About time for an upgrade

WhoX

WhoX

Active Member
Christmas is coming, and every Christmas I upgrade a major component in my PC. This year it'll be the video card. I haven't been gaming much lately, but a few new titles have caught my attention, so I'll need to replace my Radeon 7790. I've looked around and have decided I will be getting a MSI AMD R7 370, cost around 160 Euros. I read you need at least an Intel Core i5 for the card, but I've seen some YouTube demos showing the R7 370 and the Core i3 gaming together just fine.
 
WhoX said:
I read you need at least an Intel Core i5 for the card
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You could put it in a 754/775 system if you wanted to, I'd probably degrade the value of that source ;)

You might be able to snatch a 280/280x for that same price during holiday sales.
 
While the R7 370 is better, it's not that huge of an upgrade over the 7790. I'd look to spend a bit more and get something worthy of an upgrade, or upgrade something else instead.
 
+1 on cheap 280X.. I'm looking to snag another to build my little brother a PC..
 
I was looking for a card with a 256 bit bandwidth and 4GB memory for max 180 Euros. There are R7 370s from several manufacturers that have those specs and price. My primary games are RTS and RPG.

I would love to play FPS online, but after a few tries I realized that at 50 I can't compete with the younger generation. My two sons were having a great time watching me curse the screen as I got mercilessly knifed, shot and blown up. Being dick knifed by some teenager from a place in Norway I can't even pronounce is to much for my tired nerves. I'm just not as quick as I was when I was playing games like Galaga and Defender at the arcades. So I'll just stick to playing RTS against a dumb AI...keeps my ego inflated.

Okedokey said:
Might be best to simply crossfire at this stage... probably best bang for buck.
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I hadn't thought of that. I'll see if I can find a used MSI Radeon HD 7790 on ebay or Amazon.
 
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As standard, a GPU can read 64 bits of information at a time from a memory chip, but to speed things up, it reads from more than one memory chip simultaneously. If it can read from two chips at a time, the memory bus width is 64x2, which equals 128 bits. If it can read from three chips simultaneously, the bus width is 64x3, which equals 192 bits and so on.

It's this bus width, combined with the memory speed, that gives you the memory bandwidth (measured in gigabytes per second: GB/s). Most GPUs will state their bandwidth in their specifications, with the general rule being that the more bandwidth a GPU has, the easier it is for a game to feed data to the shader cores, and thus run your games more smoothly. Look out for GPUs that have GDDR5 memory, which typically features a higher bandwidth, and avoid anything with older DDR3 memory if you intend on using it for gaming.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/building-a-pc-everything-you-need-to-know-about-gp/1100-6420869/
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In the past (when I was still using AGP boards) 256 bit bandwidth always made my games run smoother.
 
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WhoX said:
Yeah I know, but it is one of the features I'm looking for.
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Why stop at 256 when new cards have a 384 or 512 bit bus? HBM bring a 1024-bit wide bus, why not get a Fury?

It doesn't really make sense to isolate that specifically.
 
I have the money to buy any card I want, but I only buy what I really need. To spend money on a card that would cost twice or three times as much, when I really don't need to doesn't make sense to me any more. Ten years ago I would have bought a more expensive card regardless whether I needed it or not, just because.
 
beers said:
Why stop at 256 when new cards have a 384 or 512 bit bus? HBM bring a 1024-bit wide bus, why not get a Fury?

It doesn't really make sense to isolate that specifically.
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This HBM is really interesting stuff, Nvidia will be bring out their first HBM2 cards next year I think. Pretty cool how they are going to be able to stack memory on top of each other saving space, so smaller PCB's can be used, with much low power consumption, also increasing size (I read maybe up to 32gb) and speed due to construction methods and decreasing connection distances. Supposedly gaming performance isn't going to be increased dramatically by HBM, shame.
 
WhoX said:
In the past (when I was still using AGP boards) 256 bit bandwidth always made my games run smoother.
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That's not directly related to the card having 256 bit memory. There is a lot more to video card performance than one single spec. It's like comparing AMD to Intel and say you want a CPU that is 3GHz, when a 3GHz i7 vastly outperforms a higher clocked AMD CPU.

Look at cards in your price range, then look at benchmarks to compare them for overall performance. I recommend this site: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU15/1248
 
Geoff said:
That's not directly related to the card having 256 bit memory. There is a lot more to video card performance than one single spec. It's like comparing AMD to Intel and say you want a CPU that is 3GHz, when a 3GHz i7 vastly outperforms a higher clocked AMD CPU.
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Yes it is...I thought that was evident with the quote from post #9.

I know that the bandwidth is only one feature of the video card. I also know that there are a combination of features that make a card perform well. I mentioned only the bandwidth and the memory on purpose. Most cards with a high bandwidth and a lot of memory are going to have sufficient specs in other areas automatically. Knowing this, I am only interested in the bandwidth and the memory size when shopping for a video card.
 
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WhoX said:
Yes it is...I thought that was evident with the quote from post #9.

I know that the bandwidth is only one feature of the video card. I also know that there are a combination of features that make a card perform well. I mentioned only the bandwidth and the memory on purpose. Most cards with a high bandwidth and a lot of memory are going to have sufficient specs in other areas automatically. Knowing this, I am only interested in the bandwidth and the memory size when shopping for a video card.
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That is completely untrue.

Which card do you think is better then. An AMD with a 4096 bit memory interface and 4GB of VRAM, or an NVIDIA card with a 384 bit memory interface and 6GB of VRAM? Spoiler, the NVIDIA is much better. Before you say it's because it has 6GB of VRAM, that is completely untrue, as evident by benchmarks at lower resolutions which don't come close to filling 4GB of memory.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1556?vs=1496

Or better yet, what about an AMD with a 512 bit memory interface and 8GB of VRAM compared to an NVIDIA 384 bit card with 6GB of VRAM? The NVIDIA is still a lot better.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1559?vs=1496
 
Geoff said:
That's not directly related to the card having 256 bit memory.
Click to expand...

As standard, a GPU can read 64 bits of information at a time from a memory chip, but to speed things up, it reads from more than one memory chip simultaneously. If it can read from two chips at a time, the memory bus width is 64x2, which equals 128 bits. If it can read from three chips simultaneously, the bus width is 64x3, which equals 192 bits and so on.

It's this bus width, combined with the memory speed, that gives you the memory bandwidth (measured in gigabytes per second: GB/s). Most GPUs will state their bandwidth in their specifications, with the general rule being that the more bandwidth a GPU has, the easier it is for a game to feed data to the shader cores, and thus run your games more smoothly. Look out for GPUs that have GDDR5 memory, which typically features a higher bandwidth, and avoid anything with older DDR3 memory if you intend on using it for gaming.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/building-a-pc-everything-you-need-to-know-about-gp/1100-6420869/
Click to expand...

It does have a direct relation. It is not the only feature on the card that helps performance, but it is still directly related to performance.

Geoff said:
Which card do you think is better then. An AMD with a 4096 bit memory interface and 4GB of VRAM, or an NVIDIA card with a 384 bit memory interface and 6GB of VRAM?
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Still trying to throw a comparison of AMD and NVIDIA at me, when it really doesn't matter to me which one is faster.

WhoX said:
I am only interested in the bandwidth and the memory size when shopping for a video card.
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As I have already stated, the card I want is the card that I need, and the parameters I use to look for video cards have always served me well.

Again, in case you overlooked the parameters I set for myself in searching for a card: Price (max. 180 Euros), bandwidth. The card I have chosen at the price I mentioned is the card that will perform adequately for my needs.
 
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WhoX said:
It does have a direct relation. It is not the only feature on the card that helps performance, but it is still directly related to performance.

Still trying to throw a comparison of AMD and NVIDIA at me, when it really doesn't matter to me which one is faster.

As I have already stated, the card I want is the card that I need, and the parameters I use to look for video cards have always served me well.

Again, in case you overlooked the parameters I set for myself in searching for a card: Price (max. 180 Euros), bandwidth. The card I have chosen at the price I mentioned is the card that will perform adequately for my needs.
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It does not have a direct relation, did you even read my post? The 512 bit and 8GB card is about 30-40% worse than the card with 384 bit and 6GB of VRAM. The memory interface and VRAM are pointless specs to compare alone. Again, it's like comparing CPUs based on clock speed and cache sizes.

It's not just NVIDIA vs AMD, even AMD cards of different generations skew your method of comparison.

That's fine by me that you want that card, enjoy your overpriced and under performing card.
 
Geoff said:
That's fine by me that you want that card, enjoy your overpriced and under performing card.
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Calm down. It's obvious you don't get it. You are still comparing cards. I am not. I purchase a card for the specs I am looking for, not how it compares to other cards. I want to purchase a 256 bit, 4GB card for the price I have stated. That is the card I need and that is the card I want. You are having a slight tantrum because I am not using your logic in my purchase.

Your attitude has a lot to do with how much of a conversation you can absorb.
 
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