GPU upgrade, which one?

[TheIrishGuy]

Hello everyone, im i the market for a gpu. Never ever had a dedicated one and since iv'e moved to pc, i need one lol.
Im looking around the £100-150 mark.

I have an i3 2120, 650w OCZ and 4gb kingston along with a large case.
I dont care what brand the card is.

The games i play/plan to include:
Battlefield 3
The whole Total war series
Arma II
Assassins creed III

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance ^^

 

[tommybhoy]

6870 -£120

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-205-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1866

Very good performance for the outlay, trades blows with stock 560ti's but won't overclock as well as the 560ti.


If overclocking's not your thing then the 6870 is better value unless PhysX(it's not used in any of your listed games) is of value to you.

560ti -£156

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-173-OK&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1810


Good clocking cards but they are sitting close to 7850 price territory and get blown away by the clocking ability of the 7850.

Nvidia 660 is inbound, depending on performance/price, it could force the 7850 down in price which could take it into your price zone, it's overbudget @£170'ish, but you get double the vram and a very overclockable gpu.

 

[TheIrishGuy]

Think i'll go with the 6870, price seems good given the reviews and scores its getting. Thanks!

 

[wiggy]

I hope you dont mind noise, coz that 6870 is noisy as hell under load. I have the same one, got so fed up with the racket I changed the cooler to a vf3000a.

 

[TheIrishGuy]

Im always wearing surround sound headphones, so hopefully, that will block it out lol ^^

 

[wiggy]

Lol its what i do but I was wary of temps reaching 85c+, one thing to note is the stock cooler has no cooling for the vrm's or memory chips, hence it kicks out a lot of heat into the case.

 

[TheIrishGuy]

Understood.
Just a quick update, iv'e found a brand new power-colour 7850 for a brilliant price, but because it's not sold here i cant mention anything about it lmao.
Any opinions on this card? I have the P8H61 - M, an i3 2120 and 4gb or quality ram, cant remember the brand.
My psu is a 650W OCZ, just wondering if all my equipment is compatible with this card, would be terrible if I bought it to find out it didn't work with my set up.