Time for a graphics card upgrade.

[fafhrd]

I stick with gaming at 1920x1080

Ewww. 1920x1200 or gtfo.

I'd prefer that too, my laptop used to be that resolution. Sadly they hardly seem to sell LCDs like that anymore.

[gibborim]

I upgraded my 2 470s to a single 580 for the exact reason that it WILL be more expensive down the road. My logic is that I won't want to SLI it anyway, I'll likely end up with the 580 until Kepler, at which time I will ebay my 580 and upgrade. I was able to sell my 2 470s at $225, so I only paid $50 for the 580 and when the new tech comes I'll have a much more desirable card for the dollar rather than 2 that will likely drop to $150 prices.

Not everyone is bold enough to sell their things on eBay. From what he said, I also don't think he needs the kind of power/work from his cards that you do as a design professional.

Overall though the 580 does kick some ass, quiet and never gets above 60c even doing heavy data processing/rendering. My 470s would easily hit 90c and sound like an airplane was landing every time I did anything with em. Crysis2 maxed is pretty easily handled, never tried with the 470s.

I'm not sure if I had my Crysis2 set at max or only almost max, but my 470 handled it fine without resorting to jet engine mode. Short of serious video/rendering applications, they should be 70-82c and running quiet. They run hot, but nVidia says that is how they are designed to run. Your 470s shouldn't have been getting to that kind of heat/fan speed while running any recent games. I would be worried if the top of the enthusiast line of cards did not kick ass

Unless Skyrim has more demanding specs than I think it does(totally possible) or you plan on running dual-dvi to a 1440 monitor, I see no reason a single 470/570 couldn't last you a couple of years into the next major generation of displays.

[edit: Fixed a sentence I didn't finish before starting another]

[gibborim]

I stick with gaming at 1920x1080

Ewww. 1920x1200 or gtfo.

I'd prefer that too, my laptop used to be that resolution. Sadly they hardly seem to sell LCDs like that anymore.

I know, right? When I was shopping around for my new travel laptop, I was puzzled as to why I could not find something with a screen as good as my six year old laptop's. I was also dismayed that there were almost no options at the 19"+ range >.<

[valura]

Personally, I use an MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin-Frozr II/OC, which is quite affordable at about € 260. If you have more to spend, I can suggest going for the 570 at € 350, the 580 at € 420 or the N590 at € 699.

Each of them offer full SLI support, an output of at least 2560x1600, and full (free) software support.

[Panzerdin]

What do you actually want to do? The MSI card mentioned below is probably going to see you through for any resolution up to 1920x1080: anything above that will demand a 580 or an SLI setup. I don't have a current-gen graphics card, so I can't comment on which of those two is better, but unless you have or intend to get a massive resolution screen you're likely not going to need either.

[Aergis]

Not everyone is bold enough to sell their things on eBay. From what he said, I also don't think he needs the kind of power/work from his cards that you do as a design professional.

Yeah, I was just replying to you saying the price of the 580 is a con, but I don't think it should be seen as one. That is, if you're planning to upgrade again in the future... If you aren't ebaying your old hardware when you upgrade to a new stuff what are you doing with it? Reselling it is a great way to keep the costs down and stay up on current gear.

I could see hesitation buying stuff on ebay, it might not work or you might send the money but never get the item. But selling, that's all in your control. You don't ship anything until you have the cash, hard to lose money as a seller.

[gibborim]

Yeah, I was just replying to you saying the price of the 580 is a con, but I don't think it should be seen as one. That is, if you're planning to upgrade again in the future... If you aren't ebaying your old hardware when you upgrade to a new stuff what are you doing with it? Reselling it is a great way to keep the costs down and stay up on current gear.

I wasn't saying it was a con. From what he initially posted, I inferred that he wanted something that would be able to play games fairly well for while and that he was in the habit of running his cards nearly into the ground before replacing them. Most people would rather not deal with reselling something just to raise their expected value a bit.

I personally use any hardware I buy for 5-8 years. If I upgrade out of a system, it becomes one of the content servers in the house I live in. I only just recently stopped using the computer I build in college in '03 because it couldn't handle streaming 720p or above.

I could see hesitation buying stuff on ebay, it might not work or you might send the money but never get the item. But selling, that's all in your control. You don't ship anything until you have the cash, hard to lose money as a seller.

I'm guessing you haven't really sold much on eBay since you have this turned around completely. The buyer is protected to an unreal level. All you have to do is file a dispute and you will get your money back.

When a buyer initiates a PayPal dispute for something that never showed up, the seller has two buttons they can click on in the dispute interface: Provide Tracking or Refund

If you get a non-functioning item, they worst you are going to lose is a few dollars shipping it back.

[Arkesh]

Cheers for the help guys, unfortunately due to my car breaking down I've had to eat more than half the budget. So I'll have to put this off until the end of the month, at least it gives me plenty time to decide.

[Kelaan]

If you aren't ebaying your old hardware when you upgrade to a new stuff what are you doing with it? Reselling it is a great way to keep the costs down and stay up on current gear.

The Radeon 4870 (512mb) cards on Ebay are either buy it now, have zero bids, or have one bid for around $12. I'm not sure it's worth my time to save $12.

Though, at that price, perhaps I should buy a second one. How importance is matching brand? (e.g., Visiontek+Visiontek, or can I safely mix-and-match if they have same chip/memory?)

[tullock]

You can mix brands, and you can even mix in the same family, i.e. a 4890 and a 4870, or a 4870 and a 4850. But whats really gonna bite you about a crossfire 4870 512mb setup these days is that you still only get 512mb of effective vram, not a gig. I dont know exactly how much WoW uses at 1920x1200 because my 4890 doesnt have a tracking tab for it in gpu-z but i also have a pair of 8800gt 512mb cards ive played with over the years, and you can track vram usage with those, and wow uses up the full 512mb and suffers for it at max details with 4x AA and 8x AF.

[Kelaan]

Yep. I'd probably just leave the anti-aliasing and other really demanding stuff off (or minimal), frankly.

The performance increase isn't stellar in most of todays games - but at the price that they SEEM to be going for, it's an easy upgrade. Heck, I an tempted to see if I can get a pair of (refurbished) 4870x2's for similar prices from an outlet shop. (:

[Arkesh]

Personally, I use an MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin-Frozr II/OC, which is quite affordable at about € 260. If you have more to spend, I can suggest going for the 570 at € 350, the 580 at € 420 or the N590 at € 699.

Each of them offer full SLI support, an output of at least 2560x1600, and full (free) software support.

After seeing quite a few positive reviews and some impressive overclocking potential I've finally reached a decision and unless some nifty graphics card comes out of nowhere I'll be ordering one of the above in 2/3 weeks with a view to grab another at some point before November.

[Skye1013]

Ok... so this may seem like a stupid question, and I didn't feel it needed a new thread... but...

GPU = video card?

[Shamora]

Ok... so this may seem like a stupid question, and I didn't feel it needed a new thread... but...

GPU = video card?

GPU = Graphics Processing Unit

It generally means a video card, but could also be used to specify the processing chip on the video card.