i love how no one takes into account that the 680 auto overclocks... if you OC the 7970 which i put mine in CCC up to 1125MHz 1575MHz without breaking a sweat with never a hickup or error, its prb just as fast or faster.
That's around what I was looking at for him. He's pretty well set not using Xfire or SLI so a single GPU is the way to go. I've been deployed for the last six and a half months so I missed the release of the GTX 600 series and Radeon's 7000 series. Curious how much of a difference there is and which one would be bringing the more level experience to the table. My desktop runs on a 6950 2GB without any issues on any games though my laptop's 560m 3GB held up incredibly well while I was deployed. Haven't been able to find any real major difference between Radeon and NVIDIA so I'm not sure which to go with here.
[QUOTE="Elann2008"] +1 this looks like a solid build. I also reccomend newegg for the buying, they have always been good to me wih good prices
kejigoto
Definitely looks good. To add to that, Corsair 8GB DDR3 Vengeance, Corsair TX/HX/AX 750 PSU, Corsair Obsidian/HAF 932 or X cases, Corsair Hxxx CPU coolers, and there are nice 26-27 1080p monitors out there if you want something bigger.
I'm not sure on what monitor size he's been looking at actually. I just know sometimes you can find some good bundle deals on Newegg but wasn't aware of any specials. Seriously just got back Monday night so I'm still getting caught up on what is all on sale. I did notice RAM prices came way the heck down so might it be worth it to push for 16GB of RAM or is 8 still more than enough along with overkill?
For the GPU, really you cannot go wrong with either for gaming the nvidia auto overclocks so its benchmarks are a little higher but its ez to overclock AMD too in CCC but I would just go for whichever one he can find a better deal on also factoring in included games cuz dirt 3 and Deus ex are often packaged in and I LOVE both those games. If hes not a techie and hes worried about driver problems Nvidia might be a little safer bet but ive never had any serious problems with AMD in over 2 years of having them. I had Nvidia b4 they do get drivers a little more often and were a little better about new games but I dont regret my AMD cards they have great performance. For the monitor 23 inch is a size i like and tigerdirect actually has great prices some refurbished modes also if he has a micro center near by they have good prices on monitors too. RAM I would only for for 8GB ive actually seen gaming performance drop with up to 16GB, its all neglagable so its really a pointless place to spend money.
logitech G930, phenomenal headset. great all around ive had it about a year and a half and its got good 7.1 sound, a good mic for gaming and such, and really conveniant with long wireless range and long battery life and rechargable.
I got a normal sapphire and I just cranked up the sliders to max in CCC and didnt change anything else and ive never noticed anything weird for months. I had 12.1-12.4 drivers no issues cept BSOD when idle when I have screen extended to my 1080p hdtv 42inch vizio. Its hooked up vga with a dvi adapted and under the my VGA displays in CCC if the EDID box is checked it dosnt think it should be above 1600x900 resolution but if i uncheck the box it will go up to 1080p fine although if i leave it idle it will BSOD. oddly if i dont extend desktop and just duplicate it works fine at both screens 1080p and no crashes ever.
I can't really recommend ATI/AMD cards, unless you're a person who intends to upgrade every few years or so. But if you're a guy like me who likes to really wear out a card before replacing it (either by running it to death or until games are unplayable on anything but low at 800x600), then AMD is proving themselves to be ****. From the grapevine, AMD is dropping support for its 2XXX, 3XXX, and 4XXX line of cards sometime this summer. This is balls, as my 4870 1GB is perfectly capable of running all games in existence. Given the fact that I'm losing support just 3 years after purchasing the card, I won't buy AMD next time, that's for sure. But again, if you're the kind of person who upgrades relatively frequently, this won't affect you. Then, I'd mostly just say look at price/performance and whichever company does best in your price range should get your money.LongZhiZi
Wow dude your a fool, losing support just means they wont be making new drivers for it. The card will still run fine and since its been around so long they have developed the drivers as good as they will get so not making new ones means nothing. All you have to do is stick with 12.7 or whatever will be the last ones till you need a new card and you wont have any problems running it into the ground. A new card like the 7xxx series has not been fully harnesing its power so new drivers are needed to optamize it but your 4870 wont run any better any time soon as they have wrung all the performance possible out of it so new drivers are pointless for you. Nvidia does this too, when new technologies come out often older cards arent even capable of utalizing them so thats just the way it is, technology moves fast and why would you want it to slow down?
no, at this point a 7970 is the better deal than the 680gtx. both cards are clock for clock equal and the 7970 costs $480 plus comes with 3 free games, while the 680 gtx is now selling for $550 for some reason or other
blaznwiipspman1
Also people seem to like to ignore that the gtx 680 gets better benchmarks cuz it auto overclocks so its not really a fair fight pitting a refrence stock 7970 against it especially when they OC phenomenally.
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