what's the best bang/buck for a budget of $150-200?

dpk33

Senior member
Mar 6, 2011
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plays most games at highest settings resolution of 1680x1050. cpu is a stock i3, so will that bottleneck?
 

CasaDeOrellana

Junior Member
Aug 3, 2010
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well, i'm not getting it on newegg and the suppliers around my area don't have the gtx 560. my options are gtx 460, gtx 550 ti, radeon 6870. any other suggestions are welcome.

I think for overall performance you’ll be better off with the GTX 460, price wise go with the EVGA GTX 550 Ti.

EVGA GTX 550 Ti $139.99 AFR $119.99
http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-P...806880&sr=8-20[FONT=&quot]
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WaTaGuMp

Lifer
May 10, 2001
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well, i'm not getting it on newegg and the suppliers around my area don't have the gtx 560. my options are gtx 460, gtx 550 ti, radeon 6870. any other suggestions are welcome.

460 and OC it.
 

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
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dpk33

Senior member
Mar 6, 2011
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will any of these cards be bottlenecked really badly with a stock core i3 processor?
 

WaTaGuMp

Lifer
May 10, 2001
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will any of these cards be bottlenecked really badly with a stock core i3 processor?

You should probably say which one you have other than just i3. My CPU is old and still runs my 6850 just fine.
 

cusideabelincoln

Diamond Member
Aug 3, 2008
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OK so 6870 or gtx460. Which one is a better performer and uses less power?
They are about the same in both areas - if we're talking about overclocked versions of the 460. At around 800 MHz core clock is when the 460 competes, performance-wise, with the 6870. But mostly it's going to come down to which vendor a game prefers.

Your processor should be fine.
 

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
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They are about the same in both areas - if we're talking about overclocked versions of the 460. At around 800 MHz core clock is when the 460 competes, performance-wise, with the 6870. But mostly it's going to come down to which vendor a game prefers.

Your processor should be fine.

The 6870 is faster than the 460. Some 460's can O/C by quite a lot and make up the stagger. Many can't though. O/C'ing is not guaranteed by any stretch. The 6870 running 900MHz (reference clocks) is though. Then the 6870 can be O/C'd. When you O/C the 460 to get to about 6870 performance it's power usage is quite a bit higher. In the end, even though you can push a good percentage of 460's to or near stock 6870 performance, as long as the resolution doesn't get too high, the 460 then gets louder, hotter, and uses quite a lot of power. IMO it takes a lot of the positive attributes of the 460 and throws them out the window.
 

Rifter

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
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The 6870 is faster than the 460. Some 460's can O/C by quite a lot and make up the stagger. Many can't though. O/C'ing is not guaranteed by any stretch. The 6870 running 900MHz (reference clocks) is though. Then the 6870 can be O/C'd. When you O/C the 460 to get to about 6870 performance it's power usage is quite a bit higher. In the end, even though you can push a good percentage of 460's to or near stock 6870 performance, as long as the resolution doesn't get too high, the 460 then gets louder, hotter, and uses quite a lot of power. IMO it takes a lot of the positive attributes of the 460 and throws them out the window.

This is true, of course, but the 460 is not competing with the 6870 its priced lower and competes against the 6850 price wise.

Also as long as you dont go overboard with the overclocks and voltage the 460 is still a quiet card that doesnt turn out alot of heat.

OP i would get that $120 460 deal if you still can.

If not then get whatever is cheaper from where you are buying(460, or 6850/6870)
 

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
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This is true, of course, but the 460 is not competing with the 6870 its priced lower and competes against the 6850 price wise.

Also as long as you dont go overboard with the overclocks and voltage the 460 is still a quiet card that doesnt turn out alot of heat.

OP i would get that $120 460 deal if you still can.

If not then get whatever is cheaper from where you are buying(460, or 6850/6870)

The question was which performs better and which is more efficient. The 460 uses about the same power at reference clocks, but is slower. While you can overclock many, not all of them by any stretch, to stock 6870 performance, it will no longer be comparable in power usage.

Telling the OP to buy whichever is cheaper, immediately eliminates the 6870. It's obviously going to not be the least expensive. It is the fastest and most efficient at it's performance level though.
 

Rifter

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
11,522
751
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The question was which performs better and which is more efficient. The 460 uses about the same power at reference clocks, but is slower. While you can overclock many, not all of them by any stretch, to stock 6870 performance, it will no longer be comparable in power usage.

Telling the OP to buy whichever is cheaper, immediately eliminates the 6870. It's obviously going to not be the least expensive. It is the fastest and most efficient at it's performance level though.

This depends on where he is buying, my local shops have had 6870's on sale after rebate cheaper than 6850's(which wernt on sale at the time). Also non north america pricing is really warped sometimes i've had a friend in india ask me for advice on what to buy and i told him a 460 or 6850(was his price range) and in his town there was a $100 difference in prices between the two.

If buying from newegg then that $120 460 deal is the best option.
 

combination

Junior Member
May 25, 2011
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What is a reasonable framerate for the games? I mean a framerate where you can nicely without any lag or freezeups.

If I have a monitor with 1080p resolution and I lower it to 1680x1050, will the picture quality get reaaally bad or would it still be reasonable?

Also when comparing the stock gtx460 to the hd6850, there's very little difference in terms of framerate, only 3-4frames. Some games, gtx460 is slightly better, and in others hd6850 by a few fps. So is 5 frames a big difference?

Also I had read that some cards like the 6000 series are better at tesselation. Is this included in the 4AA(anti-aliasing) test in the charts at anandtech GPU benchmark tests?

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/313?vs=291

Or is it safe to say that these cards are almost the same, and one should just get the cheaper card one can get?
 
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nitromullet

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2004
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I've been pretty impressed with this 6870 coming from a GTX 580. I play at 2560x1440, and it handles most things pretty well. Crysis of course requires reduced settings, but CoD BO, Portal 2, and Crysis 2 (very high settings) all ran smoothly. It doesn't touch the GTX 580 obviously, but I wasn't expecting it to be as solid at 2560x1440 as it is.