When to upgrade GPU?

[Grazer]

So, I have some parts coming in to upgrade my ram and my CPU cooling.  I have a i7 920, and I'm going to OC it's balls off.

However, I then realized, my video cards are pretty out of date (2 way SLI 9800 GTX+).  So, how do folks decide on upgrading their GPUs?  I read some random googled post about buying one of the latest generation, then when the next comes out, buying another to run in SLI.  Then when the generation after that comes out, scrapping both and starting over.  That might be more upgrades than I really need, but I figured I should probably upgrade my GPU over the summer or so.

[Omegaman]

Before I post, what is your budget or how much do you want to spend now and in the future?

[Grazer]

Well, I probably spent about 270 for my current SLI set up.  So, I could probably do that again.  I guess I would prefer not to go much further than high 200 unless I was getting something really special.  As for the future...who knows.  Upgrading every 2-3 years seems reasonable (I guess?).  I seem to get an upgrade itch every year or two (not necessarily the GPU, could be any random thing on my system).  It's kind of fun to bust it open and tinker with the components.

[Omegaman]

Do you play any GPU intensive games like Crysis or other FPS shooters, or any Civilizations?  Or is your computer pretty much a WoW box?

[Grazer]

I get into other games when we have raid down time, so not extremely often.  I don't envision playing too many heavy FPS shooters in the future, but I have been known to dabble when I get bored.  My bigger concern is longevity rather than having something top of the line.  That said, I play at 1920x1200 so I need something strong enough to push that through my various adventures.

[Omegaman]

I apologize for not getting back to you and I should've posted that I was waiting for ATI to released a new product, which got delayed and was released today.  I'll go into more detail on this below.  You have a few options here Grazer.  The budget range for all of these are $250-$300.  I'll break them down between ATI and nVidia and let you choose which option you want:



Single GPU card: 

The best single card is the Radeon 6950.  It has 2 GB of memory - so no issue running on 1920X1080 and should give you fantastic results at that resolution.  With the Radeon 6970 still well out of your budget price range at ~$350, this card's price at $254.99 after rebate is a good buy for similar performance.  The cheapest I could find currently was at Newegg.com.  It is $274.99 with a $20.00 mail in rebate.  The rebate expires on April 15, 2011 so you'd have to purchase it by then to qualify for the rebate.

Dual GPU cards (CrossFire):

This is what I was waiting to post about and it was released today.  The brand spanking new Radeon 6790 is a powerful mid-ranged GPU designed to compete with nVidia's GTX 550 Ti for mid-range king.  Putting these in Crossfire will compete very well with the $250-$300 cards.  Since they were released today, finding a steady price for them will be difficult.  ATI stated in it's release memo that its price point was to be around $150; there will be variances depending on how much 3rd party vendors beef up the specs on it.  The only one I could find at the time of this post was here at Buy.com.   You'll have to Google or shop online in about a week to find more availabilities and prices.



Single GPU cards:

GTX 560Ti is the best card you are going to find in your range from nVidia.  The cheapest I could find this card was $229.99 including a $20.00 mail in rebate.  This was from Newegg.com.  nVidia has discontinued it's old GTX 560 though it was a solid performer, the performance of from the 560Ti leaves no question why it was discontinued.

Dual GPU cards (SLI):

The GTX 550Ti in SLI is the best SLI performance you'll get in SLI under $300.  The cheapest I could find was $149.99 at TigerDirect.  In terms of SLI performance, it dims in comparision to ATI's 6790 for the same price point.  I've linked some charts, however, at this point it's a little difficult to directly compare all 4 GPU setups right now.

ATI Radeon 6790 XFire vs. nVidia GTX 550Ti SLI



World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

[Grazer]

Thanks for all the info Omega, I know we talked a bit last night, but I wanted to post my decision.  So, tigerdirect had some pretty awesome rebates that dropped the price of a GTX 570 to under 300.  However, they wanted to charge me sales tax, which was like 25 bucks, and shipping.  So, it didn't turn out to be much of a deal.  So I searched a bit more and found one on Amazon that sold for 305 (after a rebate) with free shipping.  That beat everything else I could find, so I'm going to pick it up.

PNY GTX 570

[FizzyMyNizzy]

June should be the new ATi card. The HD7000 Series.

[Djfurball]

So, in general, if I'm looking to track this stuff, who's got the reputable reviews right now? Tom's? Anand? Somewhere else?

I picked up Witcher 2 yesterday, and the framerate at fullscreen on my box kind of stinks. (i7 + GTX295). Was going to look into my options, but frankly I haven't done this in so long I forgot where to look.

[Falaenx]

get yourself a 500 series and call it a day

[Omegaman]

So, in general, if I'm looking to track this stuff, who's got the reputable reviews right now? Tom's? Anand? Somewhere else?

I picked up Witcher 2 yesterday, and the framerate at fullscreen on my box kind of stinks. (i7 + GTX295). Was going to look into my options, but frankly I haven't done this in so long I forgot where to look.

How much are you wanting to spend?

[Djfurball]

How much are you wanting to spend?

Is anything under $300 better than a single GTX 295?

[Grazer]

How much are you wanting to spend?

Is anything under $300 better than a single GTX 295?

I paid $300 (after rebate) for my 570.  I think you could find a 560 ti for well under $300.  I didn't see many direct comparisons to the 295 on Tom's hardware, but here are some charts I saw a while back for WoW:
WoW Charts

Which maybe you could combine with a more recent chart to get an idea of where your 295 falls.

Aliens vs. Predator

[Djfurball]

Ended up with a GTX570. Should arrive tomorrow. $320ish after rebate.

I was having this incredibly frustrating issue with Witcher 2, and occasionally in WoW and Aion, where the game would hitch (sound, character movement, everything, not just minor screen tearing).  I'm not sure if this is "micro stutter" that has been widely reported, but after a few hours of troubleshooting, I fixed it by disabling one of my two GPU's on my GTX295. Of course, then my performance went to hell.

I have a hunch that I actually damaged my card awhile ago when I rearranged my case to make room for two PCI cards (Firewire 800 card and an internal wifi card). I moved my GTX295 to the bottom slot and probably ruined the airflow it got. I remember the fan kicking on crazy loud for awhile, until I was playing WoW and the game literally blacked out my screen until I did a hard reboot. Betcha I heat-damaged it.

Anyway, single-GPU card should fix it either way (and I just got DX11 support, huzzah) so I can go back to slashing away at spider monsters in Flotsam. Thanks for the tips folks.

[DropZone]

I am pretty much in the same boat as DJ I am needing to replace my 2 gtx280's for something new and going with a single card instead of my dual card setup might be better for performance.