Graphics card advice

[nightfrogs]

Hi,

I'm looking into buying a new gfx card and possibly changing from nVidia (GTS450) over to ATI Radeon HD. (unless someone can convince me otherwise).

My budget is around £200 and so far i am looking at various 7850 and 7870, hoping to buy the best card MY money can afford (not interested in additional games included)

The choice of card, manufacturer and spec is confusing and i just don't know what to go for. Some seem to run from 850-1100Mhz as stock.

So questions, what would you go for:

7850 vs 7870 vs. other similar (and different variants)?
Manufacturer: Asus, gigabyte, Sapphire,...
Benefits of this card?
Does it run OK with Intel processor?

My mobo is an asus p8p67pro running intel i7-2600K @3.4 Ghz
I read that these cards run on PCIe Gen3 (which my mobo doesn't have).

Will this be an issue?

Thanks for any help or advice you can bring.

Cheers!

 

[RogerMesenseless]

The 7850 is considered to be one of the best cards under £200.
The twin Frozr II 7850 is very good.

As for the PCI 3.0, all Gen 3 graphics cards are backwards compatible with PCI 2.0

 

[nightfrogs]

Thanks!

So you'd rather go for a 7850 than say a 7870 OC, Ghz or Direct CU II?

 

[RogerMesenseless]

If you want to spend the extra money on the 7870, then go for it. I would advise getting a one with a good cooler though (Like the Direct CU II).

 

[nightfrogs]

Thanks for your help

 

[StonedPenguin]

Probs a good idea to remove the link to competitor fella.

 

[Marine-RX179]

Thanks!

So you'd rather go for a 7850 than say a 7870 OC, Ghz or Direct CU II?

Actually it depends on how you look at it. At launch, the 7850 has always been at little under £200, while the 7870 was at a ridiculous £270. But now while the 7850's price has pretty much remained the same, the 7870 has price dropped down to around £220. While both cards would probably hit around the same max clock frequency when overclocked, the 7870 is still faster out of the box, and with more stream processors would mean it would still be a bit faster than the 7850 on the same clock. With a small price gap like £30-£40, personally I'd go for a good brand 7870 with custom cooler...unless you can find a decent brand 7850 with custom cooler for £160 or less.

 

[andybird123]

for the extra 1FPS I would save the £30-40 personally

 

[Chrisoldinho]

You can get an XFX 7870 for £203 now which IMO makes the 7850 less appealing considering the 8-10% performance gain and price differential.

 

[nightfrogs]

Thanks guys, it's pretty confusing when each manufacturer releases their own spec'd version: Direct CU, OC, Ghz, Twin Frozr,...

 

[opstrat]

For £200 pound this is the one I would go for.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-100-GI&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=

 

[passey89]

a 570 will outperform a 7850 not by much but it does

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/549?vs=518

if you can find a cheap site where you can get a 570 from overclockers don't have many left now.