Need to build future proof gaming rig for 80k

[vickybat]

^^ Ya i know and his reasons are justified as well. Even after a year, whether 8970 or gtx 780 comes up, they will still perform less than a 680 sli or even 670 sli.
The cards i suggested are factory overclocked and not stock( except for the 670). This is the famed windforce cooler and is excellent for overclocking.

I would still vote for sli over crossfire for the reasons we had discussed earlier. Its upto op to decide what's he gonna choose in the end. Besides the 310.70 performance drivers had also upped performance in most games. Far cry 3 and hitman absolution perform brilliantly in nvidia even in 2560x1600.

 

[Cilus]

Vicky, price of the Gigabyte card with tax is 33.26K. M.D prices are without tax although they have mentioned it including tax. The extra 5K you are paying for it, is it justified? And you can't judge the performance improvement by two games, when AMD released their 12.11 beta driver, they brought performance improvement in every single game out there, and by a huge margin. So we can expect more performance improvement with their upcoming latest WHQL release.

Let's not discuss about SLI or CF here, but for single GPU, HD 7970 is still better option, both in performance as well as in value segment.

 

[hitman4]

Vicky, price of the Gigabyte card with tax is 33.26K. M.D prices are without tax although they have mentioned it including tax. The extra 5K you are paying for it, is it justified? And you can't judge the performance improvement by two games, when AMD released their 12.11 beta driver, they brought performance improvement in every single game out there, and by a huge margin. So we can expect more performance improvement with their upcoming latest WHQL release.

Let's not discuss about SLI or CF here, but for single GPU, HD 7970 is still better option, both in performance as well as in value segment.

hd 7950 and 7970 are the most value for money cards in the market currently...

 

[Myth]

IMO all the 7 series are vfm at the moment.

 

[pain4ever]

GTX 680 is out of my budget. So, its between GTX 670 and HD 7970. I am more inclined towards 7970 because of it's 384-bit memory interface and larger VRAM. Only problem with 7970 over GTX 670 being Crossfire is not as much smooth as SLI. I hope that Crossfire matures in next one year so that if needed I can go for another 7970 at that time.

@Cilus - Could you please give me exact model of MSI card (7970) which you say will cost around 28.5k? I will go through some reviews of that card.


Regarding cabinet, NZXT phantom looks very good but I am confused between phantom and HAF 922. Both of them almost have the same price.

 

[vickybat]

GTX 680 is out of my budget. So, its between GTX 670 and HD 7970. I am more inclined towards 7970 because of it's 384-bit memory interface and larger VRAM. Only problem with 7970 over GTX 670 being Crossfire is not as much smooth as SLI. I hope that Crossfire matures in next one year so that if needed I can go for another 7970 at that time.

@Cilus - Could you please give me exact model of MSI card (7970) which you say will cost around 28.5k? I will go through some reviews of that card.


Regarding cabinet, NZXT phantom looks very good but I am confused between phantom and HAF 922. Both of them almost have the same price.

If you choose multi gpu then pick a single gtx 670 now and add another later down the line. It will be in your budget.
Besides, a single gtx 670 or even 7950 gives similar gameplay experience as that of a 7970 in fullhd and also sometimes in 2560x1600.

Since you are gaming at 1080p, pick a 670 now and keep headroom for sli. With 310.70 performance driver out, nvidia cards now perform toe to toe with their amd counterparts with 12.11 drivers. I'm not recommending 7950 because you are planning sli. That 384bit bus and 3gb vram won't matter at 1080p.

If you plan to go for a single gpu and never add a 2nd one, pick 7970. Else go with 670.

 

[d3p]

I guess I will go with single "Sapphire HD7970 OC 2Gb"which hitman4 suggested for now. With "Asus p8 z77 v pro" I will be able to go for Crossfire in future if needed.

^ Radeon never released a 2GB HD7970 variant & same goes with GPU Manufacturers..Correction, that's Sapphire HD7970 3GB OC or Toxic Edition.

Regarding Sapphire HD7970 CF, a single card occupies more than 2 slots. Hence installation of second card will be only possible on the Third PCIe Slot, if available in the Motherboard.

Regarding 1080p Gaming, i'm pretty much sure a Single Card will rule most of the games with High/Ultra Setting most of the times. CF or SLI is not justified for 1080p gaming, untill unless you go for Multi Monitor Gaming.

Thirdly, Power Consumption is TAD higher in case of CF/SLI Setup's & also with Internal Temps & Noise levels. So you need a Spacier Cabinet as well as a 850w PSU at min. When i say Higher Power Consumption, the same will also reflect in your Monthly Power Bills.

And all these for 1080p GAMING...Not So Wise.

Either Get a Single GTX 680 or HD 7970. Play @ MAX till the next Gen Cards are widely available till next Year End & switch to a newer Gen Card based on good Performance.

 

[The Incinerator]

You are great with a single HD 7970 @ 1920 x 1080 refreshing at 60Hz. Dont confuse yourself, unnecessarily. An HD 7970 costs Rs 28500 here in Kolkata and nothing beats the Price to Performance ratio of that card.

Now if you want to go Dual Vga route choose a Nvidia card now and another later. Im telling you this because I dont want the mess of third party "Pro" tools to correct the anomalies of the scaling process. The Driver and then the third party tools its too much to take and even then some more.Nvidia driver takes care of these issues while ATi cant and third party is involved,not inspiring when another company does it out of the box. ( If you can deal with the tweaking Ati is okay)

Another point .....IMHO ,I dont see the point of going SLI with two high end cards it looks silly to me. Two mid / entry level cards overclocked and (660/660ti) scaling and doing what a 680 can do is a different high altogether looking at the money saved and the performance gained. My two cents.

 

[hitman4]

^ Radeon never released a 2GB HD7970 variant & same goes with GPU Manufacturers..Correction, that's Sapphire HD7970 3GB OC or Toxic Edition.

Regarding Sapphire HD7970 CF, a single card occupies more than 2 slots. Hence installation of second card will be only possible on the Third PCIe Slot, if available in the Motherboard.

Regarding 1080p Gaming, i'm pretty much sure a Single Card will rule most of the games with High/Ultra Setting most of the times. CF or SLI is not justified for 1080p gaming, untill unless you go for Multi Monitor Gaming.

Thirdly, Power Consumption is TAD higher in case of CF/SLI Setup's & also with Internal Temps & Noise levels. So you need a Spacier Cabinet as well as a 850w PSU at min. When i say Higher Power Consumption, the same will also reflect in your Monthly Power Bills.

And all these for 1080p GAMING...Not So Wise.

Either Get a Single GTX 680 or HD 7970. Play @ MAX till the next Gen Cards are widely available till next Year End & switch to a newer Gen Card based on good Performance.

lol it was a typo.....

 

[vickybat]

You are great with a single HD 7970 @ 1920 x 1080 refreshing at 60Hz. Dont confuse yourself, unnecessarily. An HD 7970 costs Rs 28500 here in Kolkata and nothing beats the Price to Performance ratio of that card.

Now if you want to go Dual Vga route choose a Nvidia card now and another later. Im telling you this because I dont want the mess of third party "Pro" tools to correct the anomalies of the scaling process. The Driver and then the third party tools its too much to take and even then some more.Nvidia driver takes care of these issues while ATi cant and third party is involved,not inspiring when another company does it out of the box. ( If you can deal with the tweaking Ati is okay)

Another point .....IMHO ,I dont see the point of going SLI with two high end cards it looks silly to me. Two mid / entry level cards overclocked and (660/660ti) scaling and doing what a 680 can do is a different high altogether looking at the money saved and the performance gained. My two cents.

Good suggestion mate. I second your opinions. Either a high end gpu should be chosen in the beginning or two upper midrange gpu's for a dual card setup.
670 sli is an overkill for 1080p gaming. A 660-ti sli or even a 660 sli is viable as they cost less and thus offer more value.

I guess op will definitely benefit from the suggestions in this thread.

 

[Cilus]

BTW, little off topic here: I have solved the issue of Micro shuttering with Crossfire in Far Cry 3. Solution: Simple, use the Bioshock Crossfire profile from Catalyst Control panel, present under the 3D settings and Enable Vsync.
With RadeonPro, you can enable far better game play. I have lowered the MSAA to 2X and injected ultra quality FXAA and SMAA in the game using RadeonPro. After that, almost every thing set to ultra (except for Post FX and Shadow which are set to high and very high), I am getting around 50 FPS average with my HD 6870 CF without any noticeable Aliasing and no Micro shuttering.

 

[gagan_kumar]

BTW, little off topic here: I have solved the issue of Micro shuttering with Crossfire in Far Cry 3. Solution: Simple, use the Bioshock Crossfire profile from Catalyst Control panel, present under the 3D settings and Enable Vsync.
With RadeonPro, you can enable far better game play. I have lowered the MSAA to 2X and injected ultra quality FXAA and SMAA in the game using RadeonPro. After that, almost every thing set to ultra (except for Post FX and Shadow which are set to high and very high), I am getting around 50 FPS average with my HD 6870 CF without any noticeable Aliasing and no Micro shuttering.

Amazing dude will that work for other cards like 7950 too?
It also has that problem in some games?

 

[Cilus]

RadeonPro works with any AMD cards, starting from HD 4000 series. For single GPU, you don't need to do anything with Crossfire profile and you can't edit it. But you can inject SMAA and FXAA along with in-game MSAA. Try it with 4X MSAA (in game) and Ultra quality FXAA and SMAA from Radeon Pro and the Anti-aliasing output will be far better.

 

[mandarpalshikar]

RadeonPro works with any AMD cards, starting from HD 4000 series. For single GPU, you don't need to do anything with Crossfire profile and you can't edit it. But you can inject SMAA and FXAA along with in-game MSAA. Try it with 4X MSAA (in game) and Ultra quality FXAA and SMAA from Radeon Pro and the Anti-aliasing output will be far better.

This worked like charm for me in FC 3 ! thx for the tip Cilus.