I currently have an AMD 6870 GPU in my gaming computer and am looking to upgrade. I am having a hard time finding a website that will tell you exactly what the equivalent cards are to each other when it comes to AMD and nVidia. What is giving me a hard time with AMD is their numbering. Though the new 7000 series comes after the 6000 series, which is what I have, but yet some of the 7000 cards are below my 6870. I am looking for something that is an upgrade in the $200-300 range. I play WoW, SWTOR, DOTA, STO, DC Online, and rarely BF3. I want to be able to max all settings and still have high FPS. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Looking for that comparison website or GPU's and some suggestions as well. Thank you!
your best bet would the anandtech gpu comparison tool http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU12/372 put your 6870 in as your first card, then whatever you like as the card you want to upgrade to and it will give you an idea of what is faster and where
Honestly, a good upgrade would be a HD7950, it'd be about double the framerates for that price bracket. That said, a HD6870 is most likely still very adequate. There's really no point in upgrading by my estimation.
I was looking at the MSI 7870 Hawk for around $250. I am playing at 1920x1080(I think thats the correct number but you know what I mean). I am also considering going to 3 monitors but in the future. Any idea on performance I would get going to the 7870 over my 6870 Card here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127681&Tpk=7870 hawk
well from the link i posted earlier...at 1080 you get a fairly decent fps boost across the board without consuming more power ( a few watts more at full load, but less at idle ) just stick the 6870 as gpu product 1 amd the 7870 as gpu product 2 and compare the 2 bench mark resunts side by side as for going with triple montior setup, just about any single card would struggle with tipple 1080 on games like bf3 without turning down a few settings
All the games you listed bf3 excluded should run fine on your current card. 7870 is not a huge upgrade and is not something I'd spend that cash on. Your best bet is to save till you can buy either the 670 or 7950 they will be big upgrade. SLI or crossfire is required for 1080p multi monitor gaming at any decent settings.
You may have to scale back your expectations for a 7870 and multi monitors. Perhaps just go for it and get a 7970!
If you went multi-monitor are you planning on gaming on multiple monitors? That can also be a deal-breaker in your choice.
If I'm not mistaken, the games you listed run a little better on (otherwise equal) Nvidia cards. The difference is not huge, but it's worth taking into consideration when deciding a purchase. Now, for multiple monitor gaming, you budget is not enough for playing at max settings. You have to choose between 1080p gaming with max settings and 5760x1080 with (probably) medium settings. My recommendation would be a 660Ti. They're usually $299, and you might even find a mail-in-rebate or such, to bring it even lower.
I'm not a fanboy of either AMD or nVidia, I just have AMD now because I had never had one before. I have heard that nVidia is better for gaming and their drivers are better, as that is all the card will be doing. Is there a difference between a regular card and a Ti or are they all the same? I would like to switch back to nVidia. Though I have not had a bad experience with AMD, I do notice some of my games have a hard time being "smoorh" as I would call it. I would see a line come on the screen when running in WoW like part of the screen was lagging behind.
And three monitors is just something I have thought about. For now I'm just working on one and it will remain this way for a while
Nvidia better for gaming? That's very debatable. Their drivers used to be better than AMD's, true, but nowadays the difference (if any) is minimal. When I suggested Nvidia, I wasn't referring to it being better on all fronts, but to the games you listed. Those games do seem to run better on Nvidia cards. But for every game that favors one company, there's another that favors the other. You do seem to play games that mainly favor Nvidia. The 660Ti is just a commercial name. It has nothing to do with the 660, as it's based on another chip. I suggested it because it's the fastest card within you budget.
Nvidia is better on the games listed that's for sure and if my experience is out to go by the drivers are more stable. A lot of reviewers have wondered if Amd are sacrificing image quality to get the higher fps from the 7 series cards. Nvidia are usually better in older Mmos Wow sto gw rift been 4.
Having been with nvidia for years and just recently buying a 7970 i can say the amd drivers are absolutley fine Theres plenty of choice at the moment from both nvidia and amd so im sure you will find something
It's a nice read but for me and others on this forum its 5 months to late in the day for AMD, congrats there drivers now make them the fastest, problem most people who want a 680 or 7970 have long since purchased the card and are now waiting on the next gen. Some of the testing is also weird, borderlands 2 with physics at max looks awesome not sure why they test with low physics.( not like a 3960k they test with is a slow CPU) Even if I was to buy today I'd still purchase the nvidia cards that I brought 5-6 months ago. Simply because of what physics does to certain games, and AMD lost a lot of the high end with the god awful 5990 duel Gpu card. ( that was my last AMD card and will remain so)
The person was asking about the lay of the land today, not five months ago. Also, the people who pondered about AMD's lowered image quality came to the conclusion that this wasn't the case so your statement is specious at best. They test with low PhysX because nVidia have intentionally crippled PhysX on AMD cards even though the GCN 7000 cards are capable of running them. However, since Borderlands 2 requires PhysX to function, nVidia had to 'uncripple' the low settings of PhysX so that the game was playable for Radeon users. Therefore, the highest pound-for-pound settings are low PhysX because all other modes are intentionally crippled on AMD cards. A list of games released with PhysX additional effects (i.e. not just PhysX based) in 2011 and 2012: 7554, Batman Arkham City, Alice Madness, Borderlands 2, PlanetSide 2, Hawken. Six games with additional effects. Not really a game changer. AMD lost a lot of the high end with the 5990? In your estimation, what percentage of gamers purchase these £500+ GPUs? Drawing conclusions from a two generation old card to this generation of AMD cards is flat out stupid. 5990 (Dual GPU, 40nm, VLIW5); 7000 Series (Single GPU, 28nm, GCN). It would be like me saying don't buy a 690 because a 480 consumed so much power a 690 would probably use more than twice as much. Differenct arch; different process; different number of GPUs. You may need to update your views on AMD or stop spouting specious statements at least. nVidia had massive driver gains when they started the Fermi generation as they optimised their cards, AMD is doing the same thing this generation.
Why update views on a company that won't exist as we know it in 2 years without finding some funding. I had mostly AMD cards before the 5990 I brought, it came with bios issues and driver malfunctions that are unacceptable in a high end product. If you search for a 5990 thread you will see a 20 page + that lists everyone's issues. As I've said in other forums they are ripe for buy out, apple or Samsung would like the Gpu patents and CPU patents to implement some of them to there phones. They are currently listed as junk status on credit and listed avoid for investment. ( only in jan this year they were worth 8 dollars a share now they are are worth 1.87 dollars a share and dropping) apple or Samsung could pick them up for small change. Personally think intel will be forced to subsidise there CPU devision the same way Microsoft did for apple back in the day. ( with OSX) Wether nvidia crippled physics on none nvidia cards is kinda there choice they developed it after all, that's like saying apple should let Samsung have access to there patents its just not going to happen in the world we live in today. Still just an opinion in the end of the day.
