Two quick hardware questions.

I'm putting together a new PC but its been a couple of years since I have done this so I'm not up to date with my graphics card knowlege.

What is the best graphics card on the market right now (that isn't that Titan thing) is it still the 680? Also what's the CPU of choice at the moment?

Thanks in advance.

For nVidia, their flagship is still the GTX 680, priced at $450-500.

AMD has the Radeon HD 7970, at $375-450.

Which is better, is really a matter of opinion. The fastest 7970 is faster than the fastest 680, but the 680 offers PhysX in a few games, and lower power consumption. The 7970 offers AMD's new TressFX in Tomb Raider, as an answer to nVidia's PhysX.

For CPUs, right now intel's Ivy Bridge has a definite lead when it comes to games. the i5 3570k is about $220, and runs almost anything, especially when its overclocked. The i7 3770k offers almost the same clock speed, but with hyperthreading, for an extra $100. Most of its added benefits don't do much for gaming performance, though.

Haswell, intel's next generation, arrives in June, with about 10-15% better performance over the current Ivy Bridge chips.

I'd say right now your best bang for your money is a 7970 with an i5 3570k.

Thanks for the info, appreciate it.

However my exuberance got the better if me and I ended up getting a TItan.. I'm such a tool. :D

@mister_v: haha, awesome.

What other components are you running with it?

@mister_v: why oh why oh why

Hahaha, nice.

I love how you dismissed it in your first post but then with a twist just suddenly embraced it, after you got a proper answer from someone. I actually chuckled. Good going, and happy gaming.

By the way, which processor did you get/are planning on getting?

Well I didn't actually realise the Titan fell just within the price limit I had set myself so I couldn't say no. Call it future proofing.

Rough specs are:

7-3770K 3.50 GHz 8MB Cache LGA1155

120 GB Samsung 840 Series SATA III Gaming MLC Solid State Disk (2 of them)

2TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64M Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive

16GB (4x4GB) PC12800 DDR3/1600mhz Dual Channel Memory (Kingston HyperX Blu w/Heat Spreader)

Asus P8Z77-V LX2 Intel Z77 Chipset

I can appreciate futureproofing. But in the future, rather than buying a $900 Titan, consider a different approach to futureproofing:

• Buy a $450 video card.
• Hide the remaining $450 in a safe place that no one will touch, like a box of fat-free cookies.
• In about a year in a half, when the deficiencies in the current $450 card start to become noticeable, buy another $450 card.

That future $450 card will be a lot better than a Titan.

But I'm in a very poor position to lecture others on possibly-excessive spending.

Ugh, people still like to brag about their start up time? Ditch the SSD and save your money.

@sins_of_mosin said:

Load times are so much better, totally worth it. Games that stream assets are also much better (Witcher 2, ArmA 3, Any UE3 game). That said, you should go with a larger SSD. That's much too small for a game library.

You'd have to wait a good long while for it to be "a lot better" than a Titan, especially if you make use of the amount of VRAM that beast has.

I also don't freaking understand why people tell people who can afford to spend that much on a video card that they should be more careful with their money. If you can afford to spend $1000 on a video card, you'll be fine doing so and super happy to have it.