I need opinions on a GPU upgrade.

Hola,

Was hoping to get the communities thoughts on this card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161432

The meat of my current rig is as follows:
PhenomII x4 965 BE 3.7Ghz
XFX Radeon HD 5770 1 GB
Asus IV Formula

Now here is my shameful admission, I'm addicted to Skyrim with texture mods....like...all of them. It's the first time I've been able to make my machine hit the wall and actually slow down to the point where it's a problem for me. For those of you who might be laughing at my outdated GPU, just know that I've already made it through Far Cry 3 with no problems whatsoever. Looked great too. It plays every other game I like just fine too although, I'm not really a hardcore gamer....

About the 7850 linked above: I like the idea of 4 GB of VRAM (especially at that price) as my research has shown that Skyrim will most def eat every MB you can feed it when you start tricking it out with mods BUT, would a 3GB 7950 give me DISCERNIBLY better performance even though it has less VRAM? I admit that I haven't looked into it enough to understand the practical difference between the 384 bit and 256 bit memory that separate the two cards.

BTW,Before I forget: I'm rocking all this on a measly 1080P TV

Skyrim (and the modding that goes along with it-thank you Bethesda for the creation kit) will likely be the most strenuous task that I give a new GPU so all other factors that go into deciding on a new card are really not going to matter to me.

So what do you guys think? 7950 or 7850 with an extra gig of VRAM?
If anyone has specific knowledge of the 7850 that I linked to I'd love to hear that as well. Sorry for the newbness and I hope this is coherent enough to warrant a reply from the community at large or maybe just a few Skyrim junkies like me. Thanks all.

At 1080p, most games wont use 2gb ram, i dont think any game will use 3. There is no way i would even remotely consider even a 7870 at that price, nevermind a 7850. I dont care how much ram it comes with.

FWIW skyrim with the more common graphics mods doesnt even use all 3gb my 7950 has at 2560x1440, though it does break 2gb for sure. The 7950 is hands down the better choice between those two cards.

At op, 7950.

7950 will crush the 7850, without a doubt.

We have some testing on vRAM usage, and modded Skyrim was one of the games included in that test. I believe the thread is called "How much GDDR does my game need?" or something along those lines.

Knufire said:

7950 will crush the 7850, without a doubt.

We have some testing on vRAM usage, and modded Skyrim was one of the games included in that test. I believe the thread is called "How much GDDR does my game need?" or something along those lines.

Click to expand...

Aye, found that thread Knufire and thanks.
It seems that a moderately modded skyrim clocks in at just under 2GB of VRAM usage at 1080p...interesting.

What's even more interesting though is the side by side comparison as given by anandtech.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/549?vs=550

I'm not exactly deep into the hardware scene yet so I don't know how reliable their numbers are but...At lower resolutions the frame rates for the two cards are really very close and keep in mind that the 7850 being represented is a 2 GB model and not a 4GB like the one I linked to.

Bear in mind that my thoughts on the matter of these two card are almost entirely skyrim (heavily modded) specific. I'm positive that nearly any quality card made in the last two years will be a nice upgrade from my 5770 and will handle everything else I need to do with it.

You dont need 4GB at 1080p. I would jump to the 7950 though.

+1 for the 7950

Belexandor said:

Aye, found that thread Knufire and thanks.
It seems that a moderately modded skyrim clocks in at just under 2GB of VRAM usage at 1080p...interesting.

What's even more interesting though is the side by side comparison as given by anandtech.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/549?vs=550

I'm not exactly deep into the hardware scene yet so I don't know how reliable their numbers are but...At lower resolutions the frame rates for the two cards are really very close and keep in mind that the 7850 being represented is a 2 GB model and not a 4GB like the one I linked to.

Bear in mind that my thoughts on the matter of these two card are almost entirely skyrim (heavily modded) specific. I'm positive that nearly any quality card made in the last two years will be a nice upgrade from my 5770 and will handle everything else I need to do with it.

Click to expand...

The 4GB card will provide near-zero performance benefit over the 2GB card unless the game actually uses more than 2GB of RAM. You might see a small boost in heavily modded Skyrim between the 2GB and 4GB 7850, but not nearly the jump from a 7850 to a 7950.

Also, at lower resolutions, games become more CPU dependent than GPU dependent.

Knufire said:

The 4GB card will provide near-zero performance benefit over the 2GB card unless the game actually uses more than 2GB of RAM. You might see a small boost in heavily modded Skyrim between the 2GB and 4GB 7850, but not nearly the jump from a 7850 to a 7950.

Also, at lower resolutions, games become more CPU dependent than GPU dependent.

Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong but even with a heavily modded skyrim the increase in speed is only going to be noticed (if noticeable at all) when loading the game, or going from zone to zone.

I've got over 50 mods on skyrim and I have both a 2gb and a 3gb card, I don't notice any difference at all between the 2gb card and a 3gb card.

Note to the OP. I wouldnt pay that much for that card. You can get a 3bg 7950 for at least that much, I got mine for less. like 250.

I didnt know they made 3GB 7870's...in fact, I cant find any. Was that a typo or can you link me?

EarthDog said:

I didnt know they made 3GB 7870's...in fact, I cant find any. Was that a typo or can you link me?

Click to expand...

You are correct sir, thanks =) I got this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131478

with an instant and a mail in rebate.

Thanks for the input guys. I'm looking hard at these two right now:



Are those prices pretty much the norm for better quality 7950's with aftermarket coolers?

At Knufire: The idea of CPU bottleneck bothers me given that Skyrim is one of the most CPU dependent games out there right now.

Might be time to consider putting my beloved 965 out to pasture, but if I do that, it will necessitate a new board also so that I can make the switch to intel. AMD's recent offerings haven't exactly set the world on fire as far as I can tell.

I would go with the DC2 -- assuming you have 3 slots to give up.

Janus67 said:

I would go with the DC2 -- assuming you have 3 slots to give up.

Click to expand...

Only other card in there is a small network card so yeah..should be room to spare. It's gonna be sitting right on top of my PSU though.