Video card suggestions

[aelmore1990]

closed

 

[Blitz KriegeR]

It would help if you listed your full system specs and what kind of budget you have in mind, but my first thought would be either a GTX560 for ~$200 or a GTX460 1GB (*not 768mb*) for arround $150-165. Just make sure you do your research; both of these cards have a huge field for overclocks and some of the factory overclocked cards are worth the extra $$, some are not.

 

[happy medium]

is this for a new build or do you have a card now?

 

[aelmore1990]

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[RussianSensation]

Those games are all old. So a $130 GTX460 1GB is all you need. In addition to that, not sure why you decided to go with the Phenom. Just about any Sandy Bridge processor is better.

 

[happy medium]

Those games are all old. So a $130 GTX460 1GB is all you need. In addition to that, not sure why you decided to go with the Phenom. Just about any Sandy Bridge processor is better.

WOW, get em while there hot, thats a great price for that card.

 

[aelmore1990]

closed

 

[timma]

5770 SO/6850 OC lower PSU watt usage~

 

[aelmore1990]

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[RussianSensation]

550 Watts PSU? What brand (how many Amps on 12V rail)? You can see I am powering a an overclocked Core i7 CPU and a high-end GPU without problems on a 520W. So the PSU shouldn't be a concern for you.

At idle, not much separates modern cards in terms of power consumption.

At load, unless you are running very slow GPUs such as 5670/6670/5750, things aren't much difference. HD5770 in a system amounts to 272 W but a 6950 which is nearly 2x faster consumes just 55W more.

Looks like HD6870 may be a good tradeoff for your purposes. Here is a Sapphire version for $170 with a quieter cooler too. That's about 20% faster than the GTX460 1GB Zotac I linked.

 

[aelmore1990]

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[betasub]

I'm a worried about ATIs drivers. Are they fairly decent nowadays?

Sigh. Yes, they have been "fairly decent" for a long time. Are you equally worried about Nvidia's drivers, or did you miss the past few years?

 

[aelmore1990]

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[Madcatatlas]

Do you want me to trow you ..6 or so links to nvidia drivers exploding cards? and im talking WHQL certified drivers (spelling mistake on WHQL?)

Oh and thats just for the flagship of nvidia, the second fastest card behind the Radeon 6990 which is the fastest card.

The 2xx series had several drivers which killed cards i belive.


Not only have AMD drivers been equal or better than Nvidias, but their Crossfire scaling is now better.

But really if you want to stick with nvidia, go with the gtx460, id happily recommend the one in my sig, great card!

 

[aelmore1990]

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[notty22]

Do you want me to trow you ..6 or so links to nvidia drivers exploding cards? and im talking WHQL certified drivers (spelling mistake on WHQL?)

Oh and thats just for the flagship of nvidia, the second fastest card behind the Radeon 6990 which is the fastest card.

The 2xx series had several drivers which killed cards i belive.


Not only have AMD drivers been equal or better than Nvidias, but their Crossfire scaling is now better.

But really if you want to stick with nvidia, go with the gtx460, id happily recommend the one in my sig, great card!

edit: removed, waste of time.

 

[RussianSensation]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...550w%20modular

This is the one I plan on using.

The card you linked looks good, but I'm a worried about ATIs drivers. Are they fairly decent nowadays?

That PSU is more than sufficient.

 

[aelmore1990]

closed

 

[Gikaseixas]

Top suggestions
1 - GTX 560
2 - HD 6870
3 - GTX 460 1GB
4 - HD 6850

 

[RussianSensation]

So I've pretty much narrowed it down to either the GTX 460 or the 6870.

Just curious though, where do the 550 Ti and 560 play into all of this? Or hell, even the 6850.

Here is a nice quick summary at various resolutions.

Bang for the buck, nothing touches an HD5850 for $140 (esp with lifetime warranty).

 

[aelmore1990]

closed

 

[RussianSensation]

That's because HD6850 was more a replacement for the HD5770 and HD6950 replaced the HD5850. Without going into too many details, the 5850 is better than the 6850 but the 6870 is preferable to the 5850. In 3-4 weeks we may see rebates on GTX560 (non-Ti) cards bringing their pricing closer to the $170-180 range. In that case, given the additional overclocking headroom those cards offer, it would be the preferable choice over the 6870.