Any Point Upgrading From 7870 for Under €200

jonski

Is there any point in trying to upgrade from a VTX3D 7870 while trying to keep under €200 . Current card is loud for a sitting room and I would normally upgrade around now but I'm not sure there is much point if I am not going to see a gain and I am not sure I will see a gain spending under €200 unless maybe the 285x comes down a bit in price . The PC is used for gaming .

TerrorFirmer

Well realistically you should get €100 for that Vtx 7870, and the R9 280 is a good buy that can be gotten for under €200 easily. Not a massive performance jump though, but a decent model will not only be faster, but also cooler and much quieter.

If you can stretch a bit, this is a huge upgrade for €289 - and you get to choose 3 new games too.

ED E

Im also running a 7870, now you have me tempted Terror! :pac:

TerrorFirmer

The 7870 is still a very good card, so considering the recent drops on the R9 290, it's the only logical way forward in my opinion! Going to an R9 280 or 280x are still speed upgrades, but the 290 offers a huge leap forward for just €100 extra.

VTX cards are usually a bit crap - do what they say on the tin, but usually with sub standard coolers. I think it was their 280X that needed to be upgraded to a new version because the original cooler turned out to be unable to cool the card properly under load. Same with their 290 card. Unreal value at the time, but a huge amount of issues cropped up. I think the V2 cards are OK, but I'd generally steer clear of VTX cards.

ED E

Yeah, I'm on a Royal King variant from OC3D. Middle of the road. Would totally pull the trigger if I didnt need a whole platform upgrade to properly make use of it.

TerrorFirmer

If thats based on the 7950 core then even less reason to upgrade to anything less than the R9 290 at the current price point. What's your current processor?

Wetbench4

Another 7870'er here, club3d royal queen and i just purchased the asus r9290 dcu2 oc on amazon last friday. Got it for £215 which is about €275. I did a good bit of research and discovered that the 290 is almost exactly double the performance of my 7870. I can't wait. Thread --> http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057317712

Also, check out this comparison for all the recent gpu's, skip to page 15 for performance rank. http://www.ocaholic.ch/modules/smartsection/item.php?page=0&itemid=1337

ED E

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

If thats based on the 7950 core then even less reason to upgrade to anything less than the R9 290 at the current price point. What's your current processor?

Wont derail the poor OP's thread anymore, but Im on 775 with DDR3, Q6600 at 3.5Ghz. GPU under utilized and I need more RAM which the board cant do.

TerrorFirmer

Rough. Poor aul Q6600 is still a champion but it's showing it's age. Incredible considering it's age though.

jonski

Derail away , I'm more than happy reading about other peoples PC's .

And yes the VTX aren't great , it was my first time moving away from one of the major manufacturers and I won't do it again . I considered buying an after market cooler for it but I didn't want to throw good money after bad .

After a few games of BF4 tonight I might need to pay more attention to my cpu for now though , PC cut out and it seems to be because the cpu is over heating . FX 8350 with an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 CPU Cooler going up over 70 degrees

TerrorFirmer

In my opinion, the FX were a false prophet.

They were a good option for a time, but even the 4th gen i3's wallop them in most benchmarks, games included.

That said though, an FX 8 core should last you a decent length with a graphics upgrade!

jonski

This overheating issue seems to have come out of nowhere , I am installing the AI suite now to monitor it . I took out the fan and cpu last night and cleaned them and re-did the artic sliver but it was still in the 60's afterwards .

Varik

Everyone with their old 7870 is making my 6870 feel worse, not sure if I'll upgrade soon but aren't the midrange nvidia or soon enough.

ED E

jonski wrote: »

This overheating issue seems to have come out of nowhere , I am installing the AI suite now to monitor it . I took out the fan and cpu last night and cleaned them and re-did the artic sliver but it was still in the 60's afterwards .

MSI afterburner is great if you have a second monitor, really easy to keep an eye on the graphs.

TerrorFirmer

Varik wrote: »

Everyone with their old 7870 is making my 6870 feel worse, not sure if I'll upgrade soon but aren't the midrange nvidia or soon enough.

The 6870 is getting very old now, even new €100 cards are faster like the GTX750. Still an OK performer at 720P (have a PC with one playing Shadow of Mordor at the moment at 720p medium and runs like butter).

jonski

Right , probably gonna pull the trigger tomorrow , I'm going to buy the H55 cooler and the Logitech G502 so I might as well get the gfx card at the same time , any last minute recommendations between the 280x 285 and 290 ?

jonski

Sapphire AMD R9 290 TRI-X OC for €274 , god damn it with the over spending again .

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-TRI-X-Graphics-Card-PCI-E/dp/B00HFA44YQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1417190507&sr=1-1&keywords=msi+r9+290