Video card upgrade

[jammerjim]

So, I'm currently running a Geoforce 660ti on a 24" monitor. I'm thinking its time to upgrade. I'm considering some flavor of the 900-series, but complicating that, I'm also considering a larger monitor (27").

 

I'm not as plugged in as I used to be, so I'm unsure what I to do. I'd like to keep the card under $400, especially if I want to spend to increase screen size, but something that can handle my current set-up might not handle more real-estate. Or maybe I should wait X months for the new tech to come out, either for a new generation of card or cheaper old ones. And of course, I want o be able to play Fallout 4 and some of the new games on, if not ultra, then at least high.

 

I generally prefer single-card solutions. My CPU is an i7-3820, 3.6GHz.

 

 

[obobski]

Monitor size, by itself, has nothing to do with performance. Resolution is what matters. So if your new 27" is the same resolution as your current 24", there will be no difference from the GTX 660 Ti's perspective - it will have to do the same amount of work. As far as performance goes, I would believe the 660 Ti to be capable of running Fallout 4, but full max ultra with max IQ and blah blah is probably a stretch. GTX 970 or 980 would do a better job of that. That said, I'd probably say give the 660 Ti a try - if the performance isn't to your liking, then look to upgrade, but otherwise keep on with if its still working and letting you do what you want to do. :blush:

[jammerjim]

Thanks for the response. I think I would like better resolution if on a 27" screen (2560x1440 instead of my current 1920x1080), but I'd have to see it in action to say for sure. My eyes are not what they used to be, so it's possible the extra pixels would be wasted on me.

 

You may also be right about the 660 handling F4 okay. It handled Witcher 3 way better than I thought possible (I never turned on the hair thing).

[donta1979]

If you want to game at 2560x1440 and if you are going to be playing fallout 4 you pretty much have just one option of what side of the fence, nvidia. cards 2x GTX 970's or 980 TI or a GTX titan... otherwise I would stick with 1920x1080 and go with a GTX 970 or a GTX 980 if you can get one under your price limit. You could even say get a big LED TV that does 1920x1080 of 50"+ and be very happy.

Edited January 30, 2016 by donta1979

[obobski]

Thanks for the response. I think I would like better resolution if on a 27" screen (2560x1440 instead of my current 1920x1080), but I'd have to see it in action to say for sure. My eyes are not what they used to be, so it's possible the extra pixels would be wasted on me.

 

You may also be right about the 660 handling F4 okay. It handled Witcher 3 way better than I thought possible (I never turned on the hair thing).

 

Unfortunately the 660 (and the rest of the 600-series to be entirely frank) are in a weird kind of limbo where they're still feature-rich and powerful enough to handle most anything, but old enough that review sites tend to overlook them (which is understandable; there are two complete generations of newer hardware since the 600-series). It won't cost you anything to try it, and if it doesn't play as nicely as you'd like, you can always upgrade then (and the other thing: there's always a chance its not a game you're that fired up about - I haven't played Fallout 4 so I'm not trying to make any statement about it specifically, but I *have* upgraded in advance of games in the past, and sometimes it ends up being a waste of money when the game ends up not being "worth it" imho; I'm skeptical Fallout 4 would end up like that, but hopefully you get my meaning).

 

 

 

If you want to game at 2560x1440 and if you are going to be playing fallout 4 you pretty much have just one option of what side of the fence, nvidia. cards 2x GTX 970's or 980 TI or a GTX titan... otherwise I would stick with 1920x1080 and go with a GTX 970 or a GTX 980 if you can get one under your price limit. You could even say get a big LED TV that does 1920x1080 of 50"+ and be very happy.

 

That's a little excessive, and nobody is required to buy an nVidia card for any game. The days of "you have to have nVidia [or whatever brand] for good performance" are long since passed. Here's Guru3D's performance review of Fallout 4:

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/fallout_4_pc_graphics_performance_benchmark_review,7.html

 

Keep in mind, they're running the game fully maxed (http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/fallout_4_pc_graphics_performance_benchmark_review,5.html), so that will incur a performance penalty versus more typical settings (e.g. "High"). I would assume a 60FPS cap is a good idea here, as it is for every other Bethesda game made to date, but perhaps they adressed it. Either way, GTX 770 (aka GTX 680) is doing just fine on Ultra at 2560x1440; I doubt the 660 Ti will have any significant trouble with this game, especially if you dial the settings back a touch here and there. If you're hell-bent for leather to upgrade, a single GTX 970, or R9 290/390 or Nano is absolutely up to the task - no need for SLI, or the stupid over-priced $1000 Titan X (and if you'll refer to the numbers, the 980 Ti comes out on top anyways, while costing less, and since nVidia gimped FP64 on all Maxwell cards, there is absolutely no justifiable reason to buy Titan X).

[dragonslayer2k12]

I have a 27" monitor and a radeon HD7950 card 3gb and it played failout 4 just fine, did much better than skyrim actually but that game is just crap right now. The bugs are so incredibly bad and the story is just unacceptable. I wouldn't waste a bunch of money upgrading for that game alone. About the only thing significant we will see this year is another deus ex game and thats it. Call of poopy and all those other crap games don't count unless you really like the multiplayer with annoying kids and cheaters.

 

Maybe, MAAAAAYBE we might get another ES game next year and it won't suck who knows. They will probably adopt the same armor system from failout 4 since it was a good idea actually but I'm sure we will get even worse writing than failout 4 had. If I were you and I had the money you have, I would just keep the money since the economy is looking really crappy already this year and this is an election cycle so expect a big problem with the economy and employment when it is all over.