December 30, 201312 yr I've got my annual bonus coming in the next month or two and am thinking about upgrading my graphics card. My system is 2010 vintage: i7-950 overclocked to 4Ghz 12GB RAM (just upgraded from 6GB this month) GTX480 I've got my eye on the GTX780 as the upgrade of choice. My main sims at the moment are FSX and XP10 - with an eye to moving over to P3D2 when it's had time to mature. Would the upgrade to a GTX780 be worthwhile, or are there any other suggested cards? I want to get a decent future proof card that will see me good for the next 2-3 years so I can perhaps upgrade my motherboard/CPU later on in 2014. Thanks. Nick
December 31, 201312 yr Personally, I'd opt for the GTX 780 Ti. It is more expensive, but it's a beast of a card. Having said that, the GTX 780 will handle FSX and XPX quite handily. As for future proof, I'm not sure anything can be called future proof anymore, but 2 or 3 years is certainly a reasonable expectation. Cheers, Jeff "For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return." -Leonardo da Vinci (some experts question the attribution, but I'll go with it for now.)
December 31, 201312 yr Author If I go for one it will almost certainly be the Ti - I may as well cough up the extra cash for the faster card. Not sure if it will make much of a difference in FSX, but it probably will in XP10, and quite probably in P3Dv2. Nick
January 4, 201412 yr Author Next question - if I'm going from a GTX480 to a GTX780 will I need to upgrade my PSU? The detailed card specs on the Nvidia site says the 780ti required a 600W PSU and the card itself uses 250W. The Nvidia specs for the 480 says it needs a 600W PSU but doesn't say what the card itself uses. I know the 480 was always known as a power hungry card and pulled a lot of Watts from the PSU. I did a brief Google search and from what I can tell the 780 doesn't need any more power than a 480. Is this the case? Nick
January 9, 201412 yr Power supplies tend to degrade over several years. I had a 650 Watt that I had brought over from another chassis when I rebuilt my unit a few weeks ago. I have ordered a GTX 770 and had thought I was good with the 650. Last Saturday, while surfing the Internet, my computer just cut off. It restarted when I pushed the button, but quit again and was slower coming back up. I went out and bought a 700 watt and no more problems. I had noticed some "glitches" but hadn't thought anything of them. Glad it finally "bit the dust" before I got the new card or I would have suspected it. John John Wingold
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