New Video card or new CPU?

[Nhazzal]

I am looking to upgrade my system and I am not sure which I should upgrade first, my CPU or Video card. I will upgrade one now and the other in a couple months. Here is my current system;

CPU - i7 870
Motherboard - H55M-E33
RAM 8G DDR3 (I will upgrade this to 16G when I have the opportunity)
Video card - GT 430 1G
Seagate 1.5T HDD
Using 2 monitors main 27" Samsung and 19" Samsung

Not sure if any other info is needed.

I am looking to upgrade the CPU or Video card (I think those would be the most impactful) to;

GTX 580 3G video card
i7 2600k CPU

So any input on which to get first? I play WoW and multi-box 5 characters using ISBoxer. I will do 10 characters later when I am proficient at 5 players.

[Lyonheart]

I would say video.. your card is a very low end card. Your CPU is a generation old but is still an i7 and those are great for gaming.

[EaTCarbS]

Do you have an SSD? if not, that would be the best upgrade you could get for yourself right now.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

CPU is fine. Upgrade the video card. Looking at benchmarks for that card, it's slower than a GT240. 3x slower than an HD5570. GTX580 is 10 times faster than that card.

[pinotnoir]

I agree! Replace the video card.

[Nhazzal]

Thank you for the response. I was leaning to the video card as well.

[remanz]

i am not gonna make a new topic but one question here.

how is ATI 6970 2GB compared to the almighty GTX580 1.5 GB ?

not much difference ? or pretty behind on performance in real games (not benchmark).


if anyone has experience with 6970, please share.

6970 is about $150 cheaper than GTX580.

[MiRai]

i am not gonna make a new topic but one question here.
People are going to see the first post and respond to that instead of reading your question.

how is ATI 6970 2GB compared to the almighty GTX580 1.5 GB ?

not much difference ? or pretty behind on performance in real games (not benchmark).


if anyone has experience with 6970, please share.

6970 is about $150 cheaper than GTX580.
I tend to use Anandtech for benchmark comparisons like these. If you plan on running DX11 with at least some
good looking video settings across 5 clients you're going to need at least 1.5GB of VRAM on the higher end
cards. If you decide to go with the GTX 580 they make a 3GB model that I've done plenty of testing with and
would recommend. I'm assuming we're talking about WoW here even though games like RIFT take up a good
amount of VRAM as well when you start increasing video settings.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/292?vs=305

[pinotnoir]

Those two cards are not the same. The reason the ATI 6970 is $150 cheaper is because the equivalent Nvidia card is the 570 not the 580. I have a 6970 and it's getting the job done for my 5 boxing. You could buy the 580 which is a little more powerful than the 6970 or you can go for broke with the ATI 6990 or Nvidia 590 which are both dual processor cards. My personal taste is for ATI. Over the years they have been more reliable to me and have always had the best picture vs Nvidia. I have had Nvidia cards die on me and the picture never looked as good as my ATI's. If I had money to waste I would buy the 6990 otherwise go for the mid range 6970. Either way you go all the cards are quality. I still have my doubts about Nvidia though.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

My personal taste is for ATI. Over the years they have been more reliable to me and have always had the best picture vs Nvidia.
...
I have had Nvidia cards die on me and the picture never looked as good as my ATI's.
...
I still have my doubts about Nvidia though.
Caveat emptor: go with a reputable brand and you should be OK with either GPU.


My experience has been the exact opposite of pinot's. Issues with ATI card fan motors exploding (yes, exploding, as in the fan hanging by the wires, scorch marks on the heat sink and bits of capacitor flung around the inside of the case), lots of artifacting (hash marks, tearing with vsync enabled, terribad issues with gamma correction causing atrocious washout even at low settings, etc.) heatsink bonding problems and PSU/slot compatibility problems, where NVidia cards fixed all of these. This includes a recent 5870 card I bought.

Your mileage may vary.

In all fairness, two different manufacturers' 6970 cards are not alike, which is the same with two different manufacturers' GTX580 cards. Different firmware loads, different assembly plants, different memory parts/capacitors/heatsinks/etc. I've become a big fan of EVGA cards now that BFGTech is out of business, and have yet to see any issues with their NVidia cards.

[remanz]

WOW is actually not worth upgrading for anymore. my last gen CPU (i7 920) + last last gen GPU (200 serie) was enough for wow. So the upgrade is for next gen MMO and shooters (possible steup to eyefinity as well), which I hope, will have support for SLI. 6970 seems pretty well received for its performance/price ratio. so I might just get 2 of them.

[Lyonheart]

Those two cards are not the same. The reason the ATI 6970 is $150 cheaper is because the equivalent Nvidia card is the 570 not the 580. I have a 6970 and it's getting the job done for my 5 boxing. You could buy the 580 which is a little more powerful than the 6970 or you can go for broke with the ATI 6990 or Nvidia 590 which are both dual processor cards. My personal taste is for ATI. Over the years they have been more reliable to me and have always had the best picture vs Nvidia. I have had Nvidia cards die on me and the picture never looked as good as my ATI's. If I had money to waste I would buy the 6990 otherwise go for the mid range 6970. Either way you go all the cards are quality. I still have my doubts about Nvidia though.


Thats one of the very few times i hear that. I have seen a few people prefer ATI or Nvidia.. but its rare. I mean almost every ATI vs Nvidia forum thread i have ever read ( Toms Hardware.. Andtech..etc.. ) the consensus seems to be the other way around. Nvidia seems to have the most reliable/stable drivers. Compatible with more games..etc.. More positive comments on them all around. I personally can conquer with Nvdia being better cards in the long run. I have never had an Nvidia card go bad on me but have had a few ATI cards go bad..or have major driver issues.

I wanted to add that i have not been in the market for a new card in over a year..so things might have changed. I do my research before I buy.. I'm not an Nvidia fanboy by any means.. if ATI is the way to go the next time I build.. Thats what I will get.

[pinotnoir]

The cards I had to return for replacement were EVGA Nvidia Cards. I have stuck with Sapphire ATI cards over the past years and from the 3870, 4850x2, and now 6970 they have all been flawless. My old 7800Gt's from Evga are still flaky.

[MiRai]

The cards I had to return for replacement were EVGA Nvidia Cards. I have stuck with Sapphire ATI cards over the past years and from the 3870, 4850x2, and now 6970 they have all been flawless. My old 7800Gt's from Evga are still flaky.
It's hilarious that everyone has such different experiences with video cards and their manufacturers and, at
times, an extreme bias. The main reason I actually stopped using ATi back in the day (like 8 years ago) was
because of a very poorly designed Sapphire 9700. There was a known hardware issue that Sapphire had used
bad Hynix or Samsung memory chips and there were endless complaints on their forum. They did absolutely
nothing to help any of the affected customers. They were completely ignoring the problem altogether and that
obviously really turned me off to any ATi product ever again. I used to use Asus nVidia video cards but have
now moved to eVGA because they have, from what I have seen and personally experienced, the best technical
and customer support anyone could ask for.

[pinotnoir]

It's hilarious that everyone has such different experiences with video cards and their manufacturers and, at
times, an extreme bias. The main reason I actually stopped using ATi back in the day (like 8 years ago) was
because of a very poorly designed Sapphire 9700. There was a known hardware issue that Sapphire had used
bad Hynix or Samsung memory chips and there were endless complaints on their forum. They did absolutely
nothing to help any of the affected customers. They were completely ignoring the problem altogether and that
obviously really turned me off to any ATi product ever again. I used to use Asus nVidia video cards but have
now moved to eVGA because they have, from what I have seen and personally experienced, the best technical
and customer support anyone could ask for.


I will give props to EVGA for replacing my 7800's. It was a headache at the time but at least they replaced them. Overall I think most of the major manufacturers are decent. The random chance something goes wrong determines how people shop. I use to only buy MSI until I had a bad board. Now I buy Asus. When they screw up I may move to Gigabyte. They are all pretty good. I try to assess the past performance vs price of the items when I buy. I would be open to buying MSI and Evga again but they are not the first places I start my search. It's just the randomness of life.

[MiRai]

I will give props to EVGA for replacing my 7800's. It was a headache at the time but at least they replaced them. Overall I think most of the major manufacturers are decent. The random chance something goes wrong determines how people shop. I use to only buy MSI until I had a bad board. Now I buy Asus. When they screw up I may move to Gigabyte. They are all pretty good. I try to assess the past performance vs price of the items when I buy. I would be open to buying MSI and Evga again but they are no the first places I start my search. It's just the randomness of life.
Exactly. I always warn people that I'm an nVidia fanboy and know nothing about the current ATi lineup but, if
an ATi chip was to grab my attention over an nVidia chip I could easily find my way back to trying them out
again.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I ended up in the EVGA camp because of all the manufacturers, they seem to have the best reviews from people who got a random bad board and needed support/replacement.

Also, my exploding fans were all Sapphire ATI's. (their big copper heatsinks sure were sexy back in the day)

[Wink-]

I've had good luck with video cards so I can't complain. Now what I look for in a video card is low sound. Can't believe how much of a difference there is in noise levels.