best "bang for your buck" videocard

[trif]

i have an 8800GT in a
XFX 680I LT edition SLI Socket 775 Nvidia 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard
with an E8400,

looking to significantly upgrade the GFX card, for single card systems does the whole PCI Express 2.0 thing matter? and out of interest is my board 2.0?

but yea, any GFX card a fair bit better than the 8800 GT, under £200, and thats really good value for money

(i.e. in the sweet spot of price vs performance) i dont wanna get into the stupidly expensive for 5% more performance bracket but dont mind shelling out £200 for a truely awesome card

 

[BigRazer93]

For a really good jump, the 5850 is the best bang for buck as they offer great performance for £240. Also, the 5770 is a card to look at as they are around the 4890 performance, just slightly slower but runs much cooler and doesn't req as much power.

 

[RavenXXX2]

What speed is your CPU running at? don't worry about PIE-E 2.0, it wont effect you cards performance not having it. As to what card to get, I think the 5850 would be a good choice but is a little expensive at the moment so I would suggest a 5770.

 

[trif]

the E8400 at stock 3ghz atm, i have a Arctic Cooling AC-FRZ-7P Freezer 7 Pro Socket 775 Processor Cooler and it doesn't get about 55C under full 2x windows calculator load so i could OC it a bit if you think it could be a bottleneck

back to the HD 5850 someone on another board said i shouldn't put an ATI card on a 680i

is that true? and if so why?


they also said i should get a DX11 card? (i know DX limits compatability and older cards can't support newer versions but how bad is it really?)

 

[z0mbi3]

An Asus 5770 clocked to high heaven.

 

[Sycho]

5770 if you game at 1650x1080 otherwise try go for a 5850 if you game at 1920x1200 or so.

 

[trif]

hmm, for £176

MSI Radeon HD 5850 Series 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express x16 (2.0v) Video Card Retail

sound good?

edit: no stock on the MSI so

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 / 1GB GDDR5 / PCI Express 2.0 / Graphics Card

for £210 with shipping

 

[RavenXXX2]

To good to be true compared to the current prices that are knocking around.

 

[EpicCarnage]

lol buy another 8800gt for like next to nothing think you can pick em up for under 40 and enjoy sli its a significant cheap upgrade
In my experience of upgrading i added another 8800gts for 40 pounds used sli and run everything fine including cod4at 250fps with anti aliasing high as poss and textures best possible it should tide you over anyways till the prices come down for high end cards