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Hi,

My current gpu - Radeon 5770 1GB is failing and I want to buy a new one.
I live out of the usa so I'm from local stores...
My current config:
CPU: Core i7-3770k
RAM: 16GB

At local stores I have the following cards inside my budget:
Radeon 7950, 7870 and 7850
GeForce 670 and 660 Ti

My requirements:
4 monitors support.
Running latest games with 2xAA, 4xAF.
Should last for 3 years (with lower settings probably).

Thanks

I'm a happy owner of the EVGA GTX 670 FTW edition, it uses the full-length 680 PCB and 680 clocks and has great cooling performance. It clocks dynamically according to load, mine auto OCs to 1215 MHz during demanding games. I have a somewhat old CPU (i5 750) and this GPU performs very well at high / max settings in every game I've thrown at it, BF3, Crysis 2, Max Payne 3, Skyrim, Borderlands 2, Doom 1, GLQuake, Worms Armageddon, etc. You should easily have 10+ fps more than I do with your shiny 3770K.

Definitely a beast and I don't think it's worth shelling out more for a 680, even if you have the budget for it. Diminishing returns. I suppose one could probably use the same reasoning to purchase a 660ti instead of the card I've suggested, I'm just really satisfied with the 670 FTW edition and would recommend it to anyone with the budget for it.

It supports 4 monitors and you will be able to run latest games with 2xAA easily, 4xAA in many cases.

- In BF3 I run Ultra with 2xAA and max FXAA and it looks quite good. 16xAF and getting well over 60FPS.
- In Max Payne 3 I ran maximum possible settings with 2xAA and max FXAA. Runs smooth as butter and looks fantastic.

Every other game I play maximum settings with 4xAA.

- I get 250fps constant in COD4 promod @ 1080p with 4xAA (I think my pro config uses bilinear filtering though)


Seeing how the latest rumours point to AMD intentionally delaying the HD 8000 card launch to clear 7000 series inventory, you might as well buy something current now unless you don't mind waiting until May. I haven't heard anything pertaining to when to expect the nvidia Kepler refresh launch either so I don't see any benefit to holding out for a new generation of GPUs because it could still be a while...

What models/prices can you get? Try to list the the brand/exact model # if you can

Since you have to buy them locally it can change recommendations a lot, certain ones may be overpriced or good deals relative to the usual online stores.

At a 'up to 500' budget for a 3 year card I wouldn't settle for anything less than a 79xx or 670/680.

I've change the budget to 520$ - it appears the currency has changed...

List of Options (As Bauxite suggested I'm including only 79xx and 670/680):

670:
GV-N670OC-2GD - 510$
GV-N670WF2-2GD - 525$ - 5$ above the target budget

7950
GV-R795WF3-3GD - 484$
[url="http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1157&pid=1439&psn=&lid=1&leg=0"]Sapphire Radeon HD7950 3GB GDDR5[/url] - 451$
[url="http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1157&pid=1450&psn=&lid=1&leg=0"]Sapphire Radeon HD7950 OC 3GB GDDR5[/url] - 479$

The GTX 680 and the Radeon 7970 cost about 620$.

Prestige Worldwide:
I wish the variety here was more like in the USA...

Sorry Tharbad, where are you located? I just assumed USA since you didn't specify. I'm from Canada myself.

Right at this very moment, I'd go 670 over 7950. If AMD can get its **** together, maybe the 7950 can eclipse the 660Ti and be worth the asking price. Until then, I'd go NVidia.

Prestige Worldwide: in the middle east

derFunkenstein: Thanks. Which one of the 670 should I take?

If cooling is a concern, I might go with the 3-fan card (with OC in the model number), just to have as much air as possible.

It's also worth looking at the port layout, as i'd missed your 4 monitor requirement previously. It's the same on both cards - 2x DVI, display port, and HDMI. Make sure, for one, you have all the cables you need for your 4 monitors. NVidia says the 670 will do 4 monitors at quad 1920x1080. What resolution are your monitors? If they're higher than 1920x1080, the 670 might not be a great fit. (5760x1080 combined)

No problem with the monitors.
I'll have to buy a DVI to DP cable but currently I only have 2 of the 4 monitors.
I'll buy the rest only in March...

I'll go with the Cooling.

In the WindForce specs I can see the following lines:
Support NVIDIA® FXAA / TXAA Technology
Support NVIDIA® Adaptive Vertical Sync Technology

As far as I can tell both of the cards support those features. Am I wrong?

Yeah, those are features of the GK104 GPU, rather than specific models. So either one should support it.

Thanks.

I've been thinking about adding some money to the budget. I think I can add ~200$ to the current budget.
The cards that will be added to the list are the following (It's a rather smaller list than u could expect):

680:
ZT-60101-10P - 638$
02G-P4-2680-KR - 715$
02G-P4-2682-KR - 730$
Gainward GTX 680 - 716$

[url]670:[/url]:
GTX670-DC2-2GD5 - 607$
ZT-60301-10P - 569$
Gainward GeForce GTX 670 Phantom 2GB - 671$
Gainward GeForce GTX 670 2GB - 570$

7970:
HD7970-DC2-3GD5 - 667$
Sapphire 11197-12-40G - 635$
Sapphire 11197-06-40G - 612$
GV-R797TO-3GD - 715$
GV-R797OC-3GD - 675$

I don't think that the 7970 really worth my money.
I also think that because of the high prices the GTX 680 doesn't worth the extra cash. I think I should stay with the current recommendation. What do you think?

Thanks

Tharbad wrote:

I don't think that the 7970 really worth my money.
I also think that because of the high prices the GTX 680 doesn't worth the extra cash. I think I should stay with the current recommendation. What do you think?

I concur.

Absolutely. The GTX 670, especially the factory overclocked models, perform pretty much on par with the 680 in most cases. It's really not worth the extra cash.

I see that your suggestions before were direct from the partner websites, if you're interested in the FTW edition of the 670, try ordering from here:

http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.as ... P4-2678-KR

Prestige Worldwide: They don't ship here... But thanks anyway.

Voldenuit wrote:

Tharbad wrote:

I don't think that the 7970 really worth my money.
I also think that because of the high prices the GTX 680 doesn't worth the extra cash. I think I should stay with the current recommendation. What do you think?

I concur.

3rded. No way I pay $40% more to make a tiny improvement in performance.

derFunkenstein wrote:

Voldenuit wrote:

Tharbad wrote:

I don't think that the 7970 really worth my money.
I also think that because of the high prices the GTX 680 doesn't worth the extra cash. I think I should stay with the current recommendation. What do you think?

I concur.

3rded. No way I pay $40% more to make a tiny improvement in performance.

4rthed.

But here in the UK you see diminishing returns beyond the GTX 660 in terms of price:performance. Personally I'd go for the GTX 660 Ti now and then buy a new card in two years time rather then three.

Voldenuit, Prestige Worldwide, derFunkenstein and puppetworx: Thanks. I'll stay with the GTX 670.

puppetworx: The same here but the 660 Ti uses almost the same prices range as GTX 670: 415$ to 482$.

You mentioned 4 monitors, but is that gaming on 4 monitors or gaming on 1-2 only? And what resolutions are we talking about?

Normally I'd say a 670 is more than enough card but if we're talking gaming on 3+ high resolution monitors that changes things significantly because the card's overall ability to pump out data becomes more important than clock speed, features, etc. I wonder if the 680 would offer significant improvement due to the higher number of cores, but without someone providing sufficient data I couldn't say for sure. Pretty much all the GPU reviews I've seen are for a single display on maximum video settings.

3 monitores in nvidia surround configuration. All monitores will be 1920x1080. I never use max gpu settinges.