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Graphics card challenge for under £60 ATI only

Reedweaver

Reedweaver

Reedweaver

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255
Location
Notts, England
Challenge for all OcUK forum members.....

Best budget ATI card for the system below....Can be new or used off auction sites.

Looking to run games like Bioshock 2 and Dragonage etc etc

I've got a 19" 4:3 monitor at the moment 1024 x 768
Looking to upgrade in a few months to 24" 1920x1080 though

Not so fussed about DirectX 11.00.....DirectX10 will suffice.

Thinking about a Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4670 1024MB DDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card. £59.26 on OcUK

What could you get on the auction sites for £60?

Thanks for your help......
 
If you are lucky you could get a 4870 from auction, you should definitely be able to get a 4850 for that and it will blow away the 4670 (will be ~70/100% faster respectively)
 
Reedweaver said:
What about 2x x1950's in Crossfire??

Or 2x 3870's?
Click to expand...

relay not worth it due to the extra heat ,power , physical space being used. also the normal dual GPU problems which probably made worse with older cards and newer games I would think.

you might be able toe pick up 2 8800 GT's for £25/30 each second hand would the the only dual gpu setup for £60 I would consider.
 
Does anyone know where abouts the 'sweet spot' is on graphics cards?

The jump from 5770 to 5830+ seems very large pricewise...

Is it worth spending £100, would you see a major difference?
 
Reedweaver said:
Does anyone know where abouts the 'sweet spot' is on graphics cards?

The jump from 5770 to 5830+ seems very large pricewise...

Is it worth spending £100, would you see a major difference?
Click to expand...

No. There isn't much between them. Best to go to a 5850 or a 5870.
 
Reedweaver said:
Does anyone know where abouts the 'sweet spot' is on graphics cards?

The jump from 5770 to 5830+ seems very large pricewise...

Is it worth spending £100, would you see a major difference?
Click to expand...

The 5830 has been released at a terrible price- have no idea what ATi were thinking.

The 4670 is about right new.

There is an auction site on this board, but you need 250 posts(no u cant spam your way there!). Someone bought a 4850 512MB for £40 yesterday. That would be some ~50% faster than a 4670-http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_4670/26.html.

That link should give you comparsions with most of the cards that you should be looking at, new or 2nd hand.
 
4870s seem to still be fetching £70-80 in the MM so i'd say HD4850 - it should come in easily under £60.
 
Well you don't have mm access but 4850 you can get brand new £70 delivered.
4850 second hand pay no more than £45 unless it has a decent aftermarket cooler fitted / warranty.
4870 512mb pay no more than £65 4870 1gb pay no more than £75.
The 4850 that went for £40 was a collection + you can sell 4850's in a certain high street shop for £45 cash in hand so anyone that sells theirs for £40 is being a bit silly.
 
Great help with the prices, sometimes you see items on these auction sites going for a few pounds under the brand new price...

I'll probably go for a new 4850 from OcUK.

Thanks for all the help....
 
Reedweaver said:
Will the 4850 1Gb and 4870 1Gb cut it with Windows 7 (64bit) and a 23" monitor at 1920x1080.

Games like Bioshock 2 and Crysis....

Would I be better off buying a 5770 for £70 brand new?

One of these

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-164-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1699
Click to expand...

That's a 5570, and it's slower than a 3850, it struggles considerably at 1680x1050 in Crysis and will probably be quite rubbish for Bioshock 2 as well, troll second hand for a 4870 or a 4850!

[edit]
Or a 8800GTS 640, they're hovering around the £40-£50 mark in MM at the moment!
 
Last edited:
Hairybudda said:
That's a 5570, and it's slower than a 3850, it struggles considerably at 1680x1050 in Crysis and will probably be quite rubbish for Bioshock 2 as well, troll second hand for a 4870 or a 4850!

[edit]
Or a 8800GTS 640, they're hovering around the £40-£50 mark in MM at the moment!
Click to expand...

8800 640MB is a much slower card than a 4850.

"Will the 4850 1Gb and 4870 1Gb cut it with Windows 7 (64bit) and a 23" monitor at 1920x1080.

Games like Bioshock 2 and Crysis...."

Bioshock and Crysis perform very different! Bioshock will run fine, however Crysis will struggle on most machines at 1080p. At your budget you will have to settle for 1680*1050 in a lot of games, which isn't a huge issue to be honest.
 
I managed to get a Powercolor 4870 512mb version for £57 delivered on egay and slapped an Accelero S1 on it that I had spare, and then flashed it to an Asus top BIOS and strapped two 120mm fans to the cooler. Prob close the best performance on a tight budget ATM. Can play quite a few new games at 1080p with max detail and x2 AA, and sometimes x4 if I am lucky!
 
Got a HIS ATI Radeon 4870 1GB for £80. Its got the flower cooler on.

Does anyone know the best aftermarket cooler for a 4870?

(Needs moving to other section probably)
 
Try to find a cheap Accelero S1 and find some heatsinks to stick on the VRMs to keep them cool. I cut up an old processor heatsink with a hacksaw for the VRMs on my card. I think you made the best choice with your purchase. Is the cooler quiet? What temps are you seeing under GPUz?
 
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