Help picking a graphics card

Jet Black

My graphics cards died so I'm looking for a new one. I'm not sure what will work with my computer. I have around €200 to spend.
Thanks.
Specs
Quad core Q6600 processor
4gb DDR2 ram
Asus striker extreme 680i motherboard
Nvidia gefeforce 8800 GTS x 2 in SLI
750 watts

tuxy

Either a 7850 or 7870 for that price.
Pixmania have some fairly cheap with €10 shipping to Ireland.

John Kelly of

Is there much difference between 7950 and 7870? would you notice a big difference?

beno619

John Kelly of wrote: »

Is there much difference between 7950 and 7870? would you notice a big difference?

At 1080p no.
Right now I dont think there would be much of a difference but in 2 or 3 years Id hope the 7950 would still be performing quite well as games demand a bit more memory bandwidth and should survive a monitor upgrade.

7870 can overclock to 7950 level.
7950 can overclock to 7970 oc / 680 oc.

Gumbi

From what I've read and seen, the difference is there. Huge OCing potential. I have a 7950 myself.

But you pay for the difference, over 50 euro for it, in fact. What you have is probably better bang for buck.

marco_polo

Gumbi wrote: »

.......

But you pay for the difference, over 50 euro for it, in fact. What you have is probably better bang for buck.

This would be my thinking, but I'm also not convinced that the Q6600 would be able to get the absolute best out of a HD7950 because it would be an absolute monster card for 1080p, certainly not without a signifigant overclock.

It would probably be a better balanced rig paired with a HD7850/70 or something like that.

Gumbi

marco_polo wrote: »

This would be my thinking, but I'm also not convinced that the Q6600 would be able to get the absolute best out of a HD7950 at this stage, certainly not without a signifigant overclock.

It would probably be a better balance paired with a HD7850/70 or something like that.

Ya, I agree.

TerrorFirmer

Also, it seems highlyunlikely both your cards would just die, are you sure they're both gone?

I think if you have the Q6600 overclocked pretty heavily, you'll be fine, won't be too much of a bottleneck. 7870 right on the money. The Q6600 will definitely need to be 3Ghz+ though.

_Puma_

Was in a very similar situation specwise as yourself. Decided to go the full upgrade route. Got a secondhand MB that supports DDR3 Ram(Getting 2x4GB DDR3 1600mHz Corasir Vengence sticks) and allows me to OC the Q6600 to 3.2Ghz with my current cooler. The 7870 OEM on Pixmania is probably the GPU I am going for. I assume the OEM version of the card is fine. Decided to go the whole hog and get a M4 Crucial 256 GB SSD and 520W Power supply(Old 380W Power supply was about 6 years old!). Current spend at about €500. Would be nice to get an i5 in the future but was very happy with Q6660 OC at 3.2GHz so gonna stick with it for another year or two.

Jet Black

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Also, it seems highlyunlikely both your cards would just die, are you sure they're both gone?

I think if you have the Q6600 overclocked pretty heavily, you'll be fine, won't be too much of a bottleneck. 7870 right on the money. The Q6600 will definitely need to be 3Ghz+ though.

One is at 17% the other at 60% I think. They're quite old so just going to buy a new one.