Upgrading from HIS Radeon HD6850 - GPU/System

[fallout1]

USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming on weekends. Not going to spend >$225 or so. Not much time, but when I do play games--I want them to look great. Mostly playing recent but not brand new titles--(Batman Arkham Origins, Far Cry 3, Bioshock Infinite) but would like a bit of future proofing if at all possible in this price range.



CURRENT GPU AND POWER SUPPLY: HIS Radeon HD6850 - Corsair TX650.

OTHER RELEVANT SYSTEM SPECS: Core i5 2500k. MSI P67A-C43 mobo. 8GB GSkill DDR3

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: Newegg or Amazon is fine. More about advice on the card rather than where to get it.

PARTS PREFERENCES: None.

OVERCLOCKING: Maybe

CROSSFIRE: No

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1080

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: I've not been keeping on the evolution graphics for a year or so I'm not sure where my current card is at in relation to what's out/coming out. I know I'm feeling the slowdown with more recent titles. I've seen the R7 265, the new GTX 750ti as well as the beefier GTX 660 as recommended for the Tom's guide for 2/2014 but didn't know whether this was merely an incremental upgrade from what I've got and not enough to justify or was a solid choice at that $150-$200 price point.

Finally, how is my CPU/RAM/Mobo in relation to bottlenecking or am I still ok with just a GPU upgrade for the time being?

TIA

 

[pyr0_m4n]

i5 2500k was one of the top i5's for overclocking. Even on stock, it wont bottleneck in the price range you are looking for. One thing, using far cry 3 as an example. If you want games to look great, you're going to need to expand your price range a little. By "look great" I'm assuming you want to play on high or ultra quality. I can tell you right now that even a $500 7970 has trouble running far cry 3 on high with an average of 45 FPS with dips down to 30. For a budget card, i'd have to say that a radeon r9 270x would be your best bet.

 

[fallout1]

Thanks for your help--are the cards mentioned more or less nominal upgrades to the 6850 at this point in terms of performance gains?

For a budget card, i'd have to say that a radeon r9 270x would be your best bet.

 

[pyr0_m4n]

It all depends on what your budget is. For instance, you specified 225 as your price. An R9 270X is 250 and can handle (within reason) most games. If you are trying to future proof yourself (and im assuming you arent planning on using a dual card setup) you may want to save your money and shoot for a R9 280X. At $449, it exceeds the games you said. Far cry 3 for instance, can be played at 50 FPS with all settings maxed out. Slightly lower those settings and it'll be smooth all the way through.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127759

Here's one I'd personally recommend. Also, keep in mind that far cry is one of the highest demanding games out. Which means that most other games will run even better.

 

[sedona]

Based on Tom's Gaming CPU Hierarchy Chart, your i5-2500K is at Tier 1 to support any graphics card,
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html

Based on Tom's Graphics Card Performance Hierarchy Chart, our (I also have this same card) HIS Radeon HD 6850 1GB GDDR5 is capable of High settings on Battlefield 3 in Auto mode. The recommended upgrade of at least 3 tiers up would be the Radeon HD 7850 or GTX 650 Ti Boost. The newer R9 270 or 270X would be nice to keep up with times.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7770-7750-benchmark,3135-6.html

I overclocked my card from default 775MHz/1000MHz to a stable 920MHz GPU clock and 1120MHz memory clock and on some benchmarks, this is better than HD 6870. I don't want to spend much money and will be looking for a second-hand HD 7850 from people looking to upgrade their card, and I can pick it up for cheap. Your CPU/memory/motherboard is just fine for now, as a weekend casual gamer like myself. For your budget of $225, instead of getting a new card, how about spending it on a set of gaming keyboard and mouse? I'm going to shop around for Logitech G100s Gaming Combo which is the lowest end, and then work up from there to see how much I should spend.

Another option to spending that $225 is to buy a second matching 1920x1080 monitor. I have two Dell 23" monitors side-by-side connected to the twin DVI ports on our HIS HD 6850. The experience and time-savings is worth the money in my opinion. I can play games on one monitor while browsing/Youtube/Facebook/email on the other monitor. When overclocking the graphics card, I use the left screen to display HWMonitor (temperature monitoring), CPU-Z, GPU-Z, MSI Afterburner (overclocking), and Battlefield Battlelog page.

Since we have the same card, I have a lot of thoughts about this. Another thing on my mind is whether to keep this HD 6850 card for another year, and then spend US$20 for a quieter cooling solution. I can push the overclock even further while eliminating the noisy stock fan which any owner of HIS HD 6850 will know.

http://www.arctic.ac/worldwide_en/products/cooling/vga/accelero-l2-plus.html

 

[maxalge]

Thanks for your help--are the cards mentioned more or less nominal upgrades to the 6850 at this point in terms of performance gains?

For a budget card, i'd have to say that a radeon r9 270x would be your best bet.

A 660 is roughly twice as powerful as a 6850.

So at your price point of $225, you want at least a gtx 660.

 

[sedona]

So at your price point of $225, you want at least a gtx 660.

"Twice as powerful" seems like a better gauge (more intuitive) of whether to upgrade or not, compared to Tom's recommendation of "at least 3 tiers higher" or an arbitrary budget like <$225. I'm convinced I need to change my HD 6850 for the GTX 660 or equivalent.

One good website I use to compare prices across different brands and between AMD/Nvidia is this,
http://www.mynextcomonline.com/video-card/?sort=priceasc&page=7
(sort by price)

and then go to Amazon or Newegg for US or UK prices.

 

[maxalge]

So at your price point of $225, you want at least a gtx 660.

"Twice as powerful" seems like a better gauge (more intuitive) of whether to upgrade or not, compared to Tom's recommendation of "at least 3 tiers higher" or an arbitrary budget like <$225. I'm convinced I need to change my HD 6850 for the GTX 660 or equivalent.

I believe you could probably find a gtx 760 around that price point. Look around. Good luck!~

 

[sedona]

So at your price point of $225, you want at least a gtx 660.

"Twice as powerful" seems like a better gauge (more intuitive) of whether to upgrade or not, compared to Tom's recommendation of "at least 3 tiers higher" or an arbitrary budget like <$225. I'm convinced I need to change my HD 6850 for the GTX 660 or equivalent.

I believe you could probably find a gtx 760 around that price point. Look around. Good luck!~

What is your advice for selecting manufacturers? For example, Palit seems to sell the cheapest GTX 660 or even 660Ti while ASUS seems to sell the most expensive GTX 660 (without OC). So for the same price, would you get the Palit GTX 660Ti or the ASUS GTX 660 (non-Ti, non-OC)? This goes for other models of course.

 

[pyr0_m4n]

So at your price point of $225, you want at least a gtx 660.

"Twice as powerful" seems like a better gauge (more intuitive) of whether to upgrade or not, compared to Tom's recommendation of "at least 3 tiers higher" or an arbitrary budget like <$225. I'm convinced I need to change my HD 6850 for the GTX 660 or equivalent.

I believe you could probably find a gtx 760 around that price point. Look around. Good luck!~

What is your advice for selecting manufacturers? For example, Palit seems to sell the cheapest GTX 660 or even 660Ti while ASUS seems to sell the most expensive GTX 660 (without OC). So for the same price, would you get the Palit GTX 660Ti or the ASUS GTX 660 (non-Ti, non-OC)? This goes for other models of course.

I'd advise MSI. They make the best cooler in the industry, hands down. I've got a GTX 780 MSI overclocked by a huge margin and I still don't break 70C even with the fans at half power.

 

[maxalge]

What is your advice for selecting manufacturers? For example, Palit seems to sell the cheapest GTX 660 or even 660Ti while ASUS seems to sell the most expensive GTX 660 (without OC). So for the same price, would you get the Palit GTX 660Ti or the ASUS GTX 660 (non-Ti, non-OC)? This goes for other models of course.

Don't even bother with "oc" versions, if you find a cheaper price for stock speeds and everything else is the same get the cheaper one. You can overclock yourself.

Look for non reference coolers and pcb designs, this can take a bit of homework but pays off big in the quality of the product and in your ability to overclock - free performance is good!~.

If it was me, after looking at the design of that palit 660 ti vs the asus 660 I would get the palit 660 ti - if it had that nice double fan cooler-.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/palit_geforce_gtx_660_ti_jetstream_review,26.html



As to the quality level of a palit, they don't seem to be common in NA. So I could not say either way.


Maybe someone from the other side of the pond can comment?

 

[fallout1]

Thanks for your help--much appreciated.

A 660 is roughly twice as powerful as a 6850.

So at your price point of $225, you want at least a gtx 660.

 

[sedona]

The pricing on that Singapore website is interesting. The cheapest GTX 660 from Palit is SGD$274 while the most expensive GTX 660 (non-Ti) from ASUS is SGD$358, a big difference. And Palit's GTX 660Ti is "only" SGD$292 compared to ASUS non-Ti.

http://www.mynextcomonline.com/palit-gtx660-oc/
http://www.mynextcomonline.com/asus-gtx660-dc2t-2gd5/
http://www.mynextcomonline.com/palit-gtx660ti-f2g/

 

[sora]

The pricing on that Singapore website is interesting. The cheapest GTX 660 from Palit is SGD$274 while the most expensive GTX 660 (non-Ti) from ASUS is SGD$358, a big difference. And Palit's GTX 660Ti is "only" SGD$292 compared to ASUS non-Ti.

http://www.mynextcomonline.com/palit-gtx660-oc/
http://www.mynextcomonline.com/asus-gtx660-dc2t-2gd5/
http://www.mynextcomonline.com/palit-gtx660ti-f2g/

I honestly think it is because Singapore companies see more profit margin in those certain products.