9800 GX2 upgrade

[sir-les-mp]

Ive been out of touch with pc gaming for a little while now and there are a couple of new games i wish to try.

Deus Ex Human Eveloution and BF3 just to name a couple.

Im currently running 2 AMD systems both Phenom II

1st system runs a 940BE with 4 gig ram and the second system runs a 1090T with 2 gig ram
However the cpu's can be switched about if need be. (Planning on upgrading 1 motherboard to either amd 890x or 990x to make better use of the the 1090t and DDR3 ram in the near future)

My main system which at present holds the 940BE currenly running 2x 8800GTs not in SLi as mobo does not support it and my second system is running a 9800 GX2 as well as an 8800 GTS(g92) variant.
As i was previously running F@H, however ive had to stop this as it was costing me a fortune in electricity and pc parts.

So i intend in the short term to move the 9800 GX2 to my main system to start playing a few more games again as it is the most powerful video card i currently have.
However ive decided it is probably time to upgrade the main video card to something a bit more powerful with the intentions of game play this time.

Im not looking at spending a small fortune most likley i will be looking at the 2nd hand market, so i would like to find out what card i should be looking at and the sort of price's i should be paying for one.

I have no preference to whether the card is from Nvidia or AMD/ATI as it is no longer being bought for a specific piece of software to run on

I do not wish this to be turned into a Fanboy argument so please keep those sort's of comments out of here and just leave constructive advise.

If i had to put a budget on the purchase i would estimate at around the £100 mark MAX.


Thank you all in advance
Sir-Les-MP

 

[SeraphX]

well on the 2nd hand market, namely the mm 100 quid will easily net you a nice GTX460 1Gb or a tidy Radeon 5870 ( these don't crop up often, )

newer tech possibly includes a 6870 for just a tad over the tonne mark

personally i'd go with the 5870 it's a cracking card will easy play 90% of games on high

what resolution are you gaming at, 1080P the 5870 will excel at at, anything lower you could get away with the 460 1Gb if it's above 1080P you might struggle running the games at decent settings with decent FPS

 

[sir-les-mp]

well on the 2nd hand market, namely the mm 100 quid will easily net you a nice GTX460 1Gb or a tidy Radeon 5870 ( these don't crop up often, )

newer tech possibly includes a 6870 for just a tad over the tonne mark

personally i'd go with the 5870 it's a cracking card will easy play 90% of games on high

what resolution are you gaming at, 1080P the 5870 will excel at at, anything lower you could get away with the 460 1Gb if it's above 1080P you might struggle running the games at decent settings with decent FPS

At present im running at 1680 x 1050 on a 22" monitor but its starting to show its age with the power button being a bit on the sticky side so it will be getting replaced when funds allow.

the replacment monitor will be a min 24" so yeah it will eventually be 1920 x 1080

 

[SeraphX]

go with the 5870 then, alternatively, you could wait a couple of months for the new amd 7* series to come out, which should force used prices down even further.

 

[sir-les-mp]

thinking on this issue and looking at new cards
How would 2 x 6770 scale in crossfire as they are well under my £100 budget
as i was thinking i could get 1 now and in a few weeks time purchase another one giving me a crossfire system.

I do vaugley remember the 5770's being raved about when they first came out and was wondering/hoping the 6770's were in the same line