I’m not sure if this goes into the Game Room or IMHO. Hold on while I mentally flip a coin…wow! It landed on its edge. Weird. Game Room it is, I guess.
Anyway, I got some money for my birthday and it’s burning a hole in my pocket. I’m thinking about getting a new video card, but I find video card specs to be seriously confusing. Then, I head over to the benchmarking sites, and I find cards of all generations all over the place. I just can’t figure it out.
I just downloaded Deus Ex Human Revolution from Steam (for $7.50!) and I’ll probably get Mass Effect 3 for my birthday today. So, I play games like that, whatever that means. I played Portal 2 and there were some wide-open areas where I started to get lower frame rates, and I thought it might be a good idea to trade up.
I’d prefer to stick with AMD chips, but I have no preference as to the card maker.
First, am I wasting my money with a new card? That is, will I be bottle-necked by the CPU or the motherboard?
Assuming I’m not, I have about $200 to spend, give or take, any suggestions? Newegg or Tigerdirect links are appreciated if possible.
You’ll be bottlenecked by the graphics cards, the CPU is plenty quick enough. Two HD 4670 (assuming that isn’t a typo, that strikes me as an odd configuration) aren’t that quick.
I think I want to stay with AMD chips – I can barely figure out how to compare those, and I don’t want to start having to decipher the NVIDIA codes as well.
I noticed that a lot of the 6870 cards don’t have a D-SUB connection. On my desk, I have a flat screen that takes a DVI cable, but I also have an old style CRT that I use as an extended desktop when I “work” from home. Do the DVI connectors on modern cards include the analog signals (so that a simple adapter will allow me to connect an analog monitor)?
If not, could I leave one of the 4670s in place and use that for the CRT? Or, will doing that slow the whole system down to the 4670 level?
The card will most likely come with a DVI -> Adapter. All of mine have. If it doesn’t, you can get one for like $2 at an electronics store.
If you do leave in one of the 4670 cards, you could use it to drive your monitor. It won’t slow anything down. Having an extra low-powered card is a very common thing for people with multiple displays who use SLI. Never any issues. You can even mismatch brands.
Hmmmm, I see you’re going for the steampunk aesthetic
You could absolutely leave one of your old cards in there and hook it up to the CRT. It will not slow down your gaming performance on your main LCD with your new card.
The resolution of your monitor is important in deciding what card to recommend. The 6870 has you covered up to 1080p though, so you should be good, as long as you’re not running a high end IPS panel with more pixely goodness.
EDIT: I was wrong, you can use a DVI to VGA adapter, which is usually bundled with new cards, so you cna go ahead and sell/gift both older cards as the 6870’s support up to three monitors.
It’s supposed to be quieter, or something, than the single fan cards. It got good reviews on newegg, slightly better than the other XFX cards and the Sapphire card that had basically the same specs.
Nah, XFX non-reference has sub-standard VRM and their custom cooler is weaker than reference. Overclocking is rarely better than reference on their custom stuff and often worse.
