Help choosing the right video card

[Fleyn]

Hello all, I need some help deciding on the GPU for my build. I've done a lot of research on the video cards but I'm not sure if the price differences are worth the performances differences. Any insight or experience would be greatly appreciated.
I've been collecting the following parts over the past little while whenever I saw a good sale. I've already built the setup and it works great so far, but I've been hesitant on the video card. I'd like to get it completed so I can start using the new build.

Current Setup:
MOBO - Gigabyte B75M-D3H
CPU - Intel i5-2320 3.0GHz
PSU - OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W
RAM - 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 (4GBx2, blue)
Monitor - 32" HDTV (1920x1080)
OS - Windows 7 64bit

I mostly play WoW, and I know all of the GPUs I'm about to list are capable of running it. However, on ULTRA settings I'd like to be able to get at least 30 FPS in raids/battlegrounds and obviously more just questing, etc. Also, I would like to be able to run other, non-MMO, games (mostly shooters, not necessarily online) that may or may not require more graphics power relatively smoothly (30+ fps), again on ultra/max settings. For perspective's sake, I would not be playing games that are as graphically-intense as Battlefield 3 and alike.

Video Cards I'm Considering (can't link to them since it's my first post on these forums):
1) MSI Radeon HD 7770 1000MHZ 1GB 4.5GHZ GDDR5 -- $75
2) ASUS GeForce GTX 650 Ti OC 980MHZ 1GB 5.4GHZ GDDR5 -- $120
3) XFX Radeon HD 7850 Core Edition 860MHZ 1GB 4.8GHZ GDDR5 -- $130

I would post links to benchmark charts but I'm a first time poster and therefore cannot, sorry.

Concerns/Questions:
- I've read that WoW prefers Nvidia over ATI, but unsure if it's true or even matters with these cards
- I'm seriously considering the HD 7770 mainly because of the price, but as stated previously I would like to be able to play more than just WoW and am worried that the 7770 wont cut it on other titles to play on max or as close to max as I can get settings (i.e. Borderlands 2, Darksiders 2, Far Cry 3, etc.)

Basically I'm looking for someone who has had experience with my dilemma. I'm not a heavy gamer so just something that can get me by is what I need. I can't stand screen tearing and not being able to see graphics that I should be able to see.

Any other <$150 GPU suggestions are welcome (although I think I've looked at every single one on the planet at this point lol) and if you need more info about the system just ask, thanks in advance!

[chazus]

It's going to be hard getting Ultra settings, especially on newer games, with a sub-$100 GPU.

WoW prefers Nvidia, for whatever reason. Notably, ATI has been getting a lot of flak lately for their poor card output (I dont want to say performance, because the issue is not with FPS, but a different visual factor that effectively makes games look like crap)

That said, the 7770 is a great card for the price, but you get what you pay for. The 650 ti is only marginally better than the 460 I just upgraded from because I was tired of running everything on Normal in WoW. The 7850 would be a better choice, however there's that ever-present 'issue' that ATI seems to refuse to address.

[overclockedamd]

It's going to be hard getting Ultra settings, especially on newer games, with a sub-$100 GPU.

WoW prefers Nvidia, for whatever reason. Notably, ATI has been getting a lot of flak lately for their poor card output (I dont want to say performance, because the issue is not with FPS, but a different visual factor that effectively makes games look like crap)

That said, the 7770 is a great card for the price, but you get what you pay for. The 650 ti is only marginally better than the 460 I just upgraded from because I was tired of running everything on Normal in WoW. The 7850 would be a better choice, however there's that ever-present 'issue' that ATI seems to refuse to address.

care to elaborate on the issue you speak of I have never heard of ever.

[chazus]

care to elaborate on the issue you speak of I have never heard of ever.

It's been an ongoing issue with Radeon cards, when people started to benchmark quality of graphics being more than just FPS.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/1...graphics-cards
The new 8xxx series cards are showing the same problem as previous cards, indicating that ATI is more or less refusing to acknowledge the issue. There are honestly hundreds, if not thousands of articles regarding this over the past year or so.

[overclockedamd]

slashdot is a heavily linux based forum which heavily leans toward Nvidia. Zero relevance towards windows and wow.

[demonskies]

While wow may be more favored by nvidia Id get the 7850 if those are your only options. Wows more CPU intensive anyways. The 7850 will perform well in other games outside of wow. Also I wouldnt say to much about AMD cards having issues because Nvidia has just as many, sounds like a little bit of wrongful AMD bashing when their cards are just fine and highly recommended in that price range..
7850 vs 650ti

[chazus]

slashdot is a heavily linux based forum which heavily leans toward Nvidia. Zero relevance towards windows and wow.

So you discount valid information due to the fact it got reposted on Slashdot? You didn't even read the article, it looks like. The relevance towards WoW has been posted and tested here on mmo-champ many times. That I happened to have found the Slashdot article first is purely coincidence.

---------- Post added 2012-12-26 at 04:28 PM ----------

sounds like a little bit of wrongful AMD bashing when their cards are just fine and highly recommended in that price range..
7850 vs 650ti

Again. Probably didn't read the article. The entire POINT of the article, is that "FPS" isnt the only benchmark anymore.

Furthermore, it's not bashing, considering I have stock in AMD/ATI, and have enjoyed their products for years. It just happens to be that they currently have a little issue to iron out. I'm not saying they are BAD CARDS. But it seems a bit silly to simply ignore an issue because you 'dont like the problem'

[vesseblah]

slashdot is a heavily linux based forum which heavily leans toward Nvidia. Zero relevance towards windows and wow.

Wrong and wrong.

Nvidia has not released open source drivers and Linus has publicly bashed them for it, so you couldn't be more wrong in Linux community or Slashdot preferring Nvidia over AMD.

Also if you had bothered to actually read what the Slashdot post is pointing at, you'd find a gaming test performed on Windows.

[overclockedamd]

FPS hasnt been the only issue for over a decade. Care to try again.

[Evil Inside]

It's going to be hard getting Ultra settings, especially on newer games, with a sub-$100 GPU.

WoW prefers Nvidia, for whatever reason. Notably, ATI has been getting a lot of flak lately for their poor card output (I dont want to say performance, because the issue is not with FPS, but a different visual factor that effectively makes games look like crap)

That said, the 7770 is a great card for the price, but you get what you pay for. The 650 ti is only marginally better than the 460 I just upgraded from because I was tired of running everything on Normal in WoW. The 7850 would be a better choice, however there's that ever-present 'issue' that ATI seems to refuse to address.

Never experienced this myself, I've had both AMD and Nvidia cards in the past, I'm currently using 2 amd cards and having no issues whatsoever.

[Nerph-]

It's going to be hard getting Ultra settings, especially on newer games, with a sub-$100 GPU.

WoW prefers Nvidia, for whatever reason. Notably, ATI has been getting a lot of flak lately for their poor card output (I dont want to say performance, because the issue is not with FPS, but a different visual factor that effectively makes games look like crap)

That said, the 7770 is a great card for the price, but you get what you pay for. The 650 ti is only marginally better than the 460 I just upgraded from because I was tired of running everything on Normal in WoW. The 7850 would be a better choice, however there's that ever-present 'issue' that ATI seems to refuse to address.

Wait what. Are you talking about the GTX 460? If so, you could only run WoW on Normal? I use a GTX 460 and have everything at Ultra with near to no lag issues at all, even in 25 man raids o_O at 1920x1080 resolution. So I'm a little confused.

[chazus]

FPS hasnt been the only issue for over a decade. Care to try again.

I honestly don't know how to respond to this statement. I guess you're welcome to claim an issue doesn't exist by ignoring the proof given.

---------- Post added 2012-12-26 at 04:42 PM ----------

Wait what. Are you talking about the GTX 460? If so, you could only run WoW on Normal? I use a GTX 460 and have everything at Ultra with near to no lag issues at all, even in 25 man raids o_O at 1920x1080 resolution. So I'm a little confused.

I had issues running on High with my 460, but I also run dual monitors, so maybe that's an issue? I also play on pretty heavily populated servers, and prefer not to have to switch graphics between raiding and not.

[vesseblah]

FPS hasnt been the only issue for over a decade. Care to try again.

Care to try again being witty after actually reading the article?

http://techreport.com/review/24022/d...e-in-windows-8
Note that it's a follow-up to Win7 benchmark where the problem was noticed, and they wanted to see if it was OS problem or GPU problem.

Wait what. Are you talking about the GTX 460? If so, you could only run WoW on Normal? I use a GTX 460 and have everything at Ultra with near to no lag issues at all, even in 25 man raids o_O at 1920x1080 resolution. So I'm a little confused.

My GTX460 would choke on multipsampling/texture filtering (AA/AF) set over 2x. Try throw those to 8x and see how "everything at ultra" works for you.

[demonskies]

Care to try again being witty after actually reading the article?

http://techreport.com/review/24022/d...e-in-windows-8
Note that it's a follow-up to Win7 benchmark where the problem was noticed, and they wanted to see if it was OS problem or GPU problem.




My GTX460 would choke on multipsampling/texture filtering (AA/AF) set over 2x. Try throw those to 8x and see how "everything at ultra" works for you.

This article is pretty informative actually the first time I've heard of this lol. But looking around more Im not seeing any other cards being benched besides the 660ti and 7950. Has this been tested outside of the mid-high end market or is there a definitive list that says all nvidia cards suffer less latency spikes than amd? Not trying to argue just would like to see the performance differences.

[chazus]

Part of the reason I said "There are hundreds of articles regarding this" is because it's been a pretty hotly debated issue lately. However, it's not my job, nor desire to go hunting for 10 articles just to prove something. Google it. Look up all the big hardware testing websites. Do some research, honestly. I just picked that article because it was the one I had seen posted most recently, and was at the top of my head. I've been seeing latency issue article for some time now.

It's almost the same issue with AMD. Intel CPU's just DO BETTER at gaming than AMD CPU's. It's not just actual performance and FPS, but an actual issue that was discovered through a new method of benchmarking.

The bottom line, really, is that it isn't a problem, so much as the fact that as an industry we've latched onto a particular metric to measure things, and that metric was inherently leaving out important information. It's like basing your actual health purely off your weight/height.

TO BE CLEAR. I'm not saying ATI cards are bad. I recommend them often, due to the price. However there is an existing issue that some people can notice. Usually it's when two equal power cards are put next to eachother, get similar FPS, but one card just 'looks' better. The benchmarks are explaining why.

Again, I'm not saying they're BAD. You might not even see this issue, or it's such a big upgrade from your previous system that it just doesn't matter. However I also think it's negligent to simply ignore an issue just because it wasn't identified earlier.

[demonskies]

Looking around these tests really havent been done on the lower end cards. vess and your article does a few versions of the 7950 vs 660ti, 7970 vs 670, 680 Same guys a while back doing it on the higher end cards and 7970s keeping up with the high end 6xx cards. Drivers have changed but be the numbers could be skewed more to Nvidia now due to better drivers or newer drivers for 7970 effing it up but didnt see an updated december report. Yes it may be something to post about but the Techreport seems to be the only ones doing these tests. So saying hundreds of articles on this is a bit of a hyperbole. Id really like to see some low end cards added to that bunch of testing and a lot more "official" legitimate bench teams showing results.

[chazus]

newer drivers for 7970 effing it up

It was sort of a big deal because the new 8xxx cards, literally the next generation of Radeon chips, exhibit the same issue. It isn't a specific card problem. And if it's a driver issue, it's a driver issue that has lasted through multiple versions, and continues to persist in brand new, not-even-purchasable yet cards.

So saying hundreds of articles on this is a bit of a hyperbole

There are numerous articles. I've seen them on Anandtech, Tomshardware, Techreport, and a number of reposting sites to other places. There is discussion on it here on MMOC. I honestly don't have the time, nor desire, to find 'enough' of them, just to prove what I already proved. So, I guess, take it as you will. OR, do a little footwork. A single google search that doesn't bring up 10/10 articles on the first page doesn't make something false or unreliable.

[demonskies]

It was sort of a big deal because the new 8xxx cards, literally the next generation of Radeon chips, exhibit the same issue. It isn't a specific card problem. And if it's a driver issue, it's a driver issue that has lasted through multiple versions, and continues to persist in brand new, not-even-purchasable yet cards.


There are numerous articles. I've seen them on Anandtech, Tomshardware, Techreport, and a number of reposting sites to other places. There is discussion on it here on MMOC. I honestly don't have the time, nor desire, to find 'enough' of them, just to prove what I already proved. So, I guess, take it as you will. OR, do a little footwork. A single google search that doesn't bring up 10/10 articles on the first page doesn't make something false or unreliable.

Like I said more legitimate organizations running tests, A bunch of computer websites just writing an "Apparently" article with a link to tech report does not count for articles that back anything up. I believe the issue is there lol but the claims are just a little wild of how big of an issue it is I think right now.

[chazus]

As you quoted from me (which implies you read what I wrote). There ARE more tests regarding this. Not just excerpts from Techreport.

[Fleyn]

Thanks for the discussion everyone, I've narrowed down to these:

1) ASUS GeForce GTX 650 Ti OC 980MHz 1GB 5.4GHZ -- $120
2) XFX Radeon HD 7850 Core Edition 860 MHz 2GB 4.8GHZ -- $160
3) SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 1050 MHz 2GB 4.8GHZ -- $195

Also, will the 650 Ti perform better than the 7850 since it is OC'd to 980MHz? The 7850 is only 860MHz but probably has a few more CUDA cores/stream processors.

I've looked at benchmark charts and am just too inexperienced to know whether or not a GPU with a few percentage points higher in most games/stats is worth a ~$40 jump per video card. For example: if one card performs 6-9 FPS better at most games on the comparison charts is it worth ~$40 more, etc. Obviously through your previous conversations there are other things to consider than FPS in order to gauge the effectiveness of a video card, but what I really want to know is if a slight increase across the board is worth the extra money. That's probably a personal choice, but I'd like to get a general consensus.

Again, please keep in mind my gaming needs (high-ultra settings for wow raiding, high settings for most other games, no screen tearing in raids major cities or BGs).
Advice would be great, thanks!