Please help me to select my next Radeon - upgrading 5670

They make noise, too.

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glas
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Please help me to select my next Radeon - upgrading 5670

Post by glas » Sat Aug 30, 2014 12:43 pm

I have a AMD 5670 that is causing some issues. Therefore, I am looking to get a new AMD card. I am looking for a slight upgrade in performance as well. A silent card would be nice.

I found that the 6450 from different vendors as a silent model. I am really not sure if this card is actually faster as the 5670. Could use some help...

What other cards should I consider? I like to stay with AMD.

Also, I am limited by a PCI-E x16 2.0

CA_Steve
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Re: Please help me to select my next Radeon - upgrading 5670

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Aug 30, 2014 3:51 pm

glas wrote:Also, I am limited by a PCI-E x16 2.0
That's not really a limit. Even the top end gfx cards seldom need more than x16 2.0 (= x8 3.0).

How do you use your PC? Do you just need a video card for web browsing and video streaming or are there other apps that need more oomph? If so, what are they? Also, what's the CPU?

The HD 6450 is a poor replacementfor the 5670, unless all you need is a basic card. The HD 6670 is a better fit.

In current numbering scheme, the R7 240 is slightly less powerful, the R7 250 is above it.

glas
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Re: Please help me to select my next Radeon - upgrading 5670

Post by glas » Sat Aug 30, 2014 4:13 pm

No gaming.

Maybe watch a HD movie. Maybe some video editing.

CPU is a i7 930 @2.8Ghz

How do the 6670 stack up with noise and power usage?

CA_Steve
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Re: Please help me to select my next Radeon - upgrading 5670

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Aug 30, 2014 6:35 pm

glas wrote:How do the 6670 stack up with noise and power usage?
The same ballpark as your 5670. Probably better at idle and your 2D apps. Noise? There are passive versions.

quest_for_silence
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Re: Please help me to select my next Radeon - upgrading 5670

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Aug 31, 2014 2:08 am

glas wrote:What other cards should I consider? I like to stay with AMD.
The next performance level should be the "old" HD7750 one, which nowadays I think it's rebadged as the R7 250E: to be fair, even the plain vanilla R7 250 should offer a small performance bump over the 5670, but it should be barely noticeable.

On the other hand, while you can find several passive R7 250 in the wild, currently I'm not aware of any silent-out-of-the-box R7 250E (or 250X, equivalent to the 7770), so I can't help with any specific advice.

Among past generation cards, set aside some rare passive HD7750 cards, at least a couple of XFX HD7770 ones may run virtually silent, if you can find them (very unlikely now): there were the FX-777A-ZDF4 and FX-777A-ZDB4 (you have to tweak the stock fan profile using either Rivatuner-derivatives or SpeedFan to lower the fans speed under 700rpm).

What about your budget?

glas
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Re: Please help me to select my next Radeon - upgrading 5670

Post by glas » Sun Aug 31, 2014 5:36 am

I could not find a silent 6670 that is still in stock.
However, I found some with fan, like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150712
Not sure how bad the fan noise would be.

As for 7750's, this one?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150612

I am not familiar with R5 and R7. How are those compare the to 5000/6000/7000?
e.g. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814127802

I am trying to stay below $100

Pappnaas
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Re: Please help me to select my next Radeon - upgrading 5670

Post by Pappnaas » Sun Aug 31, 2014 5:57 am

Fan noise of the 6670 in your link will be noticeable.

But you could disable the stock fan, buy a 80mm fan, set it @5V and fasten it to the card somehow (cable ties?).

Something like in
http://www.overclock.net/t/828160/how-t ... pu-fan-mod

dhanson865
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Re: Please help me to select my next Radeon - upgrading 5670

Post by dhanson865 » Sun Aug 31, 2014 7:39 am

glas wrote:As for 7750's, this one?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150612
No, that one is poor for a 7750, Ideally you'd want fanless or a price well under $100 for that card.

http://smile.amazon.com/HIS-Turbo-GDDR5 ... 775QNT1G2M is a better one for $105.

The heatpipes on the HIS 7750 IceQ X are the best thing you want to see for a low cost low noise video card if you have to put up with a fan.

If you had the money and they were still for sale the HD7750 I have is a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814131475 but no one has those in stock new. You'll see refurbished cards for $150 or so. If you could trust a used card you might go that route but I've never had good luck with eBay, seems like the auction price always ends up high enough for you to just buy new instead.

You can get the Sapphire Radeon Ultimate R7 250 http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Ultimate ... B00ILALU28 for $95 and it is fanless rebrand of the old 7750 so long as the height of the heat sink isn't an issue in your case. At least then you know it will be quiet.

Assuming neither the size or the $95 price are an issue for you the Sapphire Radeon Ultimate R7 250 is the only cheap fanless AMD option for now.

quest_for_silence
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Re: Please help me to select my next Radeon - upgrading 5670

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Aug 31, 2014 9:32 am

glas wrote:I am not familiar with R5 and R7. How are those compare the to 5000/6000/7000?


A Wikipedia page about. Mostly you have to compare the figures of the "Config Core" column (take note that Radeon HD5XXX and HD6XXX use different, slower cores than HD7XXX/R7 XXX series).

After a quick scanning I would say: a) HD5670 ~ HD7730/R7 250 (the contemporary GPUs have only 384 shaders vs 400 but those newer are more advanced, and the newer GPUs have more Texture Mapping Units and Render Output Units: given that, the R7 250 is definitely faster than your current one); b) HD7750 ~ R7 250E (same as R7 250 but with 512 cores, up to now I've seen it only by XFX/Pine); c) HD7770 ~ R7 250X (640 cores).


No, it's roughly equivalent to a 6450/7450, so slower than your current VGA.

glas wrote:I am trying to stay below $100

Among those ones, the available cards I will look at probably would be:

a) noise wise
1 - XFX R7-250A-ZLH4
2 - SAPPHIRE HD 7770 GHz Edition VAPOR-X
3 - ASUS HD7770-2GD5

b) performance wise:
1 - ASUS HD7770-2GD5
2 - SAPPHIRE HD 7770 GHz Edition VAPOR-X
3 - XFX R7-250A-ZLH4
Last edited by quest_for_silence on Sun Aug 31, 2014 9:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

glas
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Re: Please help me to select my next Radeon - upgrading 5670

Post by glas » Sun Aug 31, 2014 9:36 am

Thanks for all the help.

Looks like I might have an issue with my XPS 9100 case with cards that have an overlapping heatsink.
I think I should be OK with a dual slot card.

glas
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Re: Please help me to select my next Radeon - upgrading 5670

Post by glas » Fri Sep 12, 2014 8:26 am

I probably want to stay away from refurbished cards.

My biggest concern is whether this dual slot cards actually would fit. I think this is my case:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZj9oh1UlHo
Also, the passive heatsink would be at the bottom.

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