Right well im nearly finished on the new build, and time has home to pick my gpu
im on a lucid chipset, so i have the option of 2 second hand gpus, and the option to run 1 nvidia card crossed with 1 ati card. although ive heard the drivers are fairly dodgy on the lucid option.

right so i plan on gaming but not obsessive (eg owning all equipent such as high end gaming mouses and headsets.ect)

so far i know ill be running a zosma x4 unlocked to a x6 then overclocked, on a msi fuzion 870a mobo with 4gb ddr3 and a 850w icute psu
oh and a akasa eclipse a62 (almost anything will fit)

no insults for my aperently bad psu, ive had that conversation many times before

ive had a set mind of a ati 5770 for a while now, but then i was browsing the clearence and spotted the geforce 9800 gx2 for £80.00 witch is rather cheep for a high end gpu.
so any opinions on what would be best, and i do have a budget of only about £100

how so? enlighten me pleese.
im running 2 dvi moniters, with no hdmi input, core clock is slower than the 5770
has more procesing cores obv but slower memory clock, so can you atlest give reasoning behind it?

A 5850 pee's all over a 5770.

Just trust me on this, that card is a b.a.r.g.a.i.n.

RE the memory clock - it would be like comparing a 4 lane motorway with a 80 mph speed limit (5770) to a 8 lane motorway with a 70mph speed limit (5850), obviously the 2nd one is gonna be able to shift a lot more traffic (data) in the same period of time.

The 5770 might be running at ~5000MHz but its only a 128bit wide interface, the 5850 is running a 256bit wide interface at ~4000MHz.

okay, but that is kind of stretching the budget, as it is im still need to buy my cpu cooler and ram, and being 14 i dont get this kind of money often, whats anyones thoughts on the leadteck card, it looks real nice but does it perform? as i know it has 2 gpu's therfore is very power hungry and rather long.
but will it struggle, as i was running demanding games such as mafia 2 on a hd 4650 witch is a tebible budget card, eapecaily for gaming. and that played high settings.
+ im only play an a fairly small reselution (as things go now) so will the Geforce struggle?

Wouldn't go for the 9800GX2 nowadays, tech wise its behind the 5770, relies on multi GPU performance scaling to stay ahead and probably hotter/louder.

If £107 is over budget, get the 5830 in the same deal.

the 5770 looks the buisness but i dont know why i realy wanna get the Geforce now, although its bigger, worse and more power hungry

Hi there,

I would STRONGLY suggest against going for the 9800GX2. This may have been a good card a few years back - but by todays standards it is rather hot, power hungry and slow (it is effectively two underclocked 9800GTX's in SLI sandwiched together in one card). Also, it will be a second hand card - so warranty is out of the window.

The 5770 is a decent card I would suggest going for the cheaper and faster 5830 that just popped up today. This chart shows how the two compare.

As for the 5850 - here is how it compares to the 5770. if you can find the extra money to afford it then it is an absolutely cracking card. Here is how the 5850 compares to the 5830.

Finally, may I ask what make and model PSU you are using?

cmndr_andi said:

may I ask what make and model PSU you are using?

Click to expand...

You will cry when you find out.

:L icute ap-850as
so 850w, and everyone hates icute, but if it was realy that bad it would have killed my cpus whe i shorted the pins with thermal paste and tryed powering it up

ZZZAC said:

:L icute ap-850as
so 850w, and everyone hates icute, but if it was realy that bad it would have killed my cpus whe i shorted the pins with thermal paste and tryed powering it up

Click to expand...

Na, we don't hate iCute per se - we just hate things that explode when you run them at full power, call us crazy I guess.

In all seriousness - ditch the PSU before you upgrade the graphics.

As for the "it hasn't blown up yet" argument, an issue with thermal paste and motherboard pins isn't really a stress test on a PSU. Putting a nice, high power graphics card in a system and running it at full power is (like in a game) is such a test. A test which may not have a great outcome with that PSU.

well, well see, i aint changing it, becuase ive run out of money, and am now reliying on my b day to finish my build, and a new psu would put me way under budget for this build

In terms of power consumption an HD5770 1GB would be the safest choice.

The HD5830 1GB is a faster card than the HD5770 1GB but many use HD5870 1GB PCBs meaning they have similar power consumption to an HD5850 1GB.

i think id be able to handle a 6850?
how would that compare, as i may sell my xbox to raise the extra £££

I got the 9800GX2 when it first came out and it broke in 18 months. The I got a B-Grade replacement and that was totally kaput too. I would strongly recommend you get the HD5850. It will last much longer and is better in every way. I understand money is a problem however the more you spend now the less you will have to in the future. Also in regards PSU always buy the best. I had a thermaltake 850W and it struggled to power a pair of GTX285's and even 1 285 was not performing to it's capacity.

okay, so i gues 5770 or 6850 it is :L

ZZZAC said:

well, well see, i aint changing it, becuase ive run out of money, and am now reliying on my b day to finish my build, and a new psu would put me way under budget for this build

Click to expand...

BOOM

Sorry, had to be said. If you're lucky, the iCute *may* stand up - but it's not worth the risk in my eyes.

Also saw that 9800GX2, there was another one for £69.99 a while back. Not bad for the price really, considering it'll blow anything else in that price range out of the water, but upwards of £70 I'd just pick a 5770.

honestly i can still see me getting the nvidia card :L