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Hey guys any graphics card experts out there

Associate
Joined
3 May 2011
Posts
17
Hi there guys and girls im new to overclockers, but i hear this is the place to come for the best advise on upgrades, i have had my rig for about 2 years now and has been great, but my graphics card needs replacing, i have about £200 to spend, my rig is as follows, any help would be much appreciated, thank you i advance


Manufacturer:
Custom Rig
Processor:
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
Memory:
8192MB RAM
Hard Drive:
500 GB
Video Card:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275
Monitor:
1 x Samsung Syncmaster 22" And 1 x Iiyama ple19"
Sound Card:
Speakers (High Definition Audio Device)
Speakers/Headphones:
7.1 Inspire T7700
Keyboard:
USB Root Hub
Mouse:
USB Root Hub
Mouse Surface:
Desk
Operating System:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_gdr.100618-1621)
Motherboard:
Asus P5Q PRO
Computer Case:
Thermaltake 7 Fan

cheers GonZ
 
Welcome to Overclockers :D Id probs say (for £200) maybe a 5870 or a 6850. DO you know what res your monitor runs at??
 
At that resolution a 5850 would do a great job for around £115. If you are planning to upgrade the screen at some point the best £200 card is the 6950. If you get the right one you can flash it to a 6970, which makes it an absolute bargain.
 
Hi GonZ,
Cant help you decide but thought you might like to know that im in the same situation (getting a new G-card) as well as updating the rest of my rig :) (that time has come) im also new but overclockers, looks like its defo the place to come for advice.
Ive been to the forums many times before as it seems full of mature helpful people with great advice, its kind of weird because i almost feel like i know half the people on here as i have read that many threads lol

Anway i cant decide on these three cards

PNY GTX 570 £200

GIGABYTE GTX 480 £200

PNY GTX 470 £140

Well thats my choice i have to make i know it looks like an obvious choice to go with the pny gtx 570 but you should know that would be 2nd hand but does have 10months warranty with it, the reason why ive included that is my budget of £200 and i cant decided whether thats a good price or not for a 2nd hand 570 and whether i should take the risk on it?
Anyway ive decided to go with nvida because of the tessalation performance over the amd cards because i will be playing games like bf3 and cr2 ect.. and am really looking forward to the dx 11 and the 3d on these titles.
 
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Gonz:

Is your carding giving trouble, or do you want an upgrade? Your CPU is probably bottlenecking your current card in many games so there probably isn't much point upgrading. If it's just to replace it then the 5830 is great value at £77 this week and is virtually the same card as the one you have now- albeit slightly slower.
 
Hi GonZ,
Cant help you decide but thought you might like to know that im in the same situation (getting a new G-card) as well as updating the rest of my rig :) (that time has come) im also new but overclockers, looks like its defo the place to come for advice.
Ive been to the forums many times before as it seems full of mature helpful people with great advice, its kind of weird because i almost feel like i know half the people on here as i have read that many threads lol

Anway i cant decide on these three cards

PNY GTX 570 £200

GIGABYTE GTX 480 £200

PNY GTX 470 £140

Well thats my choice i have to make i know it looks like an obvious choice to go with the pny gtx 570 but you should know that would be 2nd hand but does have 10months warranty with it, the reason why ive included that is my budget of £200 and i cant decided whether thats a good price or not for a 2nd hand 570 and whether i should take the risk on it?
Anyway ive decided to go with nvida because of the tessalation performance over the amd cards because i will be playing games like bf3 and cr2 ect.. and am really looking forward to the dx 11 and the 3d on these titles.

The GTX480 runs very hot and very loud with the stock cooler so if you want to get that one then I would suggest getting the SOC for an extra £50 or so which has a better and quieter cooler on it.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-079-GI&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1750

Stoner81.
 
Hey thanks stoner, how bad is the noise on a gtx 480 because i do like a quiet system i have the coolermaster cosmos case and it does a pretty good job of keeping things fairly quiet im thinking of getting some more sound insulation for it if i need to when i upgrade my fans fairly soon.
These are the fans i will be upgrading to Scythe Gentle Typhoon D1225C12B4AP-14 i will have 5 of those running to keep things cool but have no idea how loud that's going to make things over my stock fans if it makes it louder at all that is.
 
Is it worth the risk though blue? and is it a good price it has 10months warranty with it the guy is only getting rid because he has a 6970 and prefers the higher fps performance at higher resolutions on the 6970,
I don't even know if pny is a trustworthy make its a reference card and i dont know the history of it, but thought id best not rule it out :)
 
If it were my money I'd take the risk, especially with ten months warranty left. The reference design for the 570 is very good. I've bought second hand cards before and not had a problem. One of my current 460's is second hand.

The 480 is known for being very loud and hot, so if noise matters to you I'd rule that out.

Edit: Reference 570's seem to be around £270, so the second hand price sounds reasonable.
 
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thanks blue,
i could live with some noise however i don't have a clue of what to expect with these top end cards id hate to be sitting next to something that sounded like a plane.
 
thanks for jumping onto my thread spydel, when i asked the question !! the card i had was 275 but it has gone back because of freezing and bsod and they have asked me to pick a replacement i was looking at the gtx560 ti by asus or gigabyte the asus has a core of 830 mhz and the gigabyte 900 mhz and do you think my processor mine not be handling the card??
 
thanks for jumping onto my thread spydel, when i asked the question !! the card i had was 275 but it has gone back because of freezing and bsod and they have asked me to pick a replacement i was looking at the gtx560 ti by asus or gigabyte the asus has a core of 830 mhz and the gigabyte 900 mhz and do you think my processor mine not be handling the card??

It will be game dependant and even scene depend. At times you will certainly be bottlenecked by your CPU. I just think that £200 is a lot money to spend on a card, when you can get a £77 card that is ~70% as fast and probably just as fast in a lot of situations due to your CPU.
 
Gonz:

Is your carding giving trouble, or do you want an upgrade? Your CPU is probably bottlenecking your current card in many games so there probably isn't much point upgrading. If it's just to replace it then the 5830 is great value at £77 this week and is virtually the same card as the one you have now- albeit slightly slower.
I actually agree with the part about the CPU bottleneck.

1680 res should be a walk in the park for the GTX275, and if you are getting poor frame rate, it is because you Q6600 is stuck at the lowerly stock speed of 2.4GHz. You need to look into overclocking it (and get a better CPU cooler if you are only using a stock CPU cooler).

As for 5830, it is actually SLOWER than the 4890, which is known to be on par with the GTX275...so that effective make the 5830 slower than the GTX275 as well.

Honestly the GTX275 is more than enough for 1680 res, and the CPU at its current speed is definitely the weakest link. If you don't up the CPU speed, upgrading to faster cards just ain't gonna give you more frame rate than what you are currently getting.
 
Before you go and get the 570 can you tell us what your PSU is.

You dont want a 570 if you only have a small power supply.
 
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