GPU for £135 max

dirtychinchilla · 14 Nov 2011 at 21:05

Hey guys,

I'm looking to get a new GPU as my current one has severe temperature issues and is generally unreliable.

My spec is:

I'm looking to get a GPU which can play The Witcher 2 at high quality, Minecraft, and more importantly, run 2 monitors at 1440x900 and 1280x1024 while running Minecraft and other games if possible.

I don't really know much about GPUs but the EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked 1024MB looks pretty good. A guy on youtube, Antvenom, uses it running 2 screens + minecraft + fraps so it would definitely suit. My absolute max spend is £135 though.

Thanks in advance for your advice,
dirtychinchilla

Braka · 14 Nov 2011 at 21:09

whats ur case airflow like?

kissenger · 14 Nov 2011 at 21:48

Should be able to get a 6870 for around £130 than beats a 460, but the 460 is really good too.

danoliver1 · 14 Nov 2011 at 21:59

you can get a nvidia 560 for £136.

dirtychinchilla · 14 Nov 2011 at 22:10

Braka said:
whats ur case airflow like?

It's pretty good I think. I've got a Bitfenix Shinobi and I've put fans in nearly all the slots with the intakes lower down and the outs up at the top and the back. The processor is cooled by a Corsair H50. The graphics card I have is really just broken.

kissenger said:
Should be able to get a 6870 for around £130 than beats a 460, but the 460 is really good too.

Very good, I'll have a look. Thanks.

danoliver1 said:
you can get a nvidia 560 for £136.

Any idea how these compare to the 6870? I have a general inkling towards AMD but I'm more than willing to get an Nvidia card.

Edit: I found the 6870 here but I can't find the Nvidia 560.

danoliver1 · 14 Nov 2011 at 22:18

dirtychinchilla said:
It's pretty good I think. I've got a Bitfenix Shinobi and I've put fans in nearly all the slots with the intakes lower down and the outs up at the top and the back. The processor is cooled by a Corsair H50. The graphics card I have is really just broken.

Very good, I'll have a look. Thanks.

Any idea how these compare to the 6870? I have a general inkling towards AMD but I'm more than willing to get an Nvidia card.

Edit: I found the 6870 here but I can't find the Nvidia 560.

The 560 is slightly better than the 6870 and when overclocked are equal to the 560ti. I just ordered the msi one for £136

dirtychinchilla · 14 Nov 2011 at 23:08

danoliver1 said:
The 560 is slightly better than the 6870 and when overclocked are equal to the 560ti. I just ordered the msi one for £136

Nice. I found it on OC for £149.99, here. Could you trust me where you got it from or was it from here?

Surveyor · 14 Nov 2011 at 23:21

danoliver1 said:
The 560 is slightly better than the 6870 and when overclocked are equal to the 560ti. I just ordered the msi one for £136

The GTX 560 and the HD 6870 are pretty much equal:

GeForce GTX 560 review

dirtychinchilla · 14 Nov 2011 at 23:31

Surveyor said:
The GTX 560 and the HD 6870 are pretty much equal:

GeForce GTX 560 review

That's fantastic. Thanks!

Is there any way to underclock my GPU? I'm going to see what Afterburner can do because it's over and above what I really need right now for games and it'd be great if it ran cooler because it crashes a lot...

Surveyor · 14 Nov 2011 at 23:44

If you really want to underclock your ATI card then you can do that using the Overdive setting in the Catalyst Control Centre.

dirtychinchilla · 14 Nov 2011 at 23:44

Surveyor said:
If you really want to underclock your ATI card then you can do that using the Overdive setting in the Catalyst Control Centre.

It didn't help at all unfortunately.

Surveyor · 14 Nov 2011 at 23:51

dirtychinchilla said:
It didn't help at all unfortunately.

It didn't underclock the card or it underclocked the card but didn't get rid of your problems?

dirtychinchilla · 14 Nov 2011 at 23:52

Sorry, it underclocked the card and I actually turned up the fan speed too and it didn't help...still temps of about 66C.

Davefran · 14 Nov 2011 at 23:55

I'd be more worried about the motherboard temp 60c :eek:

mine's only 37c.

dirtychinchilla · 14 Nov 2011 at 23:57

Really?! I don't think it's that hot at all tbh...I don't really know how to check the accuracy of it but I'd guess it was around 30C in the case.

eddiew · 15 Nov 2011 at 08:50

dirtychinchilla said:
Sorry, it underclocked the card and I actually turned up the fan speed too and it didn't help...still temps of about 66C.

66 on what...? Neither your CPU nor GPU should be unstable at that.

dirtychinchilla said:
Really?! I don't think it's that hot at all tbh...I don't really know how to check the accuracy of it but I'd guess it was around 30C in the case.

Leave the side off the case for a day... if it stops crashing; bingo

dirtychinchilla · 15 Nov 2011 at 10:33

eddiew said:
66 on what...? Neither your CPU nor GPU should be unstable at that.

Leave the side off the case for a day... if it stops crashing; bingo

66C on the GPU when running games, going up past 70C generally.

I often have the side of and never have a problem unless gaming.

dirtychinchilla · 29 Nov 2011 at 23:56

Hi guys,

Just continuing this thread to see if anyone has any more up to date and well priced suggestion for this gpu, the OP says a lot of info but to summarise:

budget £135
I need to run 2 monitors, and I want to be able to play the witcher 2 and skyrim pretty well and also minecraft. That's probably about it.

Thanks in advance for the information,

diutychinchilla

Owenb · 30 Nov 2011 at 00:04

I don't think much has changed. Staying within budget either a AMD 6850 or NV 460 Super clocked.

dirtychinchilla · 30 Nov 2011 at 00:39

Ok cool. Could you give me the links of the ones you mean? I was having a look but there are a lot which are very similar and don't seem much different to me...