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So I was looking to slightly upgrade my PC with another monitor and an aftermarket heatsink, and also wanted a new GPU for around or less than 100$ to drive it. I don't really game, but just wanted to have a better rig. I was wondering, now that you can find things like the 6970 for less than the 260x, which is the better buy? Without a doubt, the 6970 will use more power and be significantly faster, but the 260x will support things like TrueAudio and FreeSync. So what do you think is the better buy?

6970 would likely be more powerful at its base, but might be worse at tessellation.

I don't know if it has as much RAM or supports dx12 though.

3DMark's Firestrike benchmark shows Radeon R7-260X performing pretty close to Radeon HD6970. For a bit more performance, pick one with 2 GiB of the faster 6.4-6.5 GHz GDDR5 memory and the 1.17-1.20 GHz GPU core clock that match the standard clock speeds of the new Radeon R7-360 cards (or pick the least expensive one and overclock it to this level).
Gigabyte GV-R726XWF2-2GD rev 2
MSI R7 260X 2GD5 OC

pyromaniac2749 wrote:

So I was looking to slightly upgrade my PC with another monitor and an aftermarket heatsink, and also wanted a new GPU for around or less than 100$ to drive it. I don't really game, but just wanted to have a better rig. I was wondering, now that you can find things like the 6970 for less than the 260x, which is the better buy? Without a doubt, the 6970 will use more power and be significantly faster, but the 260x will support things like TrueAudio and FreeSync. So what do you think is the better buy?

Better for what, if not gaming?

Better how: lower power consumption, lower noise, video playback improvements via more hardware acceleration?

It is impossible to make a good recommendation without knowing what you're after, an it is also impossible to recommend options for "better" without knowing what you have now, so the details of the rest of your rig, and plans, would help us help you, as would your upgrade budget.

By "another monitor", do you mean a replacement or additional one? If additional, then FreeSync won't work.

If you're looking at 260X 1GB cards or older cards for the same price and don't really game, are you up for the price premium of a FreeSync monitor? If so, why??

In terms of old cards, the best AMD option around that price point right now is the Radeon HD 7790 2GB, which can be had for ~90% of a 260X price, and unlike the 6970 you mention supports DX12 (in case you will upgrade to Windows 10) as it's the same GPU as the 260X, the GCN 1.1 Bonaire XT. You save a bit of cash and double your VRAM, but lose a little performance in gaming.

Although TR's 260X review says the 7790 will support TrueAudio via driver update, there are plenty of forum posts around the web that suggest it dos not. There's no point in caring, though, TrueAudio is ultimate meh.

Newer is generally better.

1) x-month Warranty vs Ebay where you're screwed.
2) New fans with their full lifetime remaining vs a used fan that could be almost dead
3) Power consumtion, specifically performance/Watt.
4) Improvements in coolers/backplates general build quality
5) Features you'll use right now, eg DX12 and Freesync/Gsync support
6) Resource balance on new cards is better suited to current tasks
7) Driver support, something that's on shaky ground with both AMD and Nvidia. 6970 is VLIW4, for example and AMD are focussing solely on GCN.

Regarding resource balance, sometimes older is better - eg FP64 performance is better on both AMD and Nvidia hardware, so if you doing CUDA/OpenCL stuff rather than gaming.

If you "don't really" game, just acquire an Intel Haswell or Broadwell and use the IGP. For the gaming you will do it is more than sufficient ("console-quality") and you will benefit more from the fast CPU and system bus. (´・ω・｀)

For older GPUs I would point you to NVIDIA Fermi (Geforce 400-500 series) before a TeraScale Radeon, as they have a better driver and are generally faster. (*´ω｀*)

Topinio wrote:

pyromaniac2749 wrote:

So I was looking to slightly upgrade my PC with another monitor and an aftermarket heatsink, and also wanted a new GPU for around or less than 100$ to drive it. I don't really game, but just wanted to have a better rig. I was wondering, now that you can find things like the 6970 for less than the 260x, which is the better buy? Without a doubt, the 6970 will use more power and be significantly faster, but the 260x will support things like TrueAudio and FreeSync. So what do you think is the better buy?

Better for what, if not gaming?

Better how: lower power consumption, lower noise, video playback improvements via more hardware acceleration?

It is impossible to make a good recommendation without knowing what you're after, an it is also impossible to recommend options for "better" without knowing what you have now, so the details of the rest of your rig, and plans, would help us help you, as would your upgrade budget.

By "another monitor", do you mean a replacement or additional one? If additional, then FreeSync won't work.

If you're looking at 260X 1GB cards or older cards for the same price and don't really game, are you up for the price premium of a FreeSync monitor? If so, why??

In terms of old cards, the best AMD option around that price point right now is the Radeon HD 7790 2GB, which can be had for ~90% of a 260X price, and unlike the 6970 you mention supports DX12 (in case you will upgrade to Windows 10) as it's the same GPU as the 260X, the GCN 1.1 Bonaire XT. You save a bit of cash and double your VRAM, but lose a little performance in gaming.

Although TR's 260X review says the 7790 will support TrueAudio via driver update, there are plenty of forum posts around the web that suggest it dos not. There's no point in caring, though, TrueAudio is ultimate meh.

I have an AMD a8-6600k on an msi a78m-e35. It wasn't my choice, a friend of mine won the apu at a competition and had no use for it and just gave it to me. Good point about the freeSync monitor. I don't know why I would want one if my budget is so tight. I was just giving an example of newer technology that the 6970 may not support. The reason I want to get a gpu isn't really for the graphics processing power, but for additional dvi or better outputs. The monitor that I'm using is connected via vga but also supports dvi. (HP f1903) It's an ancient piece of engineering from an 8 year old computer with a sub 1024x768 resolution. I'd like to be able to use dvi or better to connect another monitor in addition to the current one. For a monitor in the price range I'm in(100-120$), I'm pretty much limited to dvi, but my mobo only has one dvi-out, which will be occupied by the one that is currently on vga. Thank you all for the fast replies.

If I understand you correctly,
-You're using a mobo with one DVI and one VGA connector
-Your current monitor (1024x768) is connected by VGA but also supports DVI
-You want to connect a second monitor for $100-120, running both off of DVI
-You want to purchase a card that features two DVI connectors

My response:
-Your 1024x768 monitor is ancient; junk it! It's not worth the desk space!
-Put the GPU money into a better monitor
>$120 roughly gets you a 20" monitor at 1600x900 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 4S81ZU4177)
>$100 (monitor budget) + $100 (GPU budget) gets you cool stuff like this 24" (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824236385) or this 27" (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824160168) offering. You'll be much happier with one giant screen than two crap screens and an overspecced GPU.
-If you don't game, run your gorgeous new monitor off that APU
-If you still want to run two monitors on DVI, there is no reason to buy a big, hot, and expensive gaming card. Get something like (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130788) for $50.
-Or better yet, buy a monitor with HDMI, grab something like (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102882) and run 1xDVI and 1xHDMI
-If you decide that you want to game, we can discuss other ways to split your $200 budget between a monitor and GPU!

Here is a 20 inch hdmi on sale by a lot.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

I don't know anything about it but reviews are not bad. I'm kind of looking for an hdmi monitor to go with a Raspberry Pi that I don't have quite yet.

The motherboard has 1x HDMI, 1x DVI-D, and 1x VGA and with that CPU can do up to

VGA: 1920x1200 @ 60 Hz, 24bpp
DVI-D: 2560x1600 @ 60 Hz, 24bpp
HDMI: 1920x1200 @120 Hz, 36bpp

and according to the manual, the HP f1903 can do up to 1280x1024 @ 75 Hz on either its VGA or DVI-I input, which both the board's VGA and DVI-D outputs have bandwidth for, and which is not too shabby at all. OP, you wrote that it has "a sub 1024x768 resolution" so it sounds like there's an issue somewhere: have you tried a different cable or checked your drivers?

Also, I believe (though have never tested) that a HDMI output can be cheaply cabled into a DVI-D input and it will work. There should, therefore, be 3 ways to hook up the old monitor to the motherboard at its full resolution.

A second screen is always nice, and should work here. On a budget, and with space, there's no reason on earth that I can think of to throw away that old 19" monitor instead of keeping it as a second screen.

Any new monitor you choose could work over a VGA, DVI-D or HDMI input, and the $100-120 price range should include a reasonably nice TN 24" 1920x1080, I'm sure. If you don't game, you could even put your $100 GPU budget towards the screen for a total $200-220 which gets you into range of 24" 1920x1080 IPS with features

Agree with everyone saying that your next purchase should be a new monitor, at least 24" 1080p for ~$120.

Quick Newegg check reveals the LG 25UM56-P which is a 25" ultrawide 21:9 IPS, 2560x1080, for $200 with an available listed in-cart promo code that I don't have time to find out the value of. No idea if its a good monitor though, but it looks worth checking out.

Id also say to get a decent LG IPS and not buy a GPU. What kind of PSU does it have? Can you even put a GPU in it?