New Video Card TimeFollow

Just today I bought a Radeon HD 7870 XT for $224.99 (after a $15.00 rebate). It comes with free copies of both the new Tombraider game and Bioshock Infinite. Since I had planned on buying both games anyway, it seemed like a hell of a good deal to me. It's going to replace my 5770, so it's a pretty decent upgrade for the price. I would have to spend at least another $100-$150 more to get a better card than this one.

Honestly, Nvidia cards are slightly better than Radeon, but they cost significantly more for what you get. Unless you're running a massive monitor or multiple monitors, I personally don't think they're worth the extra money.

Edited, Mar 3rd 2013 7:47pm by Turin

Just so I'm clear, PCI-E 3.0 will work in a previous gen slot correct?

I'm using a 7950 with an i7 and no issues.

And, yes, cards for PCI-E 3.0 will downgrade themselves in a 2.0 slot. You won't get the full benefit (naturally) though it's nothing I'd sweat.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131484&Tpk=Radeon%20HD%207870%20LE

Not close. Finding one might require a bit of patience.

I know you say "no issues" but have you had any problems with the AMD drivers at all? Im considering switching to a 7870 from mostly dealing with nvidia.

I know you say "no issues" but have you had any problems with the AMD drivers at all?

AMD drivers still suck. The extent to which this is caused by nVidia intentionally sabotaging them in various ways is up for debate, but there's still a noticeable difference in driver quality. On the other hand, from a value standpoint, everyone who purchases an nVidia card is almost certainly overpaying for the hardware.

But how do they compare when overclocking?

Edited, Mar 4th 2013 6:43pm by Debalic

Nvidia cards tend to not have a whole lot of overclockability with their stock coolers. If you want to run them with a water block or some sort of massive heatpipe attachment, then you can crank them up faster, especially some of the evga ones, but for the most part the AMD ones have a higher heat threshhold these days. that wasn't always the case. I second the AMD / ATI drivers still sucking, and I for one remain convinced its primarily because ATI has idiot programmers rather than any sabotage efforts on Nvidia's part. I tend to go wtih Nvidia cards for the most part. I have a pair of 580 GTX 3GB cards at the moment in SLI mode, about 15% slower than the 680 GTX, but I got them new at the time for a very good price. Watch out for some of the 650 series GTX cards, they cut out half the ram channel banwidth apperently, even with faster ram its still ends up being a slower card than an equivilent 550 gtx.

Most, though not all, of the x58 and newer intel chipset boards will also support AMD crossfire. Assuming the board has 2 PCI express 16X slots to begin with. PCI express 16x 3.0 is definitly worth it if you have the motherboard hardware to make it work. You lose about 10-15% throughput going from 3.0 to 2.0, but the cards will handle it fine. It becomes more of an issue at SLI or crossfire interface speeds.