Need a new video card

teamhex

teamhex

Active Member
Well im thinking I need a new video card. I'm selling a guitar I own and will be falling into around roughly $500 this afternoon. I'm currently on a 4870 with 512 and its just not enough to run Crysis at max res full blast....in fact iv never beat the game because of the carrier sequence.....anyway its time to put that behind me. I need a card that owns my current one by a long shot(I want to play the second and be able to run Battle field 3 when it comes out). Suggestions on the best bang for me buck? I dont have to spend the whole $500, just find the price break. I have no preference of brand either so ATI or Nvidia. The only reason I ask for help is because im not caught up on whats been released and their benchmarks, ect.
 
If you never plan to crossfire, you could get a dual gpu card such as a radeon 5970 or gtx 295. If you do plan on crossfiring, you might want to get two high end single gpu cards, such as radeon 6950's or gtx 570's. I don't know how much gpu power you're actually needing but these choices would get you pretty top performance for the budget you have. Your case size and power supply also must be adequate to hold them, so if they aren't up to spec you'll have to upgrade those before the gpu.
 
Russ88765 said:
If you never plan to crossfire, you could get a dual gpu card such as a radeon 5970 or gtx 295. If you do plan on crossfiring, you might want to get two high end single gpu cards, such as radeon 6950's or gtx 570's. I don't know how much gpu power you're actually needing but these choices would get you pretty top performance for the budget you have. Your case size and power supply also must be adequate to hold them, so if they aren't up to spec you'll have to upgrade those before the gpu.
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I want the most single card power you can get. I have a 750 watt ps and an Antec 900. Look at my sig you can see each part and its specs.
 
The two best single gpu cards at the moment are Radeon 6970, and gtx 580. There is however, a chance that you can get a 6950 to unlock to the bios of a 6970 for a bit less. Problem is, they fixed that on some of the newer models so it's a gamble as to whether or not it will work. 6950 is still a very nice card, wish I had one to be honest. Note however that only the 2gb 6950's will have the possibility of a full shader/clock unlock, the 1gb versions will not.
 
I have a 6950 with just the shaders unlocked and it is an awesome card. I highly recommend it. The only problem is compusa just stopped selling my model now I can't get a second one unless i found one on ebay or something.
 
teamhex said:
in fact iv never beat the game because of the carrier sequence.
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To finish crysis 2 at that aircraft carrier sequence you have to run the game in dx9 it will run without a problem then.

as for a video card i would recommend going the 6xxx series ati or the ati 5970 as it has come down alot in price.
 
Crossfire 6950 with shaders unlocked will shrug off everything thrown at it, except for maybe metro 2033 with tessellation and 4x msaa.
 
Well I went ahead and bought the MSI HD6970. I did some reading on the shader unlock and it seems semi dangerous(maybe not, but I don't want to have to jack with anything). I figure I just sold one of my guitars so I can translate the money into something ill use a bit more. BTW the box is huge man. So is the card....which has me wondering if it will fit? My 4870 was a squeeze so im hoping I don't have to do any case modding.
Does anyone have an Antec 900 with one of these beasts in it?
 
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teamhex said:
Well I went ahead and bought the MSI HD6970. I did some reading on the shader unlock and it seems semi dangerous(maybe not, but I don't want to have to jack with anything). I figure I just sold one of my guitars so I can translate the money into something ill use a bit more. BTW the box is huge man. So is the card....which has me wondering if it will fit? My 4870 was a squeeze so im hoping I don't have to do any case modding.
Does anyone have an Antec 900 with one of these beasts in it?
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It is about another inch longer, just over, so it may very well be a squeeze. It is, however, about the length of a GTX 260, and I know for a fact that they will fit in an Antec 900
 
Russ88765 said:
The two best single gpu cards at the moment are Radeon 6970, and gtx 580. There is however, a chance that you can get a 6950 to unlock to the bios of a 6970 for a bit less. Problem is, they fixed that on some of the newer models so it's a gamble as to whether or not it will work. 6950 is still a very nice card, wish I had one to be honest. Note however that only the 2gb 6950's will have the possibility of a full shader/clock unlock, the 1gb versions will not.
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The 6990 is out now, which trumps the 6970.
 
Ok. So the cards in and im installing the drivers and ccc now. An odd thing though. My 8pin power connector wouldn't match up to the 8 pin on the card....I went ahead and used the 6pin to 8 adapter they gave me. Hope it doesn't effect performance.
 
Manakore said:
The 6990 is out now, which trumps the 6970.
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And it is a dual GPU card with 2 underclocked 6970's on it, so no surprise it trumps it. You are talking a small fortune to get one though, enough to make it way outside of OP's budget even if he hadn't have bought the 6970 already

teamhex said:
Ok. So the cards in and im installing the drivers and ccc now. An odd thing though. My 8pin power connector wouldn't match up to the 8 pin on the card....I went ahead and used the 6pin to 8 adapter they gave me. Hope it doesn't effect performance.
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No it shouldn't affect performance at all, it is still getting the right amount of power and if you were to OC it, it would draw the extra power it needed without stability issues or stressing your PSU
 
Thanks guys. This bugger is fast man. Crysis frame rate is incredible now. My Minecraft load times are almost 0 now and I maxed out Grand Theft Auto 4 and it looks great. I just need some new games while I wait for Battlefield 3
 
Alright, so now iv decided to buy 3 new monitors and go with an Eyefinity setup. I need some good 22" monitors with smaller bezels and decent specs. As long as they do 1080 im happy.
 
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