The best card for $300?

[FMod]

Hmm... I have no idea what CUDA does. O.o

So why then would you then have to convert your software to AMD equivalents? Nvidia's photoshop plugins aren't dependent on their hardware. Only CUDA software is, since other GPU use OpenCL.

 

 

 

Also, don't overlook bundled games. These days they put good stuff in with the cards, top of the charts releases.

 

I picked the card versions that I consider optimal in terms of price/quality ratio for each respective GPU.

 

With AMD you get Far Cry 3, Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinite:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202026

With NV, Metro Last Light:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133466

A bit counter-intuitive since AMD cards wipe the floor with NVs in Metro, but that's just how it is.

 

I'm personally very partial to Metro (always played at max difficulty), but there's no denying that AMD is offering the top 3 most desired shooter games.

 

But then there's the price difference. AMD cards have gone up in price a lot due to the recent rise in Bitcoin/USD exchange rates. They're being bought up by coin miners, especially the lowest-priced 7950s.

And I'm pretty sure they are selling off their game coupons on ebay or somewhere else (which is completely illegal), too, so you can have your cake and eat it.

 

All else equal, 7950 is a winner due to performance. The few cases where it's not are mostly being rectified by updated drivers. Not only is it faster stock, but it overclocks much better to match an overclocked 670.

 

 

But all else is not equal. 660 Ti is considerably cheaper. Driver-wise, NV situation is currently back to better, more frequent updates for new games. Noise-wise Sapphire 7950 will about match ref 660 Ti.

 

On the other hand, should you decide to mine some coins, even just when you're away and it's not aircon season, 7950 will basically come free.

[Thor.]

Not to mention the 7950's have some nice audio drivers to go along with, you must have a compliant audio device that supports it like a receiver or a monitor.

[hoofhearted4]

lol bitcoining. i was gunna get into that :P

[Rennn]

I just bought the GTX 660 GC. Sales were ending and I was running out of time for other reasons, so I had to act relatively quickly. I got Metro: Last Light free, though I'll have to wait until it actually releases ofc.

 

Anyway, yay! My 460 was like a 4 year old card now, and I was getting tired of my 768MB of VRAM limiting what kinds of textures I could use. From the benchmarks it should put any game I own on ultra at 60 fps, yay! I'm excited; it's been a couple years since I had a relatively advanced card.

[Thor.]

Lol i have 6gb of vram in all, i can literally do anything with it. 8k textures in Skyrim, i wish there was allot more then 4k. Seems like people are afraid to make 8k.. :blink: :teehee:

Edited April 30, 2013 by Thor.

[Phalanx108]

Lol i have 6gb of vram in all, i can literally do anything with it. 8k textures in Skyrim, i wish there was allot more then 4k. Seems like people are afraid to make 8k.. :blink: :teehee:

 

6GB is nice an all, but there is almost absolutely nothing that uses anywhere CLOSE to even 3/4's of it.

 

Shame, really. I did quite want to see how I could bog down the Titan but so far I can't :<

[Beriallord]

The higher Vram with the 7950 makes it more future proof. The next gen consoles are getting ready to come out and that will impact minimum system specs for a lot of PC games due to them being console ports. Which means its safe to say a lot of games are going to start using more Vram in the near future.

[Phalanx108]

The higher Vram with the 7950 makes it more future proof. The next gen consoles are getting ready to come out and that will impact minimum system specs for a lot of PC games due to them being console ports. Which means its safe to say a lot of games are going to start using more Vram in the near future.

 

"Future Proof"... Now there's a term I know very well, and hate to hear moreso.

 

There is always a way to refute "future proofing". In the case of VRAM, having 2 billion terabytes of it might look shiny, but if the GPU can't keep up with the processing requirements, and the game can't support using most of it (as is the case in terms of console ports), it's all moot.

[Thor.]

Also regarding the cuda comment

AMD does better then Cuda, AMD instead of cuda, amd uses its own video encoding technology that does it solely on the video card and doesn't rely on the cpu at all to do the work, Cuda is 50 50. AMD is 100%

Also just wait until the new consoles are out, i am betting for a more amd friendly environment in the near future. Intel might have some issues keeping up, if consoles keep improving stability of amd chips, or even optimizing for amd in general.

Even Nvidia might feel the sting of the favoring of AMD to be a problem sooner then later, it would be a war for exclusivity if that's the case. More competition is always better.

Edited May 3, 2013 by Thor.

[Rennn]

This is going to turn into a spec war in my thread, isn't it? *sigh*