Hardware & Technical GTX 770 2Gb performance in ED.

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Anyone have any first hand details?

The second hand R9 280x 3Gb I got seems to be a bit iffy. Getting loads of errors and lock ups since installing it, despite trying fresh clean drivers, windows, and new PSU. But it works enough that I can sell it to CEX. (it'll run for a good hour before CTDing)
And for a few £ more, I can buy a GTX 770 2Gb for £95, or a GTX 960 2Gb for £100.

From what I've read, the GTX 770 is similar in performance to the 280x. And both areal a fair bit are better than a GTX 960 2gb.

Advice?

I brought the card privately, so I can't return it, and I wouldn't ask anyway because was sold for far less than its actually worth anyway.
But if I get a new (used) card from CEX, it comes with a 2 year warranty.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Nagual]

Up until I bought a HTC Vive, I was using a 770 @ 1080p with no issues at all, with most settings at max. A couple of things turned off like bloom etc. A very good card the 770.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Up until I bought a HTC Vive, I was using a 770 @ 1080p with no issues at all, with most settings at max. A couple of things turned off like bloom etc. A very good card the 770.

Cool, it does sound similar to the R9 280x then.


Technically, I don't mind as long as it's a big improvement over the HD 6870 1Gb I had originally. Lol

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Update:

Well the poor R9 280x was causing all sorts of issues, no games run how they should, I think it'd picked it's moment to give up on life. It was getting hot, and one of the fans was konking out intermittently. And it was simply locking up and spazzing out in games.

So, while it still works well enough for a test, I took it to CEX, and got £76 for it.
And got the MSI GTX 770 2GB for £20 more. Lol
Shame I had to buy a new car last week. They had a GTX 970 in there for £195. But I just didn't have that kind of money anymore. Bah!

Anyhoo.
Fired up the stress test, it tops out at 86°C. Bit toasty, but no games push it that far, and apparently it can go up to 98°C anyway.
Fired up Arms III, same settings as the R9 280x. No issues, or artifacts, or glitches. Good fps (I joined an online server, which has horrible performance anyway. Lol). No CTDs.
Then I fired up ED. All good. Got a steady 60fps everywhere. Same as the 280x.

Only issue I had, was the brightness and saturation and all that seems "off" but no settings were fixing it (even on my TV). The starfield in ED was just grey. Lol

Then, while trying to tune everything, I alt tabbed out of ED. And it corrected itself. Lol

I then rebooted my PC to see if it would stay that way and it did. Lol
Strange. Probably something to do with the old AMD drivers.

It's also about 200db quieter than the 280x. Lol


Haven't given it an extended run yet, I'll do that Wednesday. Fingers crossed!

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Dsign]

I'm glad you found something that suits your needs, such hard times to choose a product.. there's simply too many of them ! '^^

I understand you got a new car, which costs a lot. Is that why you took the 770 ?
If you only play these few games you mentioned, it'll do the job. But if you're into other games, more demanding ones, the 770 is getting a bit old.

If you can afford it, I would suggest you save some money for a few months and get yourself anything above a 970 4GB. Even ED can be pretty heavy on the GPU if you start adding graphical mods.
I'm currently using the 970 for all of my games, it works fine and can handle most of them. But the way I see it is : Pay a little bit more and get something that lasts longer !

If every 1-2 year you have to buy a new card, it may be a good idea to step up directly to the very high end product

1070 (for the "affordable high end")
1080(for the high end)
1080ti (you'll be good for a while )

Of course that all depends on what you do with your computer

EDIT : Also, keep in mind that some of the more recent games can also use your CPU a lot. Battlefield 1 is one these, even with a 970 4GB my game will drop to 30fps in some situations.
In short, don't forget your CPU.

 

[ajg74]

I use a GTX770 in my rig but a 4GB version, it plays Elite fine with most settings on Ultra\high, solid 60FPS at 1080p. I did notice that the whole 4gb of memory is used on it by Elite so a 2gb will have slightly lower performance due to not being able to buffer in memory as much as the 4gb.

Thing to note is that mine (an MSI Twin Fozr) never gets hotter than 68c (even with a slight OC on it), I suspect this is due to my case cooling which has a 140mm on the side fan blowing air directly over the GPU's intake.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I'm glad you found something that suits your needs, such hard times to choose a product.. there's simply too many of them ! '^^

I understand you got a new car, which costs a lot. Is that why you took the 770 ?
If you only play these few games you mentioned, it'll do the job. But if you're into other games, more demanding ones, the 770 is getting a bit old.

If you can afford it, I would suggest you save some money for a few months and get yourself anything above a 970 4GB. Even ED can be pretty heavy on the GPU if you start adding graphical mods.
I'm currently using the 970 for all of my games, it works fine and can handle most of them. But the way I see it is : Pay a little bit more and get something that lasts longer !

If every 1-2 year you have to buy a new card, it may be a good idea to step up directly to the very high end product

1070 (for the "affordable high end")
1080(for the high end)
1080ti (you'll be good for a while )

Of course that all depends on what you do with your computer

EDIT : Also, keep in mind that some of the more recent games can also use your CPU a lot. Battlefield 1 is one these, even with a 970 4GB my game will drop to 30fps in some situations.
In short, don't forget your CPU.

Basically, I have a crap job. So I can't really afford anything.

"Affordable" to me, is like £50. Lol (which is how much I paid for the 280x)
The reasoning behind the 770 is that it has similar performance to the 280x.
I technically could have sold the 280x on eBay for a lot more than CEX would give, but then the fact that it's a dud would fall back on me as the seller, I'm also too nice to do that to another person, but not so nice that I don't care about companies . The 280x is now CEX's problem. Not mine.

The 770 plays every demanding game I own perfectly fine. It may not be future proof as the 9/10 series, but before I got the 280x I was running a 7 year old AMD HD 6870 1Gb. Which I still have in a cupboard for emergencies. Lol
And ED and Arma III was playable on that most of the time. Be it on slightly lower settings.

I don't upgrade often. I keep my GPU until it dies, or simply can't cope with a modern game at all. But usually just until it dies.

My CPU is an AMD FX 8320, which is plenty fast enough for a few more years. It rarely gets maxed out.

I can't justify spending most of my monthly wages on a single GPU. As much as I'd love one. CEX did have a GTX 970 I could have got instead, but it was £195, and I only got £76 for my 280x (technically i made a profit. Lol) but I didn't have £120 to spend. The 770 was £95, and I just so had a £20 note in my wallet.
Had I not needed to urgently replace my car, I probably could have stretched for that.
But my old car died (well, rusted, in many places!) and had to be scrapped. Which is annoying, because I only put new tires on it 3 months ago. Lol

But anyway, I'm happy with my 770, and I hope it lasts as long as my 6870.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead