Vid Card Recommendations

Discussion in 'Tech Talk' started by Trice, Oct 29, 2013.

  1. Trice
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    My 6950HD croaked a couple weeks ago and just got around to sending it in for RMA last Friday. Currently using an internal Intell 4000 vid chip (lol).

    Not sure if I want AMD or NVIDA, current budget is around 180$ could push 200$ that's with tax and shipping. Looking for a solid card to pump out the FPS in BF4, Ghosts and PS2.

    Thoughts?
     
  2. EniGmA1987
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    These are the two best cards in your price range unless you can find a special sale on a better card someplace.:
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202025
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127699

    The AMD card is faster and cheaper. Early reviews, most of which you see when looking up the card use old drivers that dont show the performance increases the AMD cards got. It will show the 660 and 7870 neck and neck in most situations, but now days the 7870 is overall faster by around 10% with newer drivers.
     
    Last edited: Oct 29, 2013
  3. Trice
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    Thanks!

    I'll look into snagging the AMD next Wednesday and put my 6950HD up for sale on e-bay or keep it as a spare in case shiz it the fan again.
     
  4. EniGmA1987
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    Well if you are getting a new one back from RMA I don't think it isn't really worth upgrading, not in this price range anyway. These models are faster than what you have for sure, but how much faster I dont think is worth $200. Probably best to wait until next gen to snag a $200 card that is significantly enough better. That 6950 technically has very similar resources to these cards will show in reviews that it is WAY slower, but with the newer drivers it also got a boost to performance. I would just wait another year and overclock the crap out of this new card without caring at all about how long it will live. Even with huge overvoltage and overclocks it will still last a year so that way you get better performance now and you can get a better card for your money later. Bios mod the voltage to 1.3v and you can probably hit close to 1GHz core speed. But its up to you. Right now with an unopened box 6950 you could maybe get a decent bit of money for it. Something like $150 or so on Ebay would probably sell quick enough. Also try your luck for that price on Overclock.net marketplace, I bet it would go quick.
     
  5. Rbstr
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    I wouldn't spend $200 on a new card now when you'll get the old one back. You're just not getting much out of that deal.

    If you need to buy something new wait for the AMD generational turnover (basically every AMD card is dropping a price bracket, and nVidia will probably cut some too)...or spend $50 more on a GTX760 which is sort of on the lower-end of the significant upgrade threshold.
     
  6. Trice
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    Think I'll just wait for the RMA to return, should be next Friday (I hope)
     
  7. Trice
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    This still a valid recommendation? my RMA'ed 6950HD was returned to me in the same static wrap I sent it out and still broken.
     
  8. EniGmA1987
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    What the heck? That's dumb.


    This would be the best card for the money, especially if you turn in the MIR so the card only costs $140 total:
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150604

    This card is the new version, which is the same card with a bit faster speeds and the TrueAudio tech (which isnt yet used in any game and may or may not ever be)
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125476
    You also get BF4 with that if you dont yet have the game.


    If you prefer to go with Nvidia then this would be the card for your price range:
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125443
    The AMD cards are faster, but given your bad experiences with them on your current card I thought Id throw out the Nvidia choice again just in case you would prefer them anyway even with a small speed hit.
     
  9. Trice
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  10. Trice
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    No clue, maybe it's because I OC'ed (only upped it by 50mhz nothing huge) and then under clocked it when I started having issues *shrug* Have to find a # for PowerColor.
     
  11. EniGmA1987
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    Well this card is easily capable of a couple hundred more MHz overclock, and it is even advertised with the card as such:
    So go wild :)
     
  12. Trice
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    Got the new card, put it in my box and booted up. After installing drivers and rebooting I get the windows logo then a black screen with no video. Anyone experienced this before?
     
  13. EniGmA1987
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    You can boot into safe mode and uninstall the drivers.
    Which driver version did you use? The black screen thing could be one of two types of screen. Either:

    1) The screen is on and an image is being sent, however it is not the correct image and you are just getting sent a straight black display. usually you can tell this scenario by the screen backlight is on and visible and looks like something is actually displaying a black image across the whole screen. This may or may not have the mouse on screen over the blank, black image.

    2) the backlight is off on the display or at its darkest setting. If your monitor is like a TV it will come up with a "no signal detected" OSD box during this time. Computer monitors usually dont do this so it is harder to tell.


    Case #1 means something is weird with the drivers not playing nice with the system.
    Case #2 means once the drivers initialize the card is re-routing the display and trying to send it out of a different output than the one that is actually connected. Again probably a driver issue but one that may be easier worked around.
     
  14. Trice
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    Already did the F8 and uninstall three times with a re-install of the latest drivers from AMD, even re-downloaded the drives to ensure no corruption.
     
  15. EniGmA1987
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    Stable or latest beta drivers? It is probably best to start with the drivers from the CD and go up from there to whatever new version you want to make sure nothing is wrong with the card. The latest beta drivers mostly focus on things for the new series of cards, the R# lines. Drivers 13.10 or maybe 13.9 are the latest stable WHQL drivers that are meant for the 7000 series.
     
  16. Trice
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    I am unable to use ANY driver from the AMD site :(

    After going into safe mode and deleting the driver via device manager and running a device sweeper to insure everything is gone. Reboot and let windows find the device and install what driver it wants everything works, as soon as I update the driver to 13.9/.10 or latest beta I get the black screen *sigh* Might be stuck at whatever driver windows wants to use (I'll check what it is later)
     
  17. haibane
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    I know that sometimes AMD drivers screwed up my ports on the 5850 back then i had to change ports sometimes :( hell, once i even had to use HDMI...

    Did u try changing the ports to connect to ur screen ?

    Maybe u can make a search on AMD or other forums using ur exact card model and drivers ?

    Is it also possible for it to be bios related somehow and an update of ur bios could help it ?
     
  18. Trice
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    Tried both ports no diff, opened a ticket with XFX support. Card is working for now, but fear it might not when I have to update drivers etc..
     
  19. EniGmA1987
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    You could try the newest 13.12 WHQL drivers that AMD just released about an hour ago.
    http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Windows+8+-+64


     
  20. Trice
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