7870 or 7950??

[DarkOCean]

All these cards are super overkill for 1440x900,unless your going to go 1080/1200p in the near future i would suggest getting some thing alot cheaper.

overkill in a gpu also mean it will last you alot longer.

 

[d1nky]

lol darkocean your system specs!! yea im planning on sticking the beast on a tv or something similar (projector?) well ive done it and bought the asus hd7950 direct cu2 £250, 3 games (for sale) and overkill I like the sound of that!! now for the bottlenecks on a fx4100 I suppose lol

 

[Durvelle27]

i had the same hard choice just a day ago. If your budget constrained the HD 7870 Tahiti is the best of both worlds but if your not get the HD 7950 you won't regret it. I got a MSI Twin Frozr III HD 7950 due to price if it wasn't for that i would have gotten the HD 7870 Tahiti

 

[d1nky]

and what do you think?? I know my choice is too late to go back but I cant f***** wait lol

looks like we'll have similar specs soon enough..... what is the fx4100 like with the bigger card?

 

[Durvelle27]

and what do you think?? I know my choice is too late to go back but I cant f***** wait lol

looks like we'll have similar specs soon enough..... what is the fx4100 like with the bigger card?

You have to keep in mind that my CPU is OC'd at 4.6GHz. There is a CPU bottlneck but only in certain Games. For example: Its bottlenecks in Starcraft and Skyrim but it oesn't bottleneck in Sleeping Dogs and BF3 as there more GPU dependent. S o it just depends on the game that's being played. There are ways to shift the CPU bottleneck to the GPU by raising the settings and res but it will still be there just not as bad.

I game at 1920x1080

 

[d1nky]

that's decent enough! im still contemplating on a mobo to buy which can deliver me similar speeds to 4.6ghz on cpu. and I do want to keep to the amd/asus build!

oh ill be playing the shooters, im onto moh 2010 at the moment so probably that

 

[Durvelle27]

that's decent enough! im still contemplating on a mobo to buy which can deliver me similar speeds to 4.6ghz on cpu. and I do want to keep to the amd/asus build!

oh ill be playing the shooters, im onto moh 2010 at the moment so probably that

i have a ASUS M5A97 EVO and its pretty good

 

[d1nky]

whats throttling like? I have a budget asus with digi vrms... I think they all got them. and well underload it bounces down to a gig or so

 

[Durvelle27]

My CPU doesn't throttle but when its idle it does drop volts and coreclock down. its a power saving feature. But no throttling when under load. If your CPU isn't overclocked then it shouldn't throttle unless volts are really high

 

[d1nky]

mines clocked at 4gig at moment any higher and itll throttle, vcore is on auto as only stable setting it likes and my board is shit tbh! may have to purchase an evo soon then!

 

[Durvelle27]

sounds like the boards VRM is overheating causing throttling

 

[tokyoduong]

mines clocked at 4gig at moment any higher and itll throttle, vcore is on auto as only stable setting it likes and my board is shit tbh! may have to purchase an evo soon then!

Microcenter has an AMD/intel CPU and Mobo deal. You can probably get the FX 8xxx and mobo for less than 200. I think newegg has the 8150 with their watercooling kit for less than 180. One of my friend runs that kit and stable at 4.4ghz

You can probably sell your cpu + mobo on amazon and get $80 for it.

Microcenter also sell the i7 3770k for only 229 and $50 off if you combine it with a mobo plus another $40-50 off depending on what mobo. So you can definitely go intel high end for less than $300. I bought my Asrock extreme4 + i5 3570k for $220. I could've gotten the AMD 8xxx bundle for less than 200 at the timie.

 

[TommyT]

Hello that about getting a 7870 XT edition video card based on the same thaiti chip and jusr 3-6 % slower then the 7950 not the boost version...

 

[Widjaja]

Looks like the OP has gone for the ASUS 7950 TOP.

I think ASUS has not fully pulled themselves out of the QA rut since they expanded on their manufacturing facilities.

I personally am not having any issues with my setup which has ASUS motherboard and graphics card besides the AMD graphics drivers still being flaky.
But I can not say the same for my Brother's ASUS Z77 board which went from dead onboard audio to BIOS problems.

As mentioned your Graphics card is overkill even if you chose a 7870 for 1440x900.

When I bought mine, I was using a monitor with the same resolution as your but soon grew tired of knowing I could run at 1080p.
So now I have a 1080p monitor and have not needed to back off on eye candy with the games I am playing.

 

[TommyT]

nice u notice his system spec

 

[GamerGuy]

i have a ASUS M5A97 EVO and its pretty good

I had the M5A97 EVO + FX4100 a while back, nice combo, the board is a great OCer assuming the CPU is up to the task. I recall getting it to 4.2ghz easily enough. I was not really into it though because I had my heart set on an FX8120 + Asus Crosshair V Formula (I am something of an ROG fanboy). Anyway, I had the FX4100 with a GTX560 Ti then and was quite impressed with how they handled games.

 

[Durvelle27]

I had the M5A97 EVO + FX4100 a while back, nice combo, the board is a great OCer assuming the CPU is up to the task. I recall getting it to 4.2ghz easily enough. I was not really into it though because I had my heart set on an FX8120 + Asus Crosshair V Formula (I am something of an ROG fanboy). Anyway, I had the FX4100 with a GTX560 Ti then and was quite impressed with how they handled games.

had my FX 4100 at 4.6GHz with this board and a GTX 560 Ti OC, Then HD 6950 oc'd 900/1400, and now a HD 7950 Oc'd

 

[d1nky]

thanks guys. im definitely looking at a fx8*** either with extreme4 or asus evo board! I have to buy a better psu next week (corsair cx750 £59)!

and ive got the 7950 up and goin and well it only just fits in my case, and the weight of it wow! the reason I went for it is because I prefer the looks of asus and buying a 7950 has room for upgrades elsewhere, plus when the 8 series comes out it should drop in price and xfire will cost less!

 

[Widjaja]

Don't get much bigger coolers than ASUS when it comes to enthusiast line of graphics cards.
Only concern with ASUS idea of cooling is the problem it causes with having a second card.

None the less the single card will do you well for a longtime anyway.