I'm looking to buy a new video card, but I have some questions.

malcolm · Mar 2013

Hey so I'm looking to upgrade my video card to play Crysis 3, just finished Tomb Raider and noticed my card is quite out of date, had to dial down a couple of the high end settings to get it to run at 40fps, no fancy hair, no tessellation, no high precision, everything else maxed out fine though. Radeon 5850/core i7/12gig ram

1. Is a pci express 3.0 card compatible with my motherboard, how do I check this?

2. Is my power supply good enough, how do I check this?

3. How is Maya on the 7000 series cards, does it work okay?

I'm looking at getting the card in the link below it is supposedly very quiet, but first I need to know if it will run on my system.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2318245

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2318242

CheeseOnToast · Mar 2013

Radeon cards and Maya traditionally haven't played nicely together, although I don't know if that's still true. Ive always stuck with Nvidia for that reason, as well as the fact that they seem to be better at keeping drivers up to date.

You didn't mention what power supply you've got, BTW.

malcolm · Mar 2013

That was question 2, how do I tell what power supply I have?

CrazyButcher · Mar 2013

1) the cards are downward compatible, it's unlikely that you benefit from PCIEx3 unless you do heavy video editing, or are into oil & gas bizness

2) the watts it outputs is printed on it, or you look up the name of it and find specs online. 450-500 should be okay, depends on how much stuff you have in your PC. CPU is typically 60 - 100 Watt, and graphics kinda depends, most should be between 150 and 225.

joeriv · Mar 2013

definatly stick with Nvidia.

I made the error of going for ATI, and so far, realtimeshaders in maya do not work at all, I have had a bug with PS cs6 wich made it a pain to work in unless I turned off some thing in the preferences.

if you do still want to for the ati, maybe have a look at the XT/tahiti LE version of the 7870.
only 2 brands make it, but it's basicly the same price, and faster (it's actually a slightly downgraded 7950 and if you want a nivdia card that performs equally you are looking at atleast a 660ti wich is 50 or so dollars more).

http://www.club-3d.com/index.php/products/reader.en/product/radeon-hd-7870XT-jokercard.1398.html
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1160&pid=1790&lid=1

but from experience, altough ati is really becoming better, and maybe slightly preferred for actual gaming, and money/performance ratio, for actual 3D work nvidia is still better, because well, stuff just works and it's less of a headache.

malcolm · Mar 2013

So I opened my case and unfortunately this power supply doesn't say anything on it except 0F217J

I have a XPS 435t/9000 computer.

malcolm · Mar 2013

Just phoned Dell, they said it is a 475watt power supply.

coryperez · Mar 2013

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Treboras · Mar 2013

malcolm wrote: »

Just phoned Dell, they said it is a 475watt power supply.

475 watts is sure on the lower end, but if you don't get a dual-gpu or high end GTX, it should be okay.

Also I can second what the others are saying: DO NOT get an AMD/ATI card if you want to work with Maya. Nvidia is the way to go!

malcolm · Mar 2013

Okay, looking into getting a new power supply and geforce card, how do I tell what the comparable geforce card is to the radeon 7870.

AlecMoody · Mar 2013

you might not be able to swap power supplies on the dell. The last time I tried to swap power supplies on a dell I found a proprietary power plug on the motherboard.

You can plug your parts into this power supply calculator to get some idea of what you can expect from the current PSU: http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

If you aren't sure what parts you have get CPUz and it should tell you. Also, not all power supplies are created equal so your mileage may vary. Another good strategy would be to look at what card is in there now, find out how much power that part uses, and find a replacement that uses a similar amount.

EarthQuake · Mar 2013

malcolm wrote: »

Okay, looking into getting a new power supply and geforce card, how do I tell what the comparable geforce card is to the radeon 7870.

Malcolm, here is a huge list of benchmarks:

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

ATI 7870 is in the price and performance range of an Nvidia 480, 570, and 660/660ti

malcolm · Mar 2013

So I have this motherboard
DELL 0X501H
Intel X58 (Tylersburg 36S) + ICH10R

How would I go about figuring out if I can swap in an off the shelf power supply.

malcolm · Mar 2013

Based on the 3Dmark scores the GeForce GTX 660 Ti is the way to go.

AlecMoody · Mar 2013

I did a quick google about dell power supplies and it looks like they stopped doing that. You should be good with an off the shelf PSU. Depending on the cable routing, swapping a power supply can be a pain.

malcolm · Mar 2013

Thanks Alec, I am probably going to drop my box off at ncix here in Vancouver and let them deal with the install, it looks like the min system spec for gtx 660 is 450 so I guess I should put in a 600 watt just to be safe.

Best Buy has a reasonable price on the regular gtx 660 so I think I will buy it from them it's 70 dollars cheaper than the ti and returnable.
http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/asus-asus-geforce-gtx-660-2gb-gddr5-pci-e-video-card-gtx660-dc2o-2gd5-gtx660-dc2o-2gd5/10225510.aspx?path=1b5ac847b114fe27bdfda557601d13c3en02&SearchPageIndex=1

One last question, this card says it's overclocked, should I be worried about that? And do overclocked cards need more power than reference cards?

AlecMoody · Mar 2013

Generally it is fine. In theory these cards have superior cooling, some sort of redesign, or are binned as better quality examples.

I'm looking to buy a new video card, but I have some questions.

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