Help picking new GPU

[JC522]

Hey guys, so I'm looking to upgrade the GPU in my computer. I was never really into gaming much so I don't know much about graphics cards. My current card is a Geforce gtx550 ti. I've been able to play Diablo 3 and sim city on that card. I want to play games like Titanfall in the future. I also do a lot of photoshop work and I know it utilizes the GPUs cudacores. The 2 I was looking at was the new GTX750ti or the GTX660 which are both around the 200$ mark. Which card would be better bang for the buck? I'm only running to 1 23" monitor. Is there a different card I should look at roughly in that price range? Thanks for helping a total noob out

The rest of the parts:
Intel i7-4770 3.40GHz
Asus Z87-A Mobo LGA 1150
Patriot 16GB Viper 3 1600MHz C10 kit
OCZ 650 watt psu

[n1zm0]

Are you bent on getting an Nvidia card again?

For ~$200 you also can look at last gen 78xx-79xx AMDs or the new R9 270 series stuff.

Your RAM is a better than mine but I have more or less the same setup as you, personally I have a 2gb Sapphire 7850, I push the card pretty hard during normal gaming use with Eyefinity (recently I played Titanfall on max during the beta, the game is very well optimized so whatever you choose above your current GPU i'm sure it'll run fine, also run RoH2, DayZ, BF4, Arma3 on max more or less and all work great), it does it's job pretty well i'll have to say, it was around $230 when I got it in fall last year.

You can use HWCompare to do some research, then go check the prices at memex or newegg or wherever:

660 vs R9 270

770ti vs R9 270

770ti vs 660

[schocker]

With a computer that is quite powerful I would go for a GTX770. You could probably price match one to around $350. I currently have a GTX670, still run everything on Ultra, BF4, Tomb Raider, Thief etc. with like 60+ fps which is nice.

[Vagabond142]

Anything over a 770 or R9-270 right now is diminishing returns on price to performance. As to the specific cards mentioned by OP, I would take the 750ti over a 660, mostly because it's cooler, uses less power, and is a newer generation of GPU

[JC522]

I never really thought about any other gnu besides nvidia because that's what I always used or heard about. My only problem with nvidia is sometimes the driver keeps crashing on me.

Does anyone know if Photoshop utilizes the radeon equivalent of cudacores?

[n1zm0]

Originally posted by JC522
I never really thought about any other gnu besides nvidia because that's what I always used or heard about. My only problem with nvidia is sometimes the driver keeps crashing on me.

Does anyone know if Photoshop utilizes the radeon equivalent of cudacores?

Mercury Graphics Engine
Starting with Adobe Photoshop CS6, there is a new Mercury Graphics Engine (MGE) that will use your video card's GPU to improve Photoshop's performance. This new Mercury Graphics Engine will provide near-instant results when working with certain key tools, such as Lighting Effects, Liquify, etc.

The best thing about the Mercury Graphics Engine is, it uses both OpenGL and OpenCL. Which means, you do NOT need a CUDA enabled video card from NVidia.

Let me repeat that, Photoshop CS6 itself, does not use CUDA, it uses OpenGL and OpenCL for GPU acceleration. So there are no hacks, mods, etc. to get your video card to work. All you need to do is setup PhotoShop CS6 to your your video card.

This means, you can use pretty much any of the newer video cards from AMD/ATI, Intel and NVidia. However, keep reading. There are some things you are going to need to know.

NOTE: There are some 3rd party plugins for Adobe Photoshop that use the CUDA technology. If you use any 3rd party plugins that use the CUDA technology, then you will need a NVidia graphics card.

Don't know much about the use of GPUs with CS but this seems to be a good resource.

[UndrgroundRider]

I would recommend nVidia at this point if you are just gaming. All of the Radeon cards have an inflated price by about 50% due to increased demand by litecoin miners. Literally cards you buy a full year ago are now 25-50% more expensive today.

[faiz999]

visit gpuboss.com

best breakdown of price and performance

[TYMSMNY]

Yeah, the radeon cards are hard to come by now. I bought 2 R9 280x and the next day they bumped up the price by $50. Stock comes in, gone the next.

Look into the GTX line. GTX770 is a good choice as someone mentioned.