Bit of help for friends upgrade

[Musty Pie]

Hi guys i have been out of the gfx card loop for a little while and need the advise on a gfx card upgrade for a friend.

His current spec is as follows (sent email to me):

Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme CPU Q6850 3.00GHz
RAM: 4.00GB
MOBO: Abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi
Loads Of Hard Drives, adding up to 1.5tb (irrelevant)
PSU: cooler master M700 700w

His max budget is £350 and he would only like a single card solution please.

any help would be much appreciated.

Im guessing NV is more his flavor (better driver support etc) and a 285 is probably his best bet?

Halp!

 

[jak731]

what res?
what is he upgrading from?

 

[muon]

Well £350 is enough for a new GPU and Core 2 Quad. The latter may be unnecessary. Put the rest of the money towards a future systemwide upgrade or just something else.

For single solution cards your looking hd 4870 vs gtx 260, hd4890 vs gtx 275. There are lots of threads on those if you search.

 

[Musty Pie]

He is coming from 2x nvidia 7900's (512MB) running in SLI and is gaming on a samsung syncmaster 22" monitor at full res which i think is 1680x1050)

 

[jak731]

i would get the GTX260 or if he want to spend all of his budget a GTX295 is just over his budget exc delivery, but lack of PCI-E 2 (i think) may limit him somewhat. the GTX295 will be overkill considering there are apparantly new cards due in Q2 of 2010