Need advice, best bang for my buck GPU?

Hi all, I'm curently building a computer to replace this horrid machine that I am currently using. I have picked out all of the parts save for a GPU, and I wanted to know what your opinions were on the subject. I'm willing to spend up to $250, but I'd prefer to keep it below $200 unless there will be a truly noticeable difference in performance/allows me to crank the settings even higher. I'll be playing my games at 1980x1020, upgrading from a HD3870 (lol).

I was looking at the 6870, but I would like to hear other people's opinions. What do you think?

I would get the GTX 560 for under $200. If you're willing to pay a little bit more, I'd get the Radeon HD6950 1GB.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127578

Fastest 560Ti out there, can be on par with a 570. If you could find one, the Sapphire Toxic 6950 2gb is the best bang for the buck, considering it can turn into a 6970 with the flick of a switch, but I don't think they have any anywhere at the moment.

Thanks a lot for the quick responses guys! I'm inclined to go the GTX560 Ti route, as I've never owned an NVIDIA card, but theSapphire Toxic 6950 2gb sounds pretty amazing. If newegg restocks those I will be forced to pick one up, despite the higher price.

On another note, seeing as these aren't top of the line GPUs how do you think the GTX560 Ti and 6950 will hold up as games become more graphically demanding? How long do you think I can get solid performance out of these cards at higher settings?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127578

Fastest 560Ti out there, can be on par with a 570. If you could find one, the Sapphire Toxic 6950 2gb is the best bang for the buck, considering it can turn into a 6970 with the flick of a switch, but I don't think they have any anywhere at the moment.

configme

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125369

Actually the Gigabyte 560 Ti SOC-950 is slightly faster due to faster memory clocks. Unfortunately they're out of stock on newegg! That MSI Hawk is the one that I'd get from the in-stock selection.

[QUOTE="configme"]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127578

Fastest 560Ti out there, can be on par with a 570. If you could find one, the Sapphire Toxic 6950 2gb is the best bang for the buck, considering it can turn into a 6970 with the flick of a switch, but I don't think they have any anywhere at the moment.

hartsickdiscipl

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125369

Actually the Gigabyte 560 Ti SOC-950 is slightly faster due to faster memory clocks. Unfortunately they're out of stock on newegg! That MSI Hawk is the one that I'd get from the in-stock selection.

I meant for around the price.

[QUOTE="configme"]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127578

Fastest 560Ti out there, can be on par with a 570. If you could find one, the Sapphire Toxic 6950 2gb is the best bang for the buck, considering it can turn into a 6970 with the flick of a switch, but I don't think they have any anywhere at the moment.

hartsickdiscipl

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125369

Actually the Gigabyte 560 Ti SOC-950 is slightly faster due to faster memory clocks. Unfortunately they're out of stock on newegg! That MSI Hawk is the one that I'd get from the in-stock selection.

Thanks a lot for the quick responses guys! I'm inclined to go the GTX560 Ti route, as I've never owned an NVIDIA card, but theSapphire Toxic 6950 2gb sounds pretty amazing. If newegg restocks those I will be forced to pick one up, despite the higher price.

On another note, seeing as these aren't top of the line GPUs how do you think the GTX560 Ti and 6950 will hold up as games become more graphically demanding? How long do you think I can get solid performance out of these cards at higher settings?

Revolution_DDM

It will last for a while.

Thanks again, you guys are awesome.

On another note, seeing as these aren't top of the line GPUs how do you think the GTX560 Ti and 6950 will hold up as games become more graphically demanding? How long do you think I can get solid performance out of these cards at higher settings?

Revolution_DDM

It's pretty much a moot point, since the current high-end isn't all that high-end compared to the midrange cards. So long as you stick to one monitor and 1920x1200 or below, you're not going to get a whole lot of value by going beyond a 560Ti or 6950 anyway.

Anyway yeah, at 1920x1080 you're probably best off with a 560Ti or 6950, although you can certainly do fine with a vanilla 560 or 6870 if money is tight.

I guess I'll steal this thread for my own purposes. How good of a deal is a brand new Sapphire HD 6950 2GB Toxic for $299?

GPU market is really interesting, because it's not always about price. For example, nVidia is always more expensive while offering the same/less specs than the ATI/AMD counterpart. But it's also about software and drivers, which frequently makes the nVidia the better choice in the game/application. As an additional example, most motherboards can support SLI easily, while XFire is more selective. However, if driver support is not an issue, the AMD is the better performing card for the price. Pretty much every game that is released from here on out will be supported by both AMD and nVidia. That's pretty much why AMD cards hang in the market and are highly popular -- nVidia can't beat that price.pphanfx

As a rule I agree with your statements.. but it's not always true, especially this generation. For example, the 6970 and GTX 570 mirror each other in performance, trading blows. However, you can buy a GTX 570 for less than a 6970 right now if you look at newegg. So not only do you get the Nvidia drivers, Physx, and CUDA, but you get the same performance for less money.

Why decide now when new ones are due out? prices will lower or you may find that none of us are going to run BF3 anywhere near max without the latest... gonna laugh when these 580s and 6970's buckle under this game...

Why decide now when new ones are due out? prices will lower or you may find that none of us are going to run BF3 anywhere near max without the latest... gonna laugh when these 580s and 6970's buckle under this game...

Birdy09

I highly doubt that will happen. BF3 uses a modded version of the same engine used in Bad Company 2. It will run well on 5000/6000 series AMD cards and 400/500 series Nvidia.

gonna laugh when these 580s and 6970's buckle under this game...

Birdy09

[QUOTE="Birdy09"]

I highly doubt that will happen. BF3 uses a modded version of the same engine used in Bad Company 2. It will run well on 5000/6000 series AMD cards and 400/500 series Nvidia.

hartsickdiscipl

[QUOTE="Birdy09"]gonna laugh when these 580s and 6970's buckle under this game...

gmaster456

Why spend £250 on a 6970 now that is meant to "max games" for us enthusiasts when this game will buckle that card .... considering there is meant to be a new series that will be more powerful and similarly prices due out in the next month or 2? doesnt make sense....

I just got this version of the GTX 560 a week ago (paired with a phenom II x6 1100T):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130662

It's 'superclocked' by default and has 2GB which should be plenty enough for any game out.

It's performing better than my 2 GTS 250's in SLI - and has a 7.6 windows 7 experience index rating.

TC - you mentioned the 6870 in your first post - here's one (also has 2GB) for about $20 cheaper than the 560 and is comparable in speed (last I checked some benchmarks on guru3d.com:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150563
(having trouble linking for some reason)