like wows dx11 mode) being able to run on 10 (with the features exclusive to 11 not functioning) is correct then that explains the fps increase in wow

thinking about it I didn't bother seeing if my fps were higher in saints row dx 10&11 mode... oh well

just had a look at what I actually said in my last comment and realised I have just repeated myself although I think I managed to explain it better

 

[bigshootr8]

Yea I gotcha. Yea I think it was more of a optimization thing with WoW. I have Saint's Row got it with the humble bundle but i haven't bother playing it yet.

 

[heero yuy]

just wondering would getting another 295 improve much? i can get another one quite cheaply off ebay atm

my motherboard is an ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. P8P67 PRO REV 3.1


http://www.asus.com/Motherboard/P8P67_PRO_REV_31/

 

[bigshootr8]

Unless it was less then 100 dollars I wouldn't. It won't help with DX11 maturity so I wouldn't budge from where you are I would wait and get the best single card you could afford when the new cards come out.