Roland. Bought this vid card for my wife's big xmas present

BlueThunder

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I bought this to replace the 2 gig 560ti card for my wifes computer, the CyberpowerPC 6-core gamer. Remember? This is obviously a major upgrade, without spending a grand for the tippy-top stuff. It's a Christmas present, so I haven't even opened it yet, but what do ya think? It's a 4 gig'r. Plus it came with Borderlands 2 and Assassin's Creed III for free. Sweet!


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130785
 

RolandDeschain

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You're better off getting a 680 at that price. The amount of RAM isn't all that important, as modern GPUs just tap into your system RAM as needed and it's cheap to go overboard on that.

For barely more, you can get the Gigabyte 680 with 2 games for $430 after the mail-in rebate. I'd recommend that, if you're dropping $400+ on a card. If you can't return this card/swap for a 680, then the 670's still a very high-end card, so no worries; but the premium price tag for the extra 2GB of RAM isn't worth it. However, the overclocked speed will make it perform almost like a 680.
 
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BlueThunder

BlueThunder

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RolandDeschain":1lvtyi8i said:
You're better off getting a 680 at that price. The amount of RAM isn't all that important, as modern GPUs just tap into your system RAM as needed and it's cheap to go overboard on that.

For barely more, you can get the Gigabyte 680 with 2 games for $430 after the mail-in rebate. I'd recommend that, if you're dropping $400+ on a card. If you can't return this card/swap for a 680, then the 670's still a very high-end card, so no worries; but the premium price tag for the extra 2GB of RAM isn't worth it. However, the overclocked speed will make it perform almost like a 680.

When am I gonna learn to ask before I buy rather than saying "hey, check this out!". :|

I think I'm gonna stick with the OC'd 670. I'm already spending more than she would approve of, plus then there would be the hassle of doing the mail exchange. I'll ask her what she wants to do after she opens it.

I thought that having tons of dedicated VRAM on-board the card was faster, and better, than leeching system RAM. I thought that was the whole point of having graphics cards with lots of VRAM...
 

RolandDeschain

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It's faster than using system RAM, no doubt about that, but it's a very marginal performance difference. The raw higher horsepower of the 680 trumps it. She'll love either one. :)
 
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BlueThunder

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Thought I'd touch base again since Xmas has come and gone. She made me install the card Xmas day 'cause she's well aware of my tendancy to procrastinate. The OC'd 470 brought that Win Experience right up to 7.9 (up from 7.6 with the 560ti) on both graphics scores, and handles everything I've thrown at it with ease. Sweet!

Oh, and she got me a Vertex 4 512g 2.5" SSD for my Alienware laptop!! I haven't actually recieved it yet... the shipment's been delayed a couple times. I can't wait to get that thing installed! Now I'm trying to educate myself on copying my current hybrid C drive onto the new SSD. Haven't done that before, but she also got me a 1 TB external drive, so that should help. I also purchased an external universal drive dock a few months ago that will take every type of hard drive, so I can probably just do a direct copy. I've never done a bootable c drive clone before, so this is new territory for me. Any advice? Probably pretty easy these days huh?

This will also be my first adventure into doing a laptop component replacement/upgrade. There are several youtube tutorials to guide me through it, but I'm still nervous! lol
 

RolandDeschain

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Cloning to a smaller drive than the source is a different beast altogether. Follow this tutorial: http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to-mi ... ng-windows

As far as putting the SSD in, hopefully you have room to add it and keep the current drive in there; otherwise, you'll need to remove the existing one and put it and the SSD into a desktop computer so you can clone from there. Good luck. :)
 
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BlueThunder

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RolandDeschain":34bxs9o9 said:
Cloning to a smaller drive than the source is a different beast altogether. Follow this tutorial: http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to-mi ... ng-windows

As far as putting the SSD in, hopefully you have room to add it and keep the current drive in there; otherwise, you'll need to remove the existing one and put it and the SSD into a desktop computer so you can clone from there. Good luck. :)

I'm not cloning to a smaller drive. I'm cloning to the same size. My current C: hybrid drive is also 512gb, and my laptop has dual hard drives, so I will be physically replacing the current hybrid C: drive with the new 512gb SSD. There is only room for two HD's, so the end result will be C: SSD, D: Hybrid, both 512 for a total of 1 TB. I'm trying to talk my wife into letting me replace her current C: conventional drive on her desktop with the 2.5 hybrid drive that I'm removing (utilizing a bay adapter). It would definately be faster on boot than her conventional drive until we she gets her own 3.5 SSD.
 
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