[GPU Deal] $132 (AR+FS) 1GB 7850 + Games [Newegg]

Not my Sapphire version with two fan cooling. It is absolutely silent in idle and only makes non molesting whooshing at full gaming load. This is with default settings from the CCC. I'm sure it could be tweaked to silence even under full load with a custom fan control profile, but i didn't bother yet.

Can't say much about the temps, it stays at 33C in idle.

 

Apparently nothing now or in the near future, but Hawaii (rumored to be the high-end Volcanic Islands chip) should be able to compete with or beat it, even if it ends up on 28 nm.

 

So after doing a lot of reading I come to the conclusion that both nvidia 660 and 660 ti are shit in respect to the bus being 192. If I was going to get a 660 ti, I might as well have gotten a 670 for much improved performance. So I will wait for the next 700 dumb down card. I will probably wait for a cheap gk110 chipped card since the specs on that are pretty pimp. If my card don't make me punch through my monitor that is. Perhaps I will get a super cheap crap nvidia and sli my current crap card to it. Problem is my current old ass card beats the snot out of any cheap cards by a such a significant margin its hilarious.

Anyone know if its possible to have my current card do all the work and export the video through the shit card?

Edit again:
My card has hdmi out so im going to try an hdmi to dvi cable to see if that will work.

 

What res are you playing at and how long do you want the cards to last? It's true that Kepler is a little starved for bandwidth, but it's not a big deal at 1080p.

 

1920 X 1200 on a 9600 GT. The current card isn't too bad but, I can't play many current demanding games on much more then low/med settings and the current dvi converters are falling apart on the card (synch issues when its heating/cooling). I am thinking about spending around $250 at most for a card and its going to be nvidia because if I have to deal with amd drivers one more time I am going to punch my own heart out.

 

Wait for a 660 deal. They drop to $170 occasionally. Follow slickdeals or something.

Be patient and learn about prices so you can get a good deal. There's no hurry.

 

Maybe the rumored upcoming 760 Ti will have a 256-bit bus.

It also seems to depend on the games used.

 

ViroMan, just go for a 660 Ti.

 

Still a choked bus and with crap ram(if you go over 1.5gb), it shows.
Apparently if you get a 2gb card it is actually 1.5 with another .5 tacked on and that last .5 is much slower.

 

Ok bro, your noobiness is showing. Learning teimz.

So a gk104 normally has four 64-bit memory controllers. Each gddr5 chip needs 32 bits to talk to the controller. So gk104 likes having eight memory chips huddled around it.

To make the 660 ti, Nvidia lopped off a controller (and some other shit connected to it). So now only six memory chips can snuggle with the GPU.

If Nvidia continues to use 1Gb chips, then the 660 ti would have 1.5GB of vram. Your epeen can't handle that.

Their solution is to give one of the controllers two 2 Gb chips and the other two a total of four 1Gb chips. That's two chips per controller. We're doing great.

So the GPU is smart enough to balance work and stuff to each of the controllers. If you're a rich fuck and you have a ginormous monitor or you're doing some other stupid shit to fill up your vram, then you do run into a peculiar result.

The GPU smartly spreads the first 1.5GB around to each of the controllers, then shot hits the fan. Two of the controllers are spent. The last half GB of collective memory is slower to fill because there's only one controller doing the stuff that controllers do.

But guess what? Benchmarks don't lie. The 660 ti is worth its price. Somehow, gk104 still kicks ass even when it's only got three quarters of its jibbly bits.

 

Even in the worst case scenario with Crysis Warhead at 2560x1600 and max. settings, the 660 Ti manages to make 24 fps. What more do you want?

 

cheap gk110 chip but, cheaper.

 

Lulwut?

That's the 780. It's already released, derpasaurus rex.

 

I said but cheaper!

 

I got confused because you pointed to a rumor instead of a review.

You'll probably get your chopped up gk110, but it'll be a while. Nvidia has to build up a stock of suitable chips. They don't want to disable functional gk110 that could be turned into titans or 780s.

 

ya with a chip flash or a tiny solder here and there?

 

With blown fuses. No bargain titan for you.

 

Yaye my HDMI -> DVI cable arrived and its working. Now the wait to see if the video fucks up. If it works well I can keep this rust bucket of a card around a little bit longer. Long enough to see cheap gk110's?

Edit:

Well fuck my life, that was fast... already happening.