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Advice for new graphics card.

Cake

Cake

Cake

Associate
Joined
7 Oct 2006
Posts
76
Location
London
Hi all,

I currently have a HIS X1950 PRO IceQ 3 Turbo 256MB PCIe which is now almost 4 years old. It runs on a Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 motherboard and is powered by a FSP Sparkle Blue Storm 2 400W PSU which has two 12v rails. My monitor has both DVI and VGA inputs.

I'm wondering which cards will be compatible with this setup. I have a feeling I'll have to upgrade my PSU no matter what as most of the cards I've looked at require two 6-pin connectors from the PSU going in.

I'm also planning on building a new machine in around 6/7 months time so I'd like something that'd be relatively future-proof too. A HDMI output would be a plus as I plan to get another (~24") monitor at some point too.

I'd also like to point out that my current graphics card is preventing me from upgrading to Windows 7 (I'm still on XP) as it has been underclocked using ATI Tray Tools to make it run stable. For some reason, ever since I bought it, running the card at stock speeds makes the ATI VPU Recovery kick in when it's stressed and sometimes I end up with a blank screen and need to reboot. Since ATI Tray Tools uses unsigned drivers, I can't install it on Win7 and hence I'm unable to upgrade.

Also, because of the above problem I'm quite hesitant to go with ATI again. However, I'm no hardware guru so if there's strong reasoning to go with ATI, I'm still open to it.

I'll be playing upcoming titles, e.g. Crysis 2, Deus Ex 3, Diablo 3, Mass Effect 3 etc. with it (a lot of 3s there... hmm).

So what's the best card I can get for upto ~£150?
 
A 5770 will get you to medium high for all games to come for the next year/2 and only needs 1 6-pin connector, so your PSu would be sufficient, it also fits your price point very well. If you find the cash to splurge then get a 550W+ PSU for 60 punt and then get a 5850/70 or a lovely 470/480, but thats 300+ pounds there all in all, the 5770 suits your needs a bit better for the current climate i guess...
 
For right now HD5770 and GTX460 seem like good options, especially if you are running off of a 400W PSU. The latter doing better at 1080p gaming, but as anyone here would point out, a refresh from ATI is just around the corner and will no doubt up the ante on the performance per pound/power efficiency side of things. Hold back until the 6xxx series hits the market, unless you simply must upgrade. :)
 
if i had the x1950 i woulda jumped the bones of a 5770 on launch a few months back if i were you, but data is right, besides all the madness surrounding the new radeons i think the first to launch will be the sucessors to the 57Xx's , i.e. exactly the card you want to be buying, so if a new ati card launches within the next 3 months with some odd code not to what you expected but costing 140 pounds, then its the sucessor to the 5770 and will whoop it performance wise by a conservative 20% prob higher,

So hold out if you can, or get better opinions from people on here :P
 
I should have mentioned that if it gets me a better graphics card I'm willing to invest in a new PSU. With the PSU I'd be prepared to spend ~£200 (I don't mind a little extra) total
 
Well, I don't know how much longer I can hold out for :)

I've already had so many problems with this graphics card. I've had crashes with Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, Star Wars: KOTOR 2 and just today Front Mission Evolved. Also, I really want to upgrade to Win7 as my laptop and work machines are already on it and I'm getting tired of trying to use Win7 shortcuts and features on my XP box ;P
 
PSU's are a lifetime investment not a transient one like a graphics card, my next PSU will cost me 90 pounds and im gonna use it for my next 3 pc's into the future i hope :), raising your wallet to 200 means you will spend likely 60 on a psu more powerful than your current one, and have the same budget for the graphics card anyways, I'd look towards both as future buys for your case, but i wouldnt ask us to spec em in a combo, since your FSP psu will do grand with any card we spec you upto 150 pounds :)
 
Well, I'm planning on investing in a new PSU for my new build next year anyway since I strongly doubt the current one will be able to handle the specs I have in mind. So I'd rather have both a graphics card and PSU I can put into the new build.

I'm starting to think I should wait another month and consider spending that £100 extra...
 
I decided I'll get a PSU now and get the graphics card next month. I've had a theory for a while that the reason my card resets when it's on load at stock speeds is because the PSU can't provide the power that it needs at that point. If I turn out to be right I can at least start migrating to Win 7.

For my new build I'm planning on an i7 with 6-12GB RAM and an SSD drive. I'm thinking this PSU should be sufficient: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-117-AN
 
So I bought the Antec TruePower PSU I mentioned and installed it yesterday. No change in stability for my GPU though.

I've been looking at the NVidia GTX 470 cards around the £200 mark, but I'm not sure which one to go for.

A lot of the reviews mention that these cards are loud/noisy, but without actually hearing one I can't really compare it with my current X1950. I'm also concerned about the length of the cards as in my current case (Antec SLK3000B), the X1950 almost reaches the hard drive cage. Thankfully most of the new cards have the power sockets on the side instead of at the end so maybe I can squeeze in a card that's a few extra centimetres long.
 
What CPU you got at the moment and what speed is it at? Causes if you got a slow CPU, the CPU bottlenecking the graphic card (making it as slow as the lower end card) for the next 6-7 months as long as until you upgrade you system, and in my opinion it would be a bad idea (since you are not making full use of the card, and the card value would depreciate over the next 6-7 months if you do go for something like GTX470/6870). If that is the case, I think it would probably be more realistic to just spend around £35-£40 to get a 2nd hand 8800GT/9800GT/GTS250/HD4850 to keep you aflow until you upgrade your system, then get a better graphic card and sell your...whatever 2nd hand card you got to tide you over. Even the cards I mention, they would be at least twice as fast as your current card.
 
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Thanks for all your input guys. I took your advice, Marine and went for a HD4850 (https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-007-HS).

I was wondering though, what is the actual bottleneck between CPU and graphics card. Is it the speed of the VRAM being higher than the CPU clock frequency itself that creates the bottleneck? From looking at the newer cards I saw that their memory speeds are ~twice the speed of the ones you mentioned. Or is it something else?
 
^ Mixture of a few things.

Some games are cpu limited, some are gpu limited.

The cpu is used to feed data to the gpu and to run physics calculations depending on the game.

For instance BFBC2 is cpu dependant. Becuase if you take the same graphics card (that can max out the graphics), the fps will carry on scaling based on how many cores and how fast those cores are running. (Until it reaches a point where the gpu is the bottle neck)

But take a game like Metro 2033, in my breif experinece with the game that game, puts so much load on the GPU the cpu is not the bottleneck. The fps will scale with a fast modern cpu as you increase the power of the gpu... (Until it reaches a point where the cpu is the bottle neck)

Ideally you want a good match between your cpu and gpu.

So if your cpu is not very fast. Then save your money and get a more conservative card. 4850 is probably about right.
 
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Would something like this not be better than the 4850?:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-186-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=708


Performance graphs slightly down page: http://uk.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=27073607

Has 5750 about 7% better than 4850. Plus 5750 will have Dx11 and support for latest Shader Model etc....

If you get the chance, Id send the card back or cancel if you already bought it. Get the 5750!

But in truth your cpu is very weak may not be worth it. But if you ever wanted to upgrade the cpu, your already have a decent gpu!
 
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