Should I upgrade my GPU or rebuild?

[y2hbk]

Hey everyone. My current rig is below. Honestly, it still performs quite well for everyday use. I dont have any complaints about everyday speed - but with my monitor resolution some games suffer on max settings. As much as I would love to build a whole new rig, I dont have the cash to spend what I would like to on a new setup.

I guess my question is, given my current hardware... here is what I am trying to figure out. Should I...

1) Add a second GTX 570 for SLI
2) Switch to a different card? Maybe a 670 or 7950?
3) Switch to 2 different cards for SLI/Crossfire?

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: Now if possible
BUDGET RANGE: Preferably no more than $700-$800, but will entertain other ideas

USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming. Primary focus on games like Skyrim, Guild Wars 2, FFXIV
CURRENT GPU AND POWER SUPPLY: (1) GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 & 850W Corsair PSU

OTHER RELEVANT SYSTEM SPECS: Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz; Asus Sabertooth x58 MoBo; 6GB Triple Channel RAM; Samsung 830 SSD
PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: New Egg usually, but doesnt matter
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: USA

PARTS PREFERENCES: If switching cards... Bad experience with driver support on 7970m on laptop, so prefer NVidia unless I can get a killer deal on some ATI parts
OVERCLOCKING: Maybe
SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Maybe
MONITOR RESOLUTION: 2560x1440 (Dell U2711)

In a perfect world Id love to look at dual 7970s or dual 680s... but would I really see much of an increase over something like dual 7950s or 670s? Would a second 570 even be worth pursuing or should I just skip it and look at the newer cards? I guess I could look at it this way - getting a new card or cards - I could always use these when I upgrade the rest of the rig down the road?

 

[Sumukh_Bhagat]

I would suggest you to buy a single GTX 670. You can SLI later.
GTX 680 is 5% faster. Which makes it waste to buy.

SLI will be bad. because you only has 1.25 GB VRAM, which is very less.
New games easily cross 1GB at 1080p. You need more than 2GB for 2540x1440

 

[EzioAs]

Sell your GTX570. You can probably get it around $200 if you're fortunate enough.

Get either a 7970-->670-->7950 depending on on how much you want to spend. However, if you want to max games at 2560x1440, my recommendation is to get 2 7950s if you're willing to.

Gigabyte Windforce 7950 can be had for $300 on newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125414. So two of them can be had for $600 which is less than the budget you stated

 

[Xttony]

Get a HD 7950 because it is cheaper than GTX 670. I like LGA1366 much better than other available out there of Intel except the LGA 2011. I had a HD 7970 on crossfire for a brief time and didnot experience any problems with it. It is better to upgrade your system by adding a new card. If you any of these cards 7950, 7970, 670 then it is not necessary to buy another card. If you ever need more graphics power get another one and make a crossfire setup.

HD7970M is known to be plagued with enduro problems, which basically is graphics switching. Performance of HD7970M has nothing to do with performance of HD7970.

I really don't think you'll need more than 2.5GB of ram in the next 2-3years. I ran assassins creed 3 with everything maxed out, 1080p on my sapphire HD4850 512MB and the VRAM is DDR3 not even DDR5. I got acceptable fps of more than 25.

 

[y2hbk]

I would suggest you to buy a single GTX 670. You can SLI later.
GTX 680 is 5% faster. Which makes it waste to buy.

SLI will be bad. because you only has 1.25 GB VRAM, which is very less.
New games easily cross 1GB at 1080p. You need more than 2GB for 2540x1440

Good to know about the 680. Not worth the increase in price at all it sounds.

Sell your GTX570. You can probably get it around $200 if you're fortunate enough.

Get either a 7970-->670-->7950 depending on on how much you want to spend. However, if you want to max games at 2560x1440, my recommendation is to get 2 7950s if you're willing to.

Gigabyte Windforce 7950 can be had for $300 on newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125414. So two of them can be had for $600 which is less than the budget you stated

I actually was originally looking at two of the 7950s - they caught my eye. I have a Sager Notebook with a 7970m and have felt really burned by the lack of support that AMD has provided for the card. I know we are talking two different worlds here between mobile and desktop cards - but their Enduro technology has really helped cripple the card on my notebook.

Its been quite some time since I have used a desktop card from AMD - years ago when I purchased one I went through an elongated RMA process multiple times with a Radeon card and finally gave up. From this standpoint - are they more reliable now? And is NVidia worth the premium price you will (usually) pay?

**EDIT**

Get a HD 7950 because it is cheaper than GTX 670. I like LGA1366 much better than other available out there of Intel except the LGA 2011. I had a HD 7970 on crossfire for a brief time and didnot experience any problems with it. It is better to upgrade your system by adding a new card. If you any of these cards 7950, 7970, 670 then it is not necessary to buy another card. If you ever need more graphics power get another one and make a crossfire setup.

HD7970M is known to be plagued with enduro problems, which basically is graphics switching. Performance of HD7970M has nothing to do with performance of HD7970.

I really don't think you'll need more than 2.5GB of ram in the next 2-3years. I ran assassins creed 3 with everything maxed out, 1080p on my sapphire HD4850 512MB and the VRAM is DDR3 not even DDR5. I got acceptable fps of more than 25.

Didnt see your post. Sounds like you are familiar with the enduro issues. Glad to hear that you feel the desktop variants are not involved in any of that mess. In real world use - will the 7970 be much of an upgrade over the 7950? If we are talking very minimal - 5-10% I would rather save a few bucks. If its a decent boost - I'd rather spend a few extra bucks to help with a bit more longevity down the road.

 

[EzioAs]

From a price to performance view, AMD leads in many cases. However, Nvidia also has a couple other features that are quite cool such as adaptive v-sync and TXAA. AMD driver support also keeps getting better (way better than on the mobile side) and not bad compared to nvidia. Some people have reported a couple issues (many drivers do) but most of them can be fix if you search hard enough

 

[Xttony]

In real world use - will the 7970 be much of an upgrade over the 7950? If we are talking very minimal - 5-10% I would rather save a few bucks. If its a decent boost - I'd rather spend a few extra bucks to help with a bit more longevity down the road.

Honestly speaking it is not worth the upgrade just get a HD 7950 GHz Edition card at about $300 and you'll be fine. It is better to buy another card when you actually need it. 7950 can handle all current games at 1440p. Also if you are going for a MultiGPU setup I'll recommend you go with NVidia cards. A lot of people face problems with crossfire. I used crossfire but didnot have the slightest difficultly using the setup.

As stated by EzioAs both nVidia and AMD have some cool feature of their own. Just go through the features and choose one that suits you best.

 

[y2hbk]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I think Ill be picking up one of these??

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125414

 

[EzioAs]

^ Good choice. It can still handle most games at 2560x1440 pretty fine. Good luck on your purchase and happy gaming 😉

If you're done with this thread don't forget to choose the best answer so that the forum moderators can close it.

 

[y2hbk]

Best answer selected by y2hbk.