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A Graphics Card for Xmas

KugarWeb

KugarWeb

KugarWeb

Associate
Joined
10 Jan 2011
Posts
54
Hey guys,

Yeah okay we've only just hit November...
BUT my girlfriend wants some ideas for Christmas presents so she can start saving money back and just to get things ordered in time etc. Also, I figured I'd start talking about this now so there's plenty of time for research.

I mainly use this computer for HD video editing and rendering - After Effects, Premiere etc as well as some pretty heavy image editing in Photoshop. I also use the computer for some casual gaming such as GTA and LOTRO.

What I'd really like is for my games to play without all the choppiness! :p

So, my current setup is as follows:

Power Supply: Corsair 750W
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L ATX
Processor: Intel Q8300 QuadCore 2.66Ghz
Graphics Card: ATi Radeon HD 3470 Series
Memory: Corsair DDR2 XMS PC6400 6GB (3x2GB)
HDD: 2x 1TB 7200RPM and 5400RPM

Budget is around £50-100 which I suspect is very low for this part but as it's for a Christmas present, money is tight! lol

Anything else you need to know? :).

Cheers,

KugarWeb.

EDIT: By the way, a couple of cards I've looked into are the AMD 6450, 1GB DDR3 and 1200Mhz clock....and a PNY GeForce GT520. The specs seemed to be good and within price range but what do you guys think?
 
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A GTX 460 768mb would have been ideal but I just checked and it looks like OCUK stopped stocking them just this past week. They were on sale for £80 I think. Really good little card. Would run even the newest of the new games at a good frame rate and with all settings on high at 1600x1050 or lower. You would get even better performance if you spent the rest of your budget on a CM 212 Plus cooler and then overclocked your Q8300.

Also you might be able to get something for a good price second hand on ebay. For reference, I'm selling my 9800GTX+. The going rate is about £40 and that card is probably 3x as powerful as what you're working with currently, so for £100 you might be able to get a 6870 or something like that if you're lucky.
 
Quixote said:
This :

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-264-AS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1982

will be much, much faster than your current card.
Click to expand...

This looks perfect! I'm also attracted by the 3 Year Warranty as my last card lasted just before 2 years without enough time to get it sent off.

Though one thing bothers me about the card and that's the memory interface. After looking at the GeForce GTX 550Ti, the comparisons are:

Asus HD 6770: 128-bit
GeForce GTX 550Ti: 192-bit

Is this going to make a noticable difference?

Also, is it likely Overclockers will have a big sale on this type of component towards Christmas (ie. should I hold fire until nearer the time?). Are there likely to be any releases due before the Christmas period?

Cheers for the help guys, much appreciated :)
 
I'd get the 256 bit version (6790) if you can :

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-266-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1982


On a separate note, the thread title could bring David Essex a new hit.


This night I shall dream of your bedazzling red or green hair and core clock-eyes.
Wrapped in echoes of your mellifluous memory interface-music,
I long to sip from your pixel rate lips.
In my dreams, we fly on the exquisite winged texel rate - skimming vast continents of shaders and texture units.
The depths of all the oceans of the universe shall never separate our memory interfaces.
Brilliant as nvidia, the green and turquoise seas greet us from afar.
In the twilight we feast on chocolate-coated coolers and tender pci express hearts of love
Adorned in white silk, we pluck our bandwidth love chimes from our x16 lanes.
I press the slot that you wear around your neck against my shaders-muffin so that our pixel rates melt into one.
You will always be my little amd-cakes face, the core clock of my own nvidia eye of love.
 
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arc@css said:
For around £150 you'd be looking at a 6870 or a 560 (special offers aside).
Click to expand...

Cool okay. I've looked up both cards - the 560 is a little too much out of my budget but the 6870 looks very nice!

Two more things I'm not clear on are what the differences between the 6870 being capable of Open GL3.2 vs the 560's Open GL4.0 support?

Also, what are the actual differences between this 6870 (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-252-SP) and this one (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-275-SP)?

Is the extra tenner going on extra cooling components (e.g. Vapour X)?
 
KugarWeb said:
Cool okay. I've looked up both cards - the 560 is a little too much out of my budget but the 6870 looks very nice!

^^ I was referring to the 560, not the 560ti - though there is a 'ti' for £10 over budget, but if you're not careful you'll keep upping the limit and so on. :D

Two more things I'm not clear on are what the differences between the 6870 being capable of Open GL3.2 vs the 560's Open GL4.0 support?

^^ I don't know much about this but if I have my basics right then open gl 4.0 is kind of an equivalent to dx11, providing support for tessellation where as the earlier versions didn't do this, but did give support for vertex, fragment and geometry shaders.

Also, what are the actual differences between this 6870 (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-252-SP) and this one (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-275-SP)?

^^ I can't see a card in the second link, unless I have missed something.

Is the extra tenner going on extra cooling components (e.g. Vapour X)?
Click to expand...
 
arc@css said:
Cool okay. I've looked up both cards - the 560 is a little too much out of my budget but the 6870 looks very nice!

^^ I was referring to the 560, not the 560ti - though there is a 'ti' for £10 over budget, but if you're not careful you'll keep upping the limit and so on.

Two more things I'm not clear on are what the differences between the 6870 being capable of Open GL3.2 vs the 560's Open GL4.0 support?

^^ I don't know much about this but if I have my basics right then open gl 4.0 is kind of an equivalent to dx11, providing support for tessellation where as the earlier versions didn't do this, but did give support for vertex, fragment and geometry shaders.

Also, what are the actual differences between this 6870 (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=GX-252-SP) and this one (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...id=GX-275-SP)?

^^ I can't see a card in the second link, unless I have missed something.

Is the extra tenner going on extra cooling components (e.g. Vapour X)?
Click to expand...

Yeah I'd better quit at £150 otherwise no one is going to be able to afford it, including my girlfriend lol.

Sorry, the second graphics card should have been this one :) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-275-SP. I would go for the HIS for the same price to get Deux Ex and Dirt 3 bundled but to be honest I really don't trust HIS' build quality anymore :\

If CUDA is important to you then shouldn't you be just looking at Nvidia cards?
Click to expand...

True, but I'm trying to find a compromise between work and play :lol: Basically, games come a very close second to work requirements so if I can get the best of both worlds then great! If not, then games win to work, mainly because I will eventually have a dedicated work computer sometime in the near future hopefully :)
 
Troezar said:
Don't buy anything until early December as new card are due out meaning a drop in prices and more for your money ;)
Click to expand...

I don't know. The new Nvidia cards won't be out until well into 2012 and the new AMD cards, although they will be out in very small numbers before Xmas (mainly going to reviewers), they won't realistically be available to buy until early 2012. Then again I heard the new version of the 560Ti is out before Xmas which will likely mean a drop in current 560Ti prices down to the sub £130 mark, maybe?
 
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