- Mar 23, 2009
- 5,499
- 2
- 0
i've decided i want to do a little PC gaming again, and my machine is not cutting it. it's a few years old but still a fairly viable platform. e7200 has been rock stable at 3.3ghz for years, 2gb of memory, 8800gt.
so i began to browse the current video card offerings in the 'mainstream' $100-200 price range. god this market has gone to shit with all the submodels and creation of entirely 'new' model lines by rebadging products.
basically i just want to upgrade to 4gb of memory and a faster 1gb video card so i can play the new total war game and whatever else strikes my fancy.
5770/6770 (appear to be the same thing, yet the former seems to benchmark better...) was the first thing i looked at. just a ~100 buck card and the thing destroys my 8800. but i wanted to shop around a bit and see how much more i could get if i wanted to spend 150 or ever 200.
there seems to be a pretty hard wall at about $200. 200-250 range seems to just be occupied by the 6950 and 560Ti. 6870 and vanilla 560 don't seem to drop much performance and can be had for 190 or less. 6850 seems to own the $150 range, 550ti does not compete....but waitaminute, the gtx460 can be had for under $150, and it seems comparible to the newer (older) 560.
basically, using newegg's best priced card for each chipset-
gtx460 o/c 1GB - 150, 120AR
gtx560 o/c 1GB - 190, 180AR
6850 - 160, 150AR
6870 - 188, 168AR
frankly, it seems like the 460 and 6870 are both steals at their pricepoints. the question is is the $40-50 difference worth it, and is there a better way to spend my money?
looking at the top of the 'value' range, i do see that the 6950 and 560ti are getting pretty affordable. 6950 is 240-250 plus a rebate worth 20-30. 560ti is more like 220-235 with $30-40 rebates. 560ti seems appealing for under 200, but the benches seem to show it only running with the cheaper 6870.
most benches just show everything between the 5850/6850 and 6950 as being so damn close together. perhaps i should just spend in the low 100's and settle on a 4x improvement over my current space heater instead of 5x. ;P
so i began to browse the current video card offerings in the 'mainstream' $100-200 price range. god this market has gone to shit with all the submodels and creation of entirely 'new' model lines by rebadging products.
basically i just want to upgrade to 4gb of memory and a faster 1gb video card so i can play the new total war game and whatever else strikes my fancy.
5770/6770 (appear to be the same thing, yet the former seems to benchmark better...) was the first thing i looked at. just a ~100 buck card and the thing destroys my 8800. but i wanted to shop around a bit and see how much more i could get if i wanted to spend 150 or ever 200.
there seems to be a pretty hard wall at about $200. 200-250 range seems to just be occupied by the 6950 and 560Ti. 6870 and vanilla 560 don't seem to drop much performance and can be had for 190 or less. 6850 seems to own the $150 range, 550ti does not compete....but waitaminute, the gtx460 can be had for under $150, and it seems comparible to the newer (older) 560.
basically, using newegg's best priced card for each chipset-
gtx460 o/c 1GB - 150, 120AR
gtx560 o/c 1GB - 190, 180AR
6850 - 160, 150AR
6870 - 188, 168AR
frankly, it seems like the 460 and 6870 are both steals at their pricepoints. the question is is the $40-50 difference worth it, and is there a better way to spend my money?
looking at the top of the 'value' range, i do see that the 6950 and 560ti are getting pretty affordable. 6950 is 240-250 plus a rebate worth 20-30. 560ti is more like 220-235 with $30-40 rebates. 560ti seems appealing for under 200, but the benches seem to show it only running with the cheaper 6870.
most benches just show everything between the 5850/6850 and 6950 as being so damn close together. perhaps i should just spend in the low 100's and settle on a 4x improvement over my current space heater instead of 5x. ;P
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