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Best Price/Performance Card

Marky

Marky

Marky

Soldato
Joined
16 Apr 2007
Posts
23,440
Location
UK
Hey all,

I've been out of the loop for a while...

What is the current best graphics card out there? What's the best performer for the best price? :)

Thanks,

Marky
 
Depends on what bracket your wanting to jump in. Personally I find ATI tend to offer similar performance for cheaper (price difference outweighing performance difference) such as 6950 being only slightly weaker than a gtx 480/570 but being quite a bit cheaper. If your dropping in a little lower a 5870's or 6870's have dropped a lot and offer the best bang for buck around in my opinion. Dropping lower than that Nvidia wins the day though as GTX 460's are the best mid range (with 5870 being classified as high range and 6950's/70's being enthusiast since they're obviously just the top of the bar).
 
The most powerful graphics card (in most games) is still the dual GPU AMD HD 5970. That said, if you want to drop £500+ on a dual-GPU card, I would wait a month. Both Nvidia and AMD are expected to release their new current-gen cards soon.

However, the fastest single GPU card is definitely the GTX 580.

For good bang-for-buck the HD 6950 is a nice card, especially since there is a very high chance it will unlock to a HD 6970 with a flash.

IMHO, the very best bang-for-buck card is either the GTX 460 768MB or HD 5770.
 
As above depends how much you have to spend to be honest.

As a minimum for medium/high res gaming you can grab a 5830 for about £100, GTX460 768MB for £115, GTX460 1GB or 5850 1GB for £140, 6870 1GB for £170, 6950 about £250, GTX570 and 6970 for £270, then a big jump to £400 for a GTX580.

Price increases with each slight performance gain, although best value for money are probably seen as the GTX 460 and the 5850 as in they're affordable and produce good FPS using the highest settings in most games.
 
Money best spent in the second hand market like a 5850 or 5870 or GTX460 1Gb I wouldn't get the 768mb version.
If buying new I'd have to get a 5850.
 
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Prices rises have made the GTX460 1GB quite poor value for money now.

The GTX460 768MB and HD5830 1GB are much cheaper on OcUK whereas the HD5850 1GB is a faster card and has a similar price.

On OcUK the cheapest GTX460 1GB is now £155:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-128-GW&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=

The HD6850 1GB has similar performance and costs £140:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-110-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=

The HD6850 1GB only requires a single PCI-E power connector and hence also consumes less power than a GTX460 1GB which requires a pair of PCI-E power connectors. When overclocked massively has the same power consumption as a GTX460 1GB at stock clockspeeds:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4002/amd-radeon-hd-6850-overclocking-roundup-asus-xfx-msi
 
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hahaha, well of you ask a silly question op...you will get recommendations from the slowst right to the fastest gaming cards!

We are in a really lucky position, there is no outright 'best' gpu. There is every pricepoint covered and its just gonna get better!

You need to say 2 things...

Your max budget.

The res you want to play at.
 
I have to agree with CAT. Current GTX460 1GB price at OcUK is too high, when other places still only selling at around £140 range average.

For around £130-£150 price range, I would say GTX460 1GB is still worth considering (but not from OcUK).
 
If you fancy taking a punt on unlocking, the 6950 may be worth considering for £220.
Otherwise I'd say the cards to be looking at are 5870 (£180) and GTX460 1GB (£140).

Another thing to bear in mind is that with such variety of cards and generations, the secondhand market is likely to be flourishing. Both AMD and Nvidia have two competitive generations at the moment (5xx0/6xx0 and 4xx/5xx ranges respectively) so there are a lot of options. You may be able to pick up a decent last-gen card on the cheap via the secondhand route.
 
The MSI Twinfrozer 5850 for £125 was pretty hard to beat if you're looking for bang for buck, which I think the OP was getting at?

I'm sure they'll be on offer for that price again.
 
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