Upgrade question/suggestions for htpc

[aab23c]

Hey All, looking for suggestions. I have a HTPC driving the living room for the family. It is a General purpose entertainment box.. WMC running most of the time, some podcast watching, Music, Airplay for streaming from the ipads, iphones, and Steam for gamining

specs

CPU AMD 8320

GPU AMD 7850 w/ 1 Gig of Ram

16 gigs ram 12800

120 SSD with win 8.1, and programs

2 TB WD Green for games and general files

3 TB WD Green for DVR, Photos, Music

ceton cable card

500 watt cooler master psu

Silverstone GD07 case

running noctuea cooler to keep the noise below 25 db

---------

With all that in mind, what I am looking for is an upgrade to the GPU. Normally sky is the limit and I would drop money on a 850 psu and a gtx 980 or r9 290x, but as this is an HTPC, i need to balance price, performance, and noise. The box needs to run as quite as possible, all the time.

I am having trouble with frame rate drops on some more recent games, so I am looking for something that can keep up with todays games, and high mostion (Call of duty, and shift 2, have crazy frame rate drops for me) plus as much eye candy as possble, but keeping the noise nearly not audible. I nearly bought a gtx 760 today or a r9 270, but the specs on those look barely better than the 7850 I have in the box.

If you have suggestions I would welcome them. Here is my curve, I am trying to keep my costs in the 200 range, so I know that this may be an issue.

Thanks!

[Praxis]

Hey All, looking for suggestions. I have a HTPC driving the living room for the family. It is a General purpose entertainment box.. WMC running most of the time, some podcast watching, Music, Airplay for streaming from the ipads, iphones, and Steam for gamining

specs

CPU AMD 8320

GPU AMD 7850 w/ 1 Gig of Ram

16 gigs ram 12800

120 SSD with win 8.1, and programs

2 TB WD Green for games and general files

3 TB WD Green for DVR, Photos, Music

ceton cable card

500 watt cooler master psu

Silverstone GD07 case

running noctuea cooler to keep the noise below 25 db

---------

With all that in mind, what I am looking for is an upgrade to the GPU. Normally sky is the limit and I would drop money on a 850 psu and a gtx 980 or r9 290x, but as this is an HTPC, i need to balance price, performance, and noise. The box needs to run as quite as possible, all the time.

I am having trouble with frame rate drops on some more recent games, so I am looking for something that can keep up with todays games, and high mostion (Call of duty, and shift 2, have crazy frame rate drops for me) plus as much eye candy as possble, but keeping the noise nearly not audible. I nearly bought a gtx 760 today or a r9 270, but the specs on those look barely better than the 7850 I have in the box.

If you have suggestions I would welcome them. Here is my curve, I am trying to keep my costs in the 200 range, so I know that this may be an issue.

Thanks!

I'm not sure if it's in your range as you don't specify currancy, but I'm assuming $200 USD, but the gtx 970 is the best bang for you buck from nVidia at the moment, if you do mean USD it is over your limit though.

I don't look into the AMD graphics cards so I can't comment on them in comparison.

Sorry I'm probably telling you what you already know.

[aab23c]

Thanks Praxis, I did end up ordering a 970 on Amazon the gigabyte itx version, size, and power requirements I have won me over. Now to not let the wife know. Lol