Title: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: cdog on March 02, 2013, 03:19:46 PM I was planning on buying a 5970 used for gaming and some BTC (and soon LTC) mining, but are there better options?
My budget isnt big, around $300, if I can keep it under that all the better. 5970 looks like I can get in the $250-280 range. Id say $330 would be absolute max shipped I would spend on a card. Recommendations? Title: Re: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: bowen151 on March 02, 2013, 03:26:59 PM You could try and find a refurbed 7970, that would be around your upper levels of the budget though.
Title: Re: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: DrG on March 02, 2013, 03:29:02 PM Basically do you want to LTC mine for a year or BTC mine for a month. BTC mining via GPU will be dead in a month. If you're just going to go straight for LTC then get a 5970.
If you're gaming the 7970 is a no brainer compared to 5970. 5970 will be worth $50-$100 next year while a 7970 will still be at least $150. Title: Re: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: cdog on March 03, 2013, 10:25:21 AM OK thanks, seeing as though BTC GPU mining will be worthless soon, its mostly for LTC mining. Which has the edge in that department, the 5970 or the 7970? I think either will be overkill for gaming ;D
Title: Re: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: DrG on March 03, 2013, 09:28:30 PM OK thanks, seeing as though BTC GPU mining will be worthless soon, its mostly for LTC mining. Which has the edge in that department, the 5970 or the 7970? I think either will be overkill for gaming ;D 5970 hashes more for LTC purposes. 7970 if you're looking at resale value and gaming ability. Title: Re: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: logicbomb666 on March 03, 2013, 10:29:37 PM You can get a 7950 with 2 games for $270 after rebate shipped.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?SID=yWmc0IRREeKl3ubHJGciMA0_kK0T3_86M_0_0&AID=10440897&PID=1225267&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-cables-_-na-_-na&Item=14-202-006&cm_sp= Title: Re: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: davecoin on March 04, 2013, 04:32:48 AM I thought that said 7970 and about died. Still a pretty good deal.
Title: Re: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: crazyates on March 05, 2013, 03:26:13 AM I thought that said 7970 and about died. Still a pretty good deal. I love my 7970, but it was bought as a splurge (paid for with BTC, to game and mine BTC). It's not worth the extra $100 over the 7950, as the performance differences are only minimal. Title: Re: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: ny2cafuse on March 05, 2013, 10:16:04 PM The Gigabyte 7950 is pretty good. I bought one to mine with, and it gets decent hash rates. It's a 7.9 in windows performance index, and plays everything I throw at it at high-ultra settings, depending on resolution. Best thing is that at 99% load and overclocked to 1100-1150 on the core, it rarely gets above 66 degrees with the fan at ~70%. At idle it's 33 degrees. Best thing about it is it is quiet as all hell. At 70% fan it's what my crappy 8800gtx used to sound like at 50% load.
Title: Re: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: milly6 on March 06, 2013, 01:43:21 AM The Gigabyte 7950 is pretty good. I bought one to mine with, and it gets decent hash rates. It's a 7.9 in windows performance index, and plays everything I throw at it at high-ultra settings, depending on resolution. Best thing is that at 99% load and overclocked to 1100-1150 on the core, it rarely gets above 66 degrees with the fan at ~70%. At idle it's 33 degrees. Best thing about it is it is quiet as all hell. At 70% fan it's what my crappy 8800gtx used to sound like at 50% load. define "decent hash rates" im thinking about buying one Title: Re: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: noncecents on March 06, 2013, 01:55:19 AM At the $300 price range you are probably not going to beat the efficiency curve and you will be losing money.
Also, if you are considering a 7970, make sure your CPU has enough PCIe lanes to support that level of device, or you will be wasting a gigantic GPU. Title: Re: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: ny2cafuse on March 06, 2013, 04:58:04 PM The Gigabyte 7950 is pretty good. I bought one to mine with, and it gets decent hash rates. It's a 7.9 in windows performance index, and plays everything I throw at it at high-ultra settings, depending on resolution. Best thing is that at 99% load and overclocked to 1100-1150 on the core, it rarely gets above 66 degrees with the fan at ~70%. At idle it's 33 degrees. Best thing about it is it is quiet as all hell. At 70% fan it's what my crappy 8800gtx used to sound like at 50% load. define "decent hash rates" im thinking about buying one Around 575-590MH/s @1120 w/ 70%fan at 66 degrees on 50btc.com. I've seen it spike up to 610-620 on the charts at those settings, but I've never tinkered with getting to run consistently at those speeds. I've recently moved over to Litecoin, where I'm getting about 540KH/s, but haven't been able to go higher because of the rest of the system bottleneck. The card is the newest thing in my rig for the last 4-5 years, so a complete CPU/MB/Ram upgrade might get me a little higher. I love the card, and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking at that price point. Title: Re: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: ryantc on March 09, 2013, 03:03:49 AM go for a 7950, with the current AMD promo, you can get your game download coupon, and you can sell that on ebay.
Title: Re: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: Henchman24 on March 09, 2013, 03:35:57 AM I'd definitely recommend the MSI R7950. I have 2 of these and 2 of the gigabyte 7950s. the MSIs blow the Gigabytes away.
625MH/s stable at 1175 core I'm lucky to keep the gigabytes running steady at 1110 doing 580MH/s http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127667&Tpk=msi%207950 Edit: Be forewarned though - the MSI's have fans that run at much higher RPMs and are quite a bit louder. On the cosmetic side, the MSIs have a nice brushed aluminum shell vs plastic on the gigabyte. Finally, the MSIs run on two 6pin connectors vs 6pin+8pin for gigabyte. Title: Re: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: zif33rs on March 10, 2013, 04:22:42 PM I would recommend a 7950..easy 550 MH\s+ for $275ish. My Powercolor AX7950 runs at 1175mhz at 1.275v at 82c underload. I have had it running upwards of 1230mhz at 1.3v
How are you guys getting 600MH\s+ on your 7950's. What miner? I am using GUIminer...wondering if there are any flags... zif Title: Re: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: scifimike12 on March 10, 2013, 08:37:46 PM How are you guys getting 600MH\s+ on your 7950's. What miner? I am using GUIminer...wondering if there are any flags... CGMiner → diablo kernel worksize: 256 vectors: 1 intensity: 7 I've been mining on 7xxx cards ever since they came out early last year. This is by far the best combination I've found that yields the greatest MH/s with little to no stales. Title: Re: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: crazyates on March 10, 2013, 09:38:57 PM How are you guys getting 600MH\s+ on your 7950's. What miner? I am using GUIminer...wondering if there are any flags... CGMiner → diablo kernel worksize: 256 vectors: 1 intensity: 7 I've been mining on 7xxx cards ever since they came out early last year. This is by far the best combination I've found that yields the greatest MH/s with little to no stales. On my 7970, I've found the CGMiner defaults of -v 1 -w 64 -I 7 to be the best. You really have better luck with -w 256 ? Title: Re: Recommend me a card $300 range Post by: scifimike12 on March 11, 2013, 03:33:58 AM On my 7970, I've found the CGMiner defaults of -v 1 -w 64 -I 7 to be the best. You really have better luck with -w 256 ? So far. I may give -w 64 another try. |