Best Video card for under $200-$250?

[SickBeast]

1200mhz or ban!!!

 

[vailr]

power requirements are a none issue

I don't know about where you live, but for most people: electricity has a cost associated with it. And: the equivalent of an extra 200 watt light bulb inside of a computer would put out significant room heat.

 

[Gordon Freemen]

I don't know about where you live, but for most people: electricity has a cost associated with it. And: the equivalent of an extra 200 watt light bulb inside of a computer would put out significant room heat.

My take on that is it does not bother me and my friends in the leased bit however in Canada where I am at leased we don't have to pay an arm and leg for power and it's cold 6 to 8 months out of the year so the extra heat the card may output is in turn saving money on the gas bill

 

[Silverforce11]

I'm not considering either card, but what if you simply do not over clock and do not care to overclock and will never over clock? Every time someone mentions the 7850 the first answer is always overclock. I just find it amusing to be honest. I think i'll wait for Nvidia to answer the price point with something new and see what happens. It should be interesting atleast. If the NV offering is faster the first will still be overclock. LOL

Overclock/Overclock/Overclock/Overclock

Other ppl have said the entire lineup on 28nm is poor value if you don't OC, this applies to every card currently on 28nm. Their performance leap over 40nm products do not justify their huge prices.. but if you do OC, the perf/$ suddenly becomes very attractive.

 

[Rifter]

Well if you stay stock without overclock the $219 480 is probably the best choice in that 200-250 price range.

However with all the other options available it would be ill advised to purchase one today, the 7850 is a much better choice and will become better the longer you own it in power savings alone.

 

[Shmee]

Just curious, but how does the 7850 compare to the 6950? Especially when they are in Crossfire?

 

[lehtv]

7850 is slightly faster than 6950 but it overclocks much better. They have similar crossfire scaling, however 7850 consumes less power and produces less heat which is great for crossfire. You can run 7850 CF on a 550W unit, 650W with heavy OC.

 

[Shmee]

Interesting. What if said 6950's are unlocked?

 

[SickBeast]

Interesting. What if said 6950's are unlocked?

7850s are still better.

 

[Shmee]

Good to hear. Still, sounds like it would be a bit of a side grade for someone like me to go to 7850 crossfire. I would probably consider minimum upgrade of 7950 crossfire, but that would require enough money to buy a new motherboard, CPU, and SSD as well :C

I would like to get a good SATA 3 SSD and motherboard/cpu with support for native Sata 3 and PCIE 3, but that would require more moneys, not to mention the GPUs.

 

[SickBeast]

A single overclocked 7850 has been plenty for me and I'm pretty fussy. It maxes out BF3 at 1080p quite nicely.

 

[Shmee]

ya, I have heard its the card to get in that range. I am at 1600p though.

 

[SickBeast]

ya, I have heard its the card to get in that range. I am at 1600p though.

You could probably eek it out but you would have to lower some settings.

 

[Shmee]

or get 2 of them

 

[SickBeast]

or get 2 of them

I'm not sure that's a good idea right now. I've heard horror stories about 7850 crossfire; the drivers are terrible.

Heck, they can't even seem to get the single card drivers working properly.

The drivers are so bad it actually reminds me of my 8800GTS under Vista when it first came out.

 

[Shmee]

yikes, sounds bad. I guess I will wait and see :C

 

[heck493]

personaly i use a i5 with a 7850 and i run higher fps than my friend with similar with the gtx 480 so i'd have to say 7850 highest bang for ur buck plus it runs cooler and quiter lowering how many fans i need in my cpu so it saves me an upwards of 100 dollars.

 

[toyota]

personaly i use a i5 with a 7850 and i run higher fps than my friend with similar with the gtx 480 so i'd have to say 7850 highest bang for ur buck plus it runs cooler and quiter lowering how many fans i need in my cpu so it saves me an upwards of 100 dollars.

sounds real scientific...

 

[heck493]

sounds real scientific...

i5-2500k both of us mine xfx radeon 7850 he uses a evga geforce gtx 480 i use windows 7 home premium 12 gb of ram 750 hdd he uses windows 7 home premium 16 gbs of ram 1 tb hdd. happy now?

 

[toyota]

i5-2500k both of us mine xfx radeon 7850 he uses a evga geforce gtx 480 i use windows 7 home premium 12 gb of ram 750 hdd he uses windows 7 home premium 16 gbs of ram 1 tb hdd. happy now?

you saying that you get higher fps than he does without having direct comparable benchmarks is the part that I take issue with. a stock 480 is faster than a stock 7850.

 

[ocre]

7850 is slightly faster than 6950 but it overclocks much better. They have similar crossfire scaling, however 7850 consumes less power and produces less heat which is great for crossfire. You can run 7850 CF on a 550W unit, 650W with heavy OC.

by your link the 6950 wins a few. It scores higher on the power consumption test...............




lol