Mine seems stable and perplexingly quiet at 1200, but I've actually dialled it back 200MHz for daily gaming, I just can't see the difference between 60 and 70fps (no age jokes please ).
A 7950 is better when overclocked than a 660 Ti, but is that safe? Bearing in mind that I have no experience with overclocking anything and if I'm not wrong overclocking graphics cards is trickier than CPUs? Also, can 7950s be put in crossfire whilst being overclocked? And would that provide significant benefit for most games? EDIT: oh yeah, can I get some idea of how hard it is to install a liquid cooler? I wasn't very good at installing my previous cooler which wasn't liquid =/
Amd overclocking can be done in amd catalist control centre with a touch of a button if your so inclined. Virtually every 7950 hits 1ghz np. I'd still go nvidia personally but that's just me the 7950 is the bang for buck king its a lot faster than the 660ti in most games these days whilst been cheaper to boot. If you can live with the drivers on amd the card to buy is the 7950. Personally also don't think a 3gb 660ti will do a lot considering it costs more than the faster 7950. 7950 is faster at stock in most games than the 660ti for reference.
Closed loop coolers are pretty easy to install. The most difficult part is actually attaching the radiator and fan to the case which requires a bit of patience. You can XFire/SLI any card with overclocks but the cards will only work at the speed of the slower/-est card. If you have a 7950 at 1200MHz and another at 1100MHz, they will effectively both function at 1100MHz.
Fully agree with true_gamer's build. I'd only get the Corsair 600t or something like that over the RV03, but that's just me, because I like the look of it better.
Thanks. It seems like there is some division of opinion about AMD / NVidia - I think since I've always used AMD/ATI in past I will continue with that and opt for the 7950, especially as they overclock better. I don't fully understand - are drivers from NVidia generally better than those that AMD provide? Will that make a significant difference?
With the 6xx series Nvidia nailed the drivers pretty much first time, with small, incremental improvements at each update. AMD took a fair while to unleash the true power of the 7xxx series, but they're pretty much there now. SLI is also generally supported quicker than Crossfire, but as ever things vary from game to game.
Nope. Some prefer AMD; some prefer nVidia; some prefer to spread outmoded specious untruths. Having used a 7000 Series card and the latest Catalyst drivers, I can tell you that (IMO) they work perfectly fine. Coming from 12.3 to 13.1, I have gained about 10-15% in synthetic benchmarks with the newer drivers. It is very hard for me to gauge in game gains because I almost always play with VSync on. One problem I did have was when AMD discontinued a file needed for overclocking in a certain way, but then I learnt how to use "MSi AfterBurner /xcl" to unlock the core and memory clocks. Overall, I would give a solid thumbs up for the 7950 and overclock it past 1100MHz. My 7850 goes to 1100MHz on stock voltages and I could take it further except that my case doesn't have great cooling.
Alright then, seems like the 7950 is the way to go. Is this one ok? http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-xfx-radeon-hd-7950-dd-5000mhz-gddr5-gpu-800mhz-dvi-dvi-hdmi-mdp
http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/df4223251e534478999605a6b473f3d0 I've just knocked together a build here which I think is good value for your money. Have a look and a think.
I would go with the MSI Twin Frozr one, it's cooler is tried and tested and very good, also I have not really heard good things about XFX recently. The couple of extra pounds is very worth it.
You might actually be disappointed as The Witcher 2 on Ultra/Uber at 1080p can even destroy GTX 670 in SLI. I can get around 40FPS at 1080p in that game with my signature rig listed below. It varies a great deal however hitting lows of 16FPS! Although I've not actually seen a rig that can handle this game at 60FPS or above at the time of writing. Hopeful that true_gamers rig will prove me wrong mind you!
Thanks to everyone for the help. I've gone ahead with an order for most of what true_gamer put together with exception of the 7950 over the 660ti. It all came under budget at just under £1000 approximately so I'm pretty happy with that. Now looking forward to receiving the parts and putting it all together
Just to make sure you've not forgotten to buy one.. None of these builds have an OS in them. Will you be needing a copy of windows or have you already sorted that out?
Yeah, I got a windows 7 home premium 64-bit on Amazon at the same time as treating myself to a shiny new Razer headset
What does your current system look like? You can salvage things like optical drives and hard disks to save some money. Possibly even the power supply if it's a quality one. One of the reasons for buying a proper power supply is that it will last for several builds. Avoid the OCZ Agility 3 -- it's a low end SSD and it had some reliability issues at least with earlier firmware versions. The Crucial M4 and the Samsung 840 are much better options.
The reason I went for a complete build is so I can leave my current computer at my parents house so when I visit I have a decent computer to use. It seems like the Twin Frozr is out of stock everywhere and the only alternative is the XFX. Would it be wise to wait for however long it takes to come back in stock (still waiting on ETA for that) or just go with the cheaper XFX? Unless there's something really wrong with the XFX version I wouldn't think twice about going for that. Can someone enlighten me? EDIT: I must be blind. Is this one (in stock) a viable alternative despite being more expensive than even the 660 Ti? http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-...ith-boost-ddr5-pci-e-30-860mhz-925mhz-5000mhz
Yes - I'm a big fan of Sapphire boards, and wouldn't have an XFX card (they're proved to be really unreliable recently)
