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Video Card upgrade

Post Date: 2011-04-28
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pulsedrive View Drop Down
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Posts: 62 		  Quote pulsedrive Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Topic: Video Card upgrade
    Posted: 28 Apr 2011 at 4:45pm
I currently have a GTX295 in my system.  It has no problems and has been a workhorse.  However, I recently started playing Rift and the game can bring my video card to it's knees.  Now I will admit it still runs at about 40FPS on high settings with Edge Smoothing turned on(low levels of AA).  However, I really prefer my games to run at least 60FPS for smoothness. 

I am currently running an i7 920 @ 3.57Ghz on a 750 watt PSU.  Without upgrading my PSU is there anything out there that would be worth the money to upgrade from my GTX295?


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Posts: 2312 		  Quote ablahblah Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 28 Apr 2011 at 4:53pm
A GTX 570 perhaps?
R4D4RPR00F
Core i7 920 @ 3.9Ghz
Asus Sabertooth X58
EVGA GTX 570
Mushkin 6GB 1414Mhz
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Posts: 62 		  Quote pulsedrive Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 28 Apr 2011 at 5:34pm
Originally posted by ablahblah

A GTX 570 perhaps?


Really? All the research I had done sad the 570 wouldn't be an upgrade from a 295.  The 580 is only supposed to be a slight upgrade from a 295.  I am not saying you are wrong, I just haven't found anything the directly compares them unfortunately, and so all my information is mostly conjecture on hardware forums. 

I also may just be in the unenviable position of having to either deal with my current performance or make several upgrades to make a difference.
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 29 Apr 2011 at 12:41am
the 570 is a single gpu card giving you more performance than the dual gpu card that 295 is.

in short the 570 is doing the job of two gpus, but its one gpu, so obviously the 570 is much more powerful, it also has dx11 which the 295 can't do, and it has more vram. So whoever told you that a single more powerful card with more vram and dx11 support is not an upgrade, didn't understand what they were talking about.

2 x 570 will beat 2 x 295, on some games it may need oc.

Edited by DST4ME - 29 Apr 2011 at 12:42am

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Posts: 62 		  Quote pulsedrive Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 29 Apr 2011 at 10:49am
Excellent, thanks for the quick response as always DST4ME.  So the 580 I was eying would definitely be an upgrade from my 295 then.  Good to know!
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 29 Apr 2011 at 4:24pm
Get the 570, if extra performance is needed you can always oc the 570.

if you are at 1900 x 1200, where it counts, the 580 is only like 4 to 8 fps better than the 570, with oc that can be erased.

if you are at 1600 x 1200 or lower, you will never notice the difference between the 2.

So I guess the question is, what res you gaming at?

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Posts: 62 		  Quote pulsedrive Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 29 Apr 2011 at 5:38pm
I game at 1920 x 1200 so I think that cinches it for me. I was eyeballing the EVGA Superclocked 570 because it's clock speeds are nearly identical to the 580 and from the reviews I have read it performs almost identically as well.

Thanks for all the advise.
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 29 Apr 2011 at 5:42pm
Don't go with oced versions, instead go with a stock one, if you need the extra performance, you can oc it yourself easily and do so much higher then the oced versions.

this way the card is not under extra stress if there is no need for it.

just use MSI Afterburner, and if you need help let us know, you can oc your 295 a bit for learning purposes, remember to up slow and run kombustor for testing, if it passes go up a little more, leave memory alone, just oc the core/shader, and if needed the voltage, I'm not sure if the 295 you have allows voltage change, also remember cause the 295 is a dual card, it won't be able to oc that much, so keep eyes on temp also, if temps are above 85c or Kombuster does not pass, your oc is too high and you need to back off, if you can change voltage, don't go above 1.12, 1.1 or lower is best, lowest temps and voltage possible with the oc are always the target.

Edited by DST4ME - 29 Apr 2011 at 5:45pm

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Posts: 62 		  Quote pulsedrive Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 29 Apr 2011 at 5:50pm
Ok, I have to ask, what difference does it make if I OC it or if they OC it? And I don't mean that to come out snarky, I am just curious.


Edited by pulsedrive - 29 Apr 2011 at 5:55pm
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 29 Apr 2011 at 7:22pm
For one, as I mentioned, the gpu does not have to stress if there is not need for it, second for whatever reason, my experience with oced cards are that they tend to fail sooner, this makes no sense to me, cause they are the same card, but perhaps its because its under stress 24/7, I don't know, all I can tell you is what my experiences have been, sarah from DS will tell you the same thing, so will some others, third, no need to pay higher for a mild oc, when you can pay less and oc higher yourself.


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Posts: 62 		  Quote pulsedrive Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 30 Apr 2011 at 8:46am
Thanks for all the advise.  I got the EVGA GTX 570 and it was a MUCH bigger performance boost at stock than I would have imagined compared to a 295.  Definitely worth the money. 

I have been playing with EVGA Precision and Kombustor to OC it.  What settings should I use in Kombuster? DX9, 10, 11, OpenGL 2, 3, etc? With a DX9 stress test at core 850 it was running smooth as silk, but when I tried DX11 it started artifacting.

So should I base the OC around DX11 or one of one of the lower ones?  I suppose it all depends on if the games I play are 9, 10 or 11 right? I could always have seperate profiles for each type of game I suppose.
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 01 May 2011 at 2:25am
Well first question is do you need the extra power? but if you are doing it for learning, I like to use the highest settings, that way no matter what I'm doing I'm covered.

once you get to 800, I would go up slow, 10mhz at a time.

Edited by DST4ME - 01 May 2011 at 2:26am

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Posts: 62 		  Quote pulsedrive Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 02 May 2011 at 2:48pm
I don't REALLY need the power honestly.  I saw at most a 4-5 FPS gain from OCing the card up to the 820mhz range, and honestly that isn't worth bothering for me.  It is nice to know that the process is so easy, but frankly I was so amazed with how much more powerful the 570 was than the 295 it doesn't make much difference. 

My machine is running about 5-10C cooler on the whole now, and is MUCH quieter now. That 295 was a hell of a lot of my case noise. 

Thanks again for all your assistance.
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 03 May 2011 at 1:43am
I had the same experience with my 295s.

My pleasure and good luck

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