Upgrade time

[enis083]

I am looking to upgrade my 8800 GTS to either a 460, 560 or a 6870. This is for moderate gaming MW3, Starcraft 2, etc... I know that the CPU will be limiting my upgrade options so I don't want to overspend on the video card. I don't plan on upgrading the system for at least another year.

Current setup:
MSI P6N SLI Platinum
E6600 @ 2.4Ghz
EVGA GeForce 8800GTS 320MB
6 gigs of RAM
Corsair 520W
Monitor 1920x1080

I've been looking at the following cards:
MSI N460GTX Hawk GeForce GTX 460 - $140 after rebates
Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 1GB - $140 after rebates
MSI N560GTX GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB - $170 after rebates

Thanks!

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

6870 is more bang for the buck. However, I don't know if the games you mentioned are "optimized" for one brand or another.

 

[toyota]

I would not even bother with anything more than the cheapest gtx460. and even that card will be severally held back.

 

[VirtualLarry]

severally

severely

 

[Leyawiin]

Of those three the GTX 560 and HD 6870 are tied at stock clocks (about the only difference is if a game is Nvidia or AMD friendly). Being the HD 6870 is the cheapest before rebates and tied for cheapest after that makes it pretty compelling. Great band-for-the-buck. I prefer the Nvidia Control Panel to CCC for fine tuning game settings so that's why I went with the GTX 560. It was worth a little more to me.

Given your CPU isn't OC'ed I'm guessing you probably won't OC your video card, so it really doesn't matter - go with the best deal.

 

[toyota]

severely

lol, okay I slipped up and clicked the wrong word in spell checker. do you really want me to start correcting other members around here???

 

[Leyawiin]

Actually, a GTX 550 Ti or HD 6770 is about all you need for that CPU.

 

[happy medium]

A recertified gtx460 768mb is a good choice at 99$ with no rebate.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...0fb29cecd4062f

The gpu will conk out before you use all the memory, especially with your cpu. Its still 2x faster with 2x the memory than the card you have now.

 

[superccs]

BF3 runs pretty well on my gtx 460... so getting as close to that level for ~$100 should go well.

 

[toyota]

BF3 runs pretty well on my gtx 460... so getting as close to that level for ~$100 should go well.

for BF3, perhaps you are forgetting the fact that the OP has an "E6600 @ 2.4Ghz".