Hi! I am planning on getting a gaming setup (cheap). Im getting confused to what GPU to get. 6870 or 7770. According to this http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/536?vs=540 6870 performs well than the 7770. Now im wondering since 6870 is an older hardware than the 7770. Will there be any upgrades for the 7770 (no OC) that will make it perform more than the 6870.
6870 has nearly twice as much power than 7770. But eats 150W instead of 80W. 6870 (7770) Mem buss: 256bit (128bit) Pix Fill rate: 28Gpix/s (16Gpix/s) TFlops: 2TFlops (1.2TFlops) Edit: 2GB version will have significant benefit in a lot of scenarios over 1GB card. That is best thing I can tell you if you plan HD7770. Other than that cheapest 2GB version of HD7850 is pretty close to 2GB version of HD7770.
Yes, 7790 is good choice too performance/price. Just that it's new and not available everywhere. Edit: If choice is between 6870/7770 then it's and will be 6870. 7770 will not get such performance boost from drivers to match it.
Im not particularly going for any other card except for either the 6870 or the 7770. So what would you guys suggest be a better GPU for gaming?
If i had to choose between the 7770 and 6870. I would go with warlords suggestion and go with a 2GB 7770GHz, if you can't get the 2GB GHz model then just get the 6870. The only problem i see is that the 7770GHz 2GB costs about the same as the 7790/7850 cards, that are better cards overall. EDIT: disregard the above i got the 7770 2GB confused with the 7850 2GB. To hell with the 7770's all of them go with the 6870/7790/7850. What ever you can afford.
hd 6870 easily wins here. sure, you can have 2gb on the hd 7770 but what for? you won't be maxing out games and throwing AA at them so you won't see any improvement from having more vram. Take any modern demanding game. Let's say Crysis 3. You'll run it on med/high with no AA. at those settings the hd 6870 wins easily. sure, more vram is good nowadays, and BF3 maxed uses around 1.8gb+ of vram. but again, if you run it on high settings with no AA (and you will with those cards), you will use around 1-1.2gb max and the hd 6870 wins again because it's simply a faster card. Just a couple of examples. I would definitely recommend the hd 7790 or hd 7850 if you can afford them though. what is your maximum budget and link the shop you're buying from.
yeah it's a no brainer really. with these mid range cards you'll never run max settings/AA so there's no need to worry about lack of vram 90% of the time as long as you have 1gb vram.
Thanks a lot guys for the reply. Im deciding now on getting that 6870. Umm... just out of curiosity Powercolor HD6870. Is it any good? I mean the manufacturer Powercolor. Ive seen someone post not to get Powercolor. Any thoughts?
PowerColor is OK. They make stuff in close coop w/ AMD. Sometimes something fail at OC. But if you are gonna run it at stock, should be OK.
TUL/PowerColor is one of main AMD partners. They sell cards under many brands. Their cards are fine. Main downside is that they get 2 year warranty. But so do Sapphires.
I'd take a Sapphire, XFX or a HIS (w/ custom cooler), but i suppose powercolor is fine. Sapphire has a good reputation and is probably the #1 seller of ati/amd cards. XFX makes quality cards and you get a double lifetime warrenty. His usually offers some nice quiet (and cool) cards with their aftermarket coolers.
There's nothing wrong with Powercolor, I've owned them before. Also, there is a new kid on the block for you to consider in this range. The Radeon 7790, as some others have mentioned. Its a brand new card and beats the 7770 by 20%-40%. Newegg just put em up for $149.99 http://www.guru3d.com/articles_summary/radeon_7790_review_benchmark.html
I have a present for you, i used the same system, though maybe different drivers. http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/5662285 7770 1200_core I didn't keep the other link on stock but i can remember you the score, it was 4000. http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6269969 6870 stock Basically the answer is, 6870 1GB, but uses more of power.