Choosing a new GPU
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Number crunching :
Choosing a new GPU
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 Bernie Vine  Send message Joined: 26 May 99 Posts: 9954 Credit: 103,452,613 RAC: 328 
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A few years back I kept up to date with what GPU was what. Recently I have lost touch. My main machine is my workhorse, used all day for surfing recording videos, etc. It also crunches SETI when not doing anything else. This is it 6851722 I also play games, mostly RPG's Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout,etc. Well yesterday I learnt that Fallout 4 is likely to be released late this year or early next, and I just know my 560 will struggle. it had a hard time with Far Cry 3. It was a second hand card and has worked quite well but I never felt it performed as well as I would have liked. So what GPU (Nvidia) should I go for I don't want to spend more than £200 ($307- €236) It would need to be an efficient cruncher and work well with modern games. I am not totally discounting ATI but I have had so many Nvidia GPU's I am just more comfortable with them. PS the power supply is a Corsair GS800. ID: 1688294 ·  |
spitfire_mk_2  Send message Joined: 14 Apr 00 Posts: 563 Credit: 27,306,885 RAC: 0 
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budget? 
ID: 1688299 · |
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Bernie Vine Send message Joined: 26 May 99 Posts: 9954 Credit: 103,452,613 RAC: 328
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I don't want to spend more than £200 ($307- €236) ID: 1688300 · |
arkayn  Send message Joined: 14 May 99 Posts: 4438 Credit: 55,006,323 RAC: 0
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GTX-960 4GB will be around £157, the GTX-970 will be around £233 
ID: 1688302 · |
OzzFan     Send message Joined: 9 Apr 02 Posts: 15691 Credit: 84,761,841 RAC: 28
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The NVidia GTX 960 (the lowest end of the 9xx series) starts around $200 and can climb up to $280~ish. The next grade up is the NVidia GTX 970 (complete with it's 3.5GB RAM buggy-ness that should only be a problem if you're doing 4k gaming), starts at $330. If you want to stay with the current generation for longevity (which I recommend if you're a budget gamer), then it looks like you're in the 960 range. If you can come up ever-so-slightly on your budget, you can at least get yourself a 970. ID: 1688304 · |
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BANZAI56 Send message Joined: 17 May 00 Posts: 139 Credit: 47,299,948 RAC: 2
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Well yesterday I learnt that Fallout 4 is likely to be released late this year or early next, and I just know my 560 will struggle. I feel your pain. The same game will force me to pick and upgrade to one of the next gen consoles. Gaming on the PC is fine, as my near 1600 hours of Civ. V on Steam will attest, but there's just something about first run RPG's on the 60" Plasma. ID: 1688325 · |
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OzzFan Send message Joined: 9 Apr 02 Posts: 15691 Credit: 84,761,841 RAC: 28
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Gaming on the PC is fine, as my near 1600 hours of Civ. V on Steam will attest, but there's just something about first run RPG's on the 60" Plasma. Just connect your PC to the 60"? IMO, consoles are a waste of money since they are not nearly as flexible and upgradable as PCs. ID: 1688327 · |
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Grant (SSSF) Send message Joined: 19 Aug 99 Posts: 13731 Credit: 208,696,464 RAC: 304 
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As others have said, the GTX 960/970 is the way to go. Benchmarks- Far cry 4, Ultra quality. 2560*1440. Summary, GTX 580 23.4 fps. GTX 980 58.8 The 970 is generally within 5-10% of the 980. Other things to consider, GTX 560, 150W, 1x 6 pin connector. GTX 750Ti, 60W GTX 960, 120W, 1x 6 pin connector. GTX 970, 145W, 2x 6 pin connectors. GTX 980, 165W, 2x 6 pin connectors. GTX 980Ti, 250W, 1x 6 pin & 1x 8 pin connectors. For crunching only, the GTX 750Ti is king. It provides only slightly less throughput compared to the higher end cards (due to the lack of optimisation at present for it's architecture) and you can use 2 or even 3 of them and still use the same or less power than one of the other cards. But as you do use yours for gaming, I'd suggest the GTX 970 would be best. Similar power consumption compared to your present card, more than double the performance (gaming wise), and a reasonable price for the performance compared to the next model up (GTX 980) and the model below (GTX 960). As long as you have an extra available connector from the power supply available. Of course if you were to completely kill your budget, a GTX 980Ti is within 3-5% of the gaming performance of the Titan X. Grant Darwin NT ID: 1688332 · |
Mike  Send message Joined: 17 Feb 01 Posts: 34257 Credit: 79,922,639 RAC: 80 
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A R9 280 is about the same price as a NV 960 but faster especially for gaming. And with actual apps you can compare it with a 970 in crunching. Just my 2 cents. With each crime and every kindness we birth our future. ID: 1688334 · |
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Grant (SSSF) Send message Joined: 19 Aug 99 Posts: 13731 Credit: 208,696,464 RAC: 304
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A R9 280 is about the same price as a NV 960 but faster especially for gaming. The thing I don't like about the current AMD Radeons,  The R9 295x2 is a double GPU card (crossfire on a single card, so it has the same issues that crossfire has with 2 separate cards). And being a double GPU card, that means it uses twice the power, but you don't get twice the performance. And even on a GPU to GPU power comparison, the current AMD cards use a lot more power compared to the NVidia Maxwell GPUs. AMDs Fiji (to be released almost any day now) is meant to address this, but we'll have to wait and see just how well it does so. Grant Darwin NT ID: 1688338 · |
zoom3+1=4  Send message Joined: 30 Nov 03 Posts: 65738 Credit: 55,293,173 RAC: 49
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As others have said, the GTX 960/970 is the way to go. GTX 560, 150W, 1x 6 pin connector. I thought people were making errors with this card... The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's 
ID: 1688344 · |
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Grant (SSSF) Send message Joined: 19 Aug 99 Posts: 13731 Credit: 208,696,464 RAC: 304
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GTX 560, 150W, 1x 6 pin connector. The GTX 560Ti generally had 2 connectors. Some factory overclocked 560s may also have had 2 connectors. People overclocking a card with one connector may have resulted in more issues than those trying to overclock cards with 2. Many of the 560Tis came with factory overclocks, which while Ok for games were problematic for crunching. Grant Darwin NT ID: 1688347 · |
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zoom3+1=4 Send message Joined: 30 Nov 03 Posts: 65738 Credit: 55,293,173 RAC: 49
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GTX 560, 150W, 1x 6 pin connector. Ok, understood. The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's
ID: 1688348 · |
qbit  Send message Joined: 19 Sep 04 Posts: 630 Credit: 6,868,528 RAC: 0 
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According to tbe latest edition of my favorit hardware mag the best choice would be this card: http://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-Nvidia-960-Gaming-Graphics/dp/B00SKTY6PS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433567115&sr=8-1&keywords=gtx+960+gaming Good performance, rather low power consumption (they say it's 135W max) and, very important in my opinion, it's also very quiet (they measured 0.4 sone under full load while other GTX 960s reach up to 1.6 sone!). 
ID: 1688411 · |
kittyman  Send message Joined: 9 Jul 00 Posts: 51468 Credit: 1,018,363,574 RAC: 1,004
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Side note, and sorry if I intrude............. But, if I shall ever embark upon a new computer build......... I am at this point, like a virgin. Funny, because I used to know all the ins and outs and whatevers. My rigs are old now, have been slaving away on Seti for years, and I am afraid of what I might have to learn to replace one these days... "Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster 
ID: 1688413 · |
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qbit Send message Joined: 19 Sep 04 Posts: 630 Credit: 6,868,528 RAC: 0
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Don't worry Mark, bunch of Geeks here that will be happy to help :-)
ID: 1688425 · |
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Bernie Vine Send message Joined: 26 May 99 Posts: 9954 Credit: 103,452,613 RAC: 328
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Thanks for the suggestions. Looks like a 960 or 970, depending on prices I can find. Time to start saving. I have a jar on the side so each day when I come in I check my change, If I have two or more £1 coins then one goes in the jar, current jar was emptied in Feb Looked today £45, so I am almost a third of the way there!! ID: 1688447 · |
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cliff west Send message Joined: 7 May 01 Posts: 211 Credit: 16,180,728 RAC: 15
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i would wait a few months if you can. the GTX 980Ti is coming out, when it does i would expect all the less powerful cards to drop in price. ID: 1689286 · |
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Jon Send message Joined: 12 Aug 09 Posts: 157 Credit: 139,063,241 RAC: 0
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I'm looking at the 780ti vs 980ti only for Seti work. 780ti 2880 cuda cores 3gb memory 980ti 2816 cuda cores 6gb memory the boost and core are similar. other things seem close to each other. what increase would the $700 980ti have over the $400 780ti? and how much does the 6gb help vs 3gb? Jon ID: 1689366 · |
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woohoo Send message Joined: 30 Oct 13 Posts: 972 Credit: 165,671,404 RAC: 5
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I'm looking at the 780ti vs 980ti only for Seti work. given those numbers I would expect the two cards to perform very similarly. the 980ti does have a lot more render output units which might help slightly with AP, but not enough to justify the huge difference in price. the extra memory would help in some games but not in these science apps. ID: 1689375 · |
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