GPU Buying Guide - (Read first post)

Adam Moore3 said:Is asking $133 for a 6850 actually realistic? It comes with the full bundle and works perfectly—even had the thermal paste replaced. The cheapest one on Newegg is sitting at $167. Honestly, this looks like the only decent deal I've found on Newegg—KLIK. Or maybe a 6950 for a similar price. Since the performance is roughly in the same ballpark and the 7850 is newer, I think the 7850 is the better move. Also saw an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 for $250. Worth it or not?

I'd warn you that the XFX card from that link probably has a nightmare of a fan. I had an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 from what looked like the exact same cooler series and it was a disaster—sounded like a plane landing in my room. Even worse since the 7850 pulls more power than the 260X. If you can find something else for $33, I'd rather grab that. Otherwise, it's a solid price for a 7850 (I own two and they're great; there's plenty of headroom for moderate OC if the cooler isn't garbage)

this is the culprit: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150688

crimsonstag84 said:I wouldn't even bother looking below $133 for an ATI Radeon HD 6850 😁. This HD 7850 is a solid pick for $200, but that specific model is a total loudmouth, so you'll need to be okay with the noise. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 is in the same ballpark, but it has less VRAM and pulls more power. It should probably be around $200 to make sense.

The Witcher 3 really loves high clock speeds on AMD processors; you might try pushing the Front Side Bus as far as it goes on stock voltage if you're stuck with a cheap motherboard and a stock cooler.

Yeah, I agree. The cheapest 6850 right now is $167, but I feel like that $400-$450 one would fry within a week. I knew that XFX NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 was a noisy beast, but I didn't realize the whole series was such a disaster. 🕺 Though, looking at the listing, it's out in Indianapolis and they won't ship, so that one's a bust. I found THIS in Seattle—if I could get it down to $200, do you think it's worth it? It's in the same tier as the 7850, so it should be a good deal. Plus, it shouldn't be too loud since the cooler looks decent enough.

Regarding OCanj, he has a great board—it's an MSI 870A-G45 if I remember correctly—but it's just the stock cooler. On the forum, we actually 😬 changed the thermal paste relatively recently; we ran Prime and it didn't even cross 45 degrees, but still, I'm not sure how much headroom we'd actually get with that stock cooler 🤷

The HD 6950 is decent; I guess it’s a bit faster than the AMD Radeon R7 260X, though maybe slightly slower than the HD 7850.

The MSI 870A-G45 is just a mid-range board, nothing too special really. Best Buy might have an LC-CC-95 for $31, so that could be an option if you need it.

Is the stock voltage 1.35V? If so, you should probably be able to hit somewhere around 3.5-3.6GHz.

Typo, it's actually the G54, not the G45. I'm looking at AnandTech right now, and the 6970 is sitting right there with the 7850, maybe even a bit weaker. Makes me wonder where the 6950 fits in... Honestly, I'm not even sure if upgrading is worth it anymore. For OCanj, it'll be fine—he'll probably just tinker with it until it works. At least another 200-300 MHz...

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/510?vs=539

Yeah, I guess it's not exactly a massive leap... though if you could borrow some junk GPU from a friend and trade in your old card for an HD 7870 or a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660, maybe it'd be worth it—even if the CPU is probably going to be a bit of a bottleneck.

crimsonstag84 said:http://anandtech.com/bench/product/510?vs=539

Yeah, it's not exactly a massive leap... if he can borrow some junk card from someone just to sell his own and pick up an HD 7870 or a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660, even if the CPU ends up being a bit of a bottleneck.

True, it doesn't really make sense. He’ll definitely sell his old card and grab something new by throwing in a little extra cash, but neither the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 nor the 7870 are priced very well right now. Everything is sitting at $150 or more. And I don't think he'd want to shell out more than $100-$233 extra.

Adam Moore3 said:Yeah, it doesn't make much sense. He’ll definitely sell his card and grab something newer by throwing in a bit more cash, but neither the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 nor the 7870 is priced well right now. Everything is sitting at $150 or higher. And he's not looking to dump more than $10 $233 on top of it.

My XFX 7850 2gb DD will be up for sale in a month for about $12 😬

Does anyone have a solid recommendation for a graphics card intended for a Home Theater PC? I’m not looking for a gaming beast here; my main priorities are dead silence and reliable performance. It needs to handle 1080p and 3D content smoothly, while being capable of bitstreaming lossless audio. Ideally, I’d also like something that can be configured to playback movies at a frame rate as close to 23.976 fps as possible to avoid that annoying stutter. Having integrated H.265 codec support would be a nice little bonus, though certainly not a dealbreaker.

Budget: I can scrape together about 🥱

Maybe a passive NVIDIA GeForce GT 720 could work, since its CUDA core count looks decent compared to all that junk up to $117.

As far as I know, the only card with built-in H.265 support is the GTX 960.

analogtiger19 said:I'm planning on selling my Xfx 7850 2gb DD in about a month for $700 😬

Hmm... 😬 How old is it? Any warranty left? 😍

I was looking into something similar myself. Honestly, I don't see much point in sticking with my GTX 960; there's no sense in trying to game on it when I'm running a massive plasma screen.

Adam Moore3 said:Hmm. 😬 How old is it? Any warranty left? 😍

If I’d been smart enough to register this with Xfx when I first grabbed it, I'd have a lifetime warranty 😵, but instead, it expired six months ago (bought back in April 2013) 🙄.

Hit me up via DM if you need anything else, let's not clutter the thread...

Which graphics card is actually better, the GTX 960 or the R9 280?

The GTX 960 is superior 🙂
R9 280 < GTX 960 =< r9 380 < R9 280x

It really depends on what game you're playing and your resolution settings.

You can find comparisons between the R9 380 4gb and 2gb (R9 285), the GTX 960, and the R9 280 right here in this review.

Greetings. I need assistance regarding a GPU purchase. Here is the summary:

I require a PCI-E card.
Configuration:
AMD A8-5600K APU with Radeon HD Graphics @ 3.60 GHz
RAM: 8GB Kingston 1600MHz
Motherboard: FM2-A55M-E33
My budget is set at: $1000-$517
Which retailers should I consider?
Links, HG

Please provide the exact power supply model as well. If it can handle a GTX 950, then we're good to go.

I'm currently running a Spire SP-ATX-420W-C1-PFC, but I am planning on buying a new power supply soon.

Oof, even a GTX 950 wouldn't handle that; it pulls power like a lighter. If you're looking for the absolute cheapest way out, maybe go with the Fortron Hexa + 400 w. Beyond that, you've got:

Hexa + 500 w
Fortron Hyper 500 w
LC Power Silent Giant GP3 560 w

Man, the HyperX is actually cheaper than the Hextech in the admin shop, and the power supply is way better. You get a longer warranty and higher amperage too.