I'm in the market for a mid range GPU - Nvidia or AMD ???

[aoommen]

This would be my first GPU purchase in a long long time, for my first build.

Max Budget : $ 200 (+/- 10&#37😉

Primary Purpose : Few Games now and then, some video editing (not professional, just home videos) - some Photoshop work.

System Specs (Config):

1 CPU: Intel i5 - 2500K - 3.3 GHz
2 Motherboard: ASUS Z68 Chipset P8Z68 V
3 SSD- Crucial -M4 CT064M4SSD2 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC+
4 RAM: Corsair 16 GB Vengenace
5 HDD- Samsung Spinpoint F3 1 TB SATA II (3GB/S)
6 Case: NZXT Phantom Black Full Tower
7 Power Supply: Seasonic X Series 650 W Gold ATX
8 ODD- LG Blu Ray Writer - WH12LS30
9 GPU: Undecided yet; XFX Radeon HD 6870 - ZNBC (900 MHz) or EVGA GTX 560-Ti or any other ????
10 Card Reader: SABRENT 7 SLOT 75IN1 INT CRD RE
11 Wireless Adapter: Undecided yet - ASUS PCE-N13 Wireless Adapter or ASUS PCE N-15 or USB
12 CPU Heatsink & Fan: Cooler Master CM Hyper 212 Plus
13 Fan & Temp Controller: Aero Cool Touch 2000 Controller (mainly for looks, the box has fan controls built in) Undecided yet..do I need one...maybe?
14 Case Fans: NZXT 200 mm X 2 (Blue LED)
15 Case Fans: Cooler Master 140 mm X 1 (Blue LED)
16 CPU Fan: Cooler Master 120 mm X 2 (Blue LED)
17 Monitor: Hanns-G 27.5'' LCD Monitor
18 Mouse: Logitech Wireless Performance Mice MX
19 Keyboard: Logitech Wireless Illuminated Keyboard - K800
20 Webcam: Logitech HD Pro C910
21 Sound Card: Not planning to buy one - do i need one
22 Speakers : Undecided - Planning to check out the built in speakers on the monitor before I buy one, but almost sure I would end up buying a 2.1 setup.

All the items in bold are the ones to be bought yet, any advice suggestions on any of those , especially the GPU, would be greatly appreciated.

Few in my consideration set are the following:

XFX Radeon HD 6870 Black Edition
Zotac ZT-50303-10M GTX 560 Ti Overclocked 1024MB GDDR5 PCIe 2.0 x16 Video Card
EVGA GTX 560-Ti (Standard & OC Versions)
EVGA 01G-P3-1366-TR NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 SE 1024MB GDDR5 PCIe 2.0 x16 Video Card (mainly for the software bundle that comes with it)
HD Radeon 6950 (no brands picked yet)

Does the GTX 560 Ti have considerably better performance than the HD 6870 to justify the higher price?

Also on the other Red color coded components please feel free to suggest, comment or mention any great deals that you know about!

Thanks in advance for all your help! Please suggest brand names and models you would recommend with links if possible! (not being demanding just want to make sure I am looking at the right variant within a brand).

MOD EDIT: CROSS POST - Zap

 

[mnewsham]

All the items in bold and colored red are the ones to be bought yet, any advice suggestions on any of those , especially the GPU, would be greatly appreciated.

You should probably bold and colour things so this sentence makes sense.

 

[Ken g6]

What video editing software are you using - Adobe Premiere or something else?

What games do you intend to play?

Would you be interested in overclocking your GPU yourself?

And you listed three occasional tasks. Are you doing something else with the system most of the time?

 

[Slugbait]

I'm nVidia, so I'm not good with comparisons with ATi/AMD (other than driver quality history). With that said...

I would choose EVGA over Zotac.
I would not consider the SE flavor of the 460...get the standard 460 instead. If I were buying today, I'd save a chunk of change on http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121391 for superior performance, plus get a new t-shirt to wash the truck.

I have this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125333 in my HTPC, very quiet, handles CoD : WaW @ 1080P quite nicely.

 

[aoommen]

What video editing software are you using - Adobe Premiere or something else?

What games do you intend to play?

Would you be interested in overclocking your GPU yourself?

And you listed three occasional tasks. Are you doing something else with the system most of the time?

The system is primarily used for work and entertainment, meaning streaming video, DVD/ blu ray movies and such, the work part is a lot of analytical software, crunching a lot of numbers and such, nothing for the GPU there.

Yes the software is Adobe Premiere & Corel Draw - movie editing is mostly done using the MS Movie maker software.

I'm not a hardcore PC gamer like many of the guys here, I do have a PS3 and an XBox Kinect, so most of the gaming is done on those, I plan to play Deus Ex, CoD - Black Ops, Assasin Creed - Brotherhood etc.

Yes overclocking the GPU is something I plan to do...!

Thanks.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Then go with what SlugBait said

 

[VirtualLarry]

I have this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125333 in my HTPC, very quiet, handles CoD : WaW @ 1080P quite nicely.

I have two of those, one in each desktop here. Very nice cards, quiet too. I've had mine as fast as 840Mhz, haven't tried higher. Temps get kinda high though on my CPU and northbridge, when I OC and then load the GPU down (F@H). I don't have great case cooling.

 

[mfenn]

I'm not a hardcore PC gamer like many of the guys here, I do have a PS3 and an XBox Kinect, so most of the gaming is done on those, I plan to play Deus Ex, CoD - Black Ops, Assasin Creed - Brotherhood etc.

Those aren't terribly intensive games, so something like a GTX 460 would be fine. A 6870 is a bit faster for a corresponding increase in price. At the top end of the would be a 6950 1GB.