A Graphical Conumdrum

[Andromeda1983]

With all the graphics cards out at the moment, I am having a real hard time trying to decide on my next upgrade. I have no intention of upgrading my monitor and so are stuck at 1680 by 1050. What would be the best graphics card for my money that is more than capable of handling a large group of games out there at the max settings at this resolution?

 

[BigBruiserAl]

Depends who you ask mate, one person on here will be adament you need A gtx580 to run that res to get 60fps and then offer to give you worthless benches

Back on earth a Gigabyte GeForce GTX 470 OC is great value at that res or Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6870

 

[jorzeh]

This really depends on what you want todo and the games you play metro 2033 would indeed like a 580gtx but it's not that good a game imo and a 6870 or 470gtx would be more then enough for every other title on the market.

 

[Nbolo]

I recently bought a gigabyte GTX 460 1gb and i couldn't recommend it more!

I play at the same res as you and with an overclock (850/1700/2100) it handles whatever i want, even metro 2033 is playable at high with DX 11 on (admittedly FPS hits 25 - 30 but playable). Crysis warhead is playable at almost max dx10 graphics settings (AA set at x4, everything else maxed) and achieves FPS of 28 - 35 ish.

If you want something more powerful i can only imagine what an overclocked 470 will do!

 

[Andromeda1983]

After looking into the different cards and prices. (Btw my budget is 290)...how does this sound.

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Gelid Icy Vision VGA Cooler (ATI and Nvidia)

Providing the Gelid OCuk have is the Rev.2..it does indeed support the 6870 and would be FAR quieter than the stock cooler, cooler as well.

(It turns out that the PCB on the reference 6870 is identical to that of the 5870 with the only difference being the placement of the VRM)

 

[19ninety]

I have a Palit GTX460 1GB Sonic - runs crysis 30fps+ on max settings at 1440x900 and laughs in the face of everything else I've thrown at it! I'm perfectly happy, best £144 I have spent for a while
Hell, audio over HDMI means GTA IV and Mafia II etc on HDTV ... sofa gaming is awesome!

 

[shadow_boxer]

As you say no plans on buying a new monitor and gaming at 1680*1050. Personally to allow for some "future-proofing" I'd be looking at a 6870 to. From what I've read they scale very good in XFire too. Not sure about whether you need the cooler to be honest?! Might be worth waiting for 6950...probably overkill for what you need it for but if its priced competitively around the £300 mark you may kick yourself for jumping the gun!

 

[Andromeda1983]

Ok I have made my decision. I am going to switch to Nvidia this time and im going to be doing it with the following

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-066-GI&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1810

All the review's I have found have commented on just how quiet this card is compared to the stock cooler and is even quieter than my Rev 2 5770 Egg Cooler (its quiet dont get me wrong, good card). And with the overclock its aiming for the 5870 and not the 5850 range really.