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[First Build] ATI or nVidia?

LeftRight92

LeftRight92

LeftRight92

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Joined
23 Aug 2010
Posts
81
Hi all,

Just wondering what would be best at <£350?
Considering ill probably end up using an AMD processor, and board, would AMD (necessarily) a better choice? I just remember reading about their whole 'Dragon Technology' thing, or is it them just advertising?

Basically, i want the best card for gaming possible, at <£350 (ie all options turned up to max, and lag free). Considering i own Empire: Total War, that may be tricky ;). Also, needs to be a card i can XFire/SLI, as i intend to buy a second card down the line when one no longer pulls it off.

Sorry if i've come across a bit naive; i am :D.

TIA
LeftRight
 
GTX 480 for less than £5 over budget

edit: as we've learnt multiple GPU's aren't always worth it, and minimum fps is more important now where nvidia comes ahead, a mod had 2x 5970's and switched to a single GTX 480 and in games he said it was smoother
 
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Get a 5870 if you're going AMD, since their motherboards only allow crossfire. Dragon was a platform that had a Phenom II X4, 790FX chipset, and a 4800 series card. Just plain advertising :p
 
Nvidia is definitely the superior choice especially with their driver support but in November ATI are releasing 6 Series which looks promising and they're updating the ATI Catalyst UI.
 
Well whats the budget/spec of the whole build and what screen are you using?

coughs said:
Nvidia is definitely the superior choice especially with their driver support but in November ATI are releasing 6 Series which looks promising and they're updating the ATI Catalyst UI.
Click to expand...

What? Nvidia aren't "definately the superior choice"... fan boi. It all depends exactly what you want to do with the card (do you need CUDA)/budget and if you're happy with the huge noise and heat that comes with nvidia cards. Not bashing Nvidia (I'm still on my 8800GTX).
 
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It depends on what resolution you'll be playing at.

For AMD you can get

1x 5870 (280£)
1x 5850 (220£)
2x 5830 (130£ each) This week only

nVidia gets you
1x 480 (350£)
1x 470 (220£)
2x 460 (170£ each)

Choices choices..
All those graphics card are very capable of playing almost all games at max details at 1900x1200.
 
Yeah, there's not much in it. I've had the 5870 and the 480 and whilst the 480 is a bit faster it sounds like a waterfall running in my PC on load and gets hotter than the sun.
 
Thanks everyone so far, nice to clean up the dragon thing, overall budget is roughly £1000, as for the screen, need to choose one yet :D.
Will have to look into the ATI 6 series, as i may not be purchasing for a while yet, got to scrape together the last few pennies.
 
25879288.png


made up this build, you could save ~£50 going for AMD although I personally wouldn't recommend it over this build
 
HW91 said:
GTX 480 for less than £5 over budget

edit: as we've learnt multiple GPU's aren't always worth it, and minimum fps is more important now where nvidia comes ahead, a mod had 2x 5970's and switched to a single GTX 480 and in games he said it was smoother
Click to expand...

Not sure this statement holds true in all circumstances. I would really need to know what games and what res someone was playing at before I could make such a blanket statment, perhaps my crystal ball needs upgrading!! You could well be right but until you know all the facts this is just an opinion written as fact. You should be ashamed! :D

coughs said:
I'm actually waiting for 6 Series so I'm not a fanboi.
Click to expand...
Can you back up your original statement with the facts available in this thread? Bet you can't because we don't know enough info yet.

Wouldn't the OP be better off listening to facts rather than ppls twisted opinions.
He could well be better of with an Nvidia card but then again he might not. Why not wait for all the details and provide a well thought out and sensible suggestion?

OP: what res monitor are you thinking of buying and what games will you be playing?
 
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LeftRight92 said:
while i remember, where talking without VAT people, hooray for Jersey
Click to expand...

don't forget you guys have like 2.5% import tax

here in Guernsey we don't :D

honestly save the ~£150 though, it won't get much better than it is now, maybe switch to a blu-ray player or add an SSD
 
Feedback on HW91:

Surely i could get an equivalent or better AMD proc for a lower price?
Don't really need a 1TB HDD, will probs just go for a 500GB now and install a second larger one at a later date.
Is the GPU cooler block necessary?

pretty sweet build tho
 
LeftRight92 said:
Feedback on HW91:

Surely i could get an equivalent or better AMD proc for a lower price?
Don't really need a 1TB HDD, will probs just go for a 500GB now and install a second larger one at a later date.
Is the GPU cooler block necessary?

pretty sweet build tho
Click to expand...

there isn't really an equivalent AMD processor, also games will soon support the 8 thread the i7 has and AMD doesn't (Crysis 2 specifically)

used the 1TB because it's less than £10 more

the cooler is for the CPU and it just makes things a bit quieter and cooler
 
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