Time for a change?
 

Ok looking at next week potentially getting a new graphics card, and i am looking at 2 cards, but would like people's oppinion to help me decide as i am completely stumped buy it. This is also based on the fact that i have enough left after paying a few things out of my wages.

Choice 1 is to get a ATI 5970 for £500

Choice 2 is to get a single GTX 480 and a waterblock for £500 with the option of adding a second in a month or 2.

Choice 3 is to wait till the end of the year for the new intel cpu's mobo's and quad channel ram this, option also bring's in the PCI-E 3.0 aswell.

Choice 4 is to buy my dad a cheap gtx260 and take back my 2nd watercooled gtx 280 out of his pc (he won't mind) and put it back in mine till the end of the year.

The reason i am stumped is that the 5970 performs better run's cooler and use's less power than the single GTX 480 but not by allot really, but if i was to add another GTX 480 then 2 running in sli perform better than the single 5970, But who knows what PCI-E 3.0 is going to bring to the table and how the cards will perform.

My gtx 280 has done me proud for a few years now but i think it is time for a change, and with crysis 2 on the horizon i am leaning more towards the 5970.

So what should i do i really am not sure what to do at the moment

Re: Time for a change?
 

are any games you are currently playing pushing your 280? why not wait for crysis and see what it needs ?

Also the GTX 280 was released mid June 2008 so it aint done you proud for a few years its a couple at most hehehehehehe

Re: Time for a change?
 

Crysis is pushing it at the moment this is why I'm stumped as it was fine with the 2 cards but with just the one at 1920x1080 it struggles at even medium settings but with the 2 it ran fine at high.

But I am also playing bfbc2 and dirt 2 which is dx11 aswell so to play it at dx11 I would need to change my card again causing me to be stumped.

Re: Time for a change?
 

SLi isn't really that great. You get better performance from one fast card. Tests have proven this! Do a quick Google :)

Re: Time for a change?
 

£500 for a graphics card :eek:

Re: Time for a change?
 

well the 5970 is a dual gpu card as you know so if you CFX 2 of those eventually it will be hard to beat.

If I had to buy now that is the card I would buy. I doubt we will see PCI E 3.0 cards till the middle of next year at the earliest

Re: Time for a change?
 

I found that with my old setup in crysis which i am wanting to play more off than what i do at the moment, with a single gtx280 i get at 1920x1080 at medium 30fps which is to low for this game to be playable but with the 2 cards i got 45fps at 1920x1080 at very high setting's.

The 5970 in cfx is beat a few time's by 2 gtx 480's in sli, but 3 way beats it in 85% of test's link.

This one is a vid link, still not sure what to do as the 5970 is close to it and at half the price in total again still not sure.

Re: Time for a change?
 

well i have decided to wait till the end of the month see what happens by then, and then i will be going for the gtx 480 and then abit later i will go for the second, and waterblock's.

Was thinking of the ATI untill i had to set up my brother in laws new tv and his ATI 5770 won't display on his tv properly at 1920x1080, so i will go for the Nvidia and get the better performance from them.

Re: Time for a change?
 

Good! But I'd give it longer than that........like I said, wait till the next gen is out :)

Re: Time for a change?
 

im waiting till the end of the month so i have enough for the 1st card, but the next gen won't be out fo a while really atleast i dont think anyway

Re: Time for a change?
 

Then keep hold of your money till then. Your machine works fine, leave it alone :D

Re: Time for a change?
 

I have not messed with it for a while so I think it's time to and also I want to, get a dx11 card for the dx11 games that I have at the moment.

I may also be getting another ssd and throwing them in a raid 0 setup, and at some point some more ram although the ram may wait for the quad channel boards etc to come out.

Re: Time for a change?
 

Leave it alone! Don't fiddle with it! :D

Re: Time for a change?
 

well I was thinking last night whilst playing boxing on the wii, I am just going to get my dad a ATI 5770 or a GTX260, and go back to the sli for a while and wait as there are rumours of a revision B GTX 4xx series cards comeing out which might be the full flavour chip's, but with about the same or lower power usage and heat output than the current chip's.

The other reason is I have decided to do it this way is also I can use the extra money each month and pay a few bill's of sooner which will mean I have more money to spend and possibly just build a whole new system and give mine to my dad and then sell his.

However also I am going to look at pushing my cpu abit further as it will boot in to windows at 4.5ghz but then lock's up so I am going to look at getting that stable and look at the spagetthi pipe situation

Re: Time for a change?
 

you never know Damien you might meet a bird and the pc wont matter so much then :)