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Help needed

stratman59

stratman59

stratman59

Associate
Joined
7 Aug 2010
Posts
39
Hi all, new member and in need of some of your knowledgeable advice. I’ve been working in the Middle East for 9 months and am coming back to the U.K in two weeks time, promised myself a GPU upgrade. Now I’m not saying that money is no object but my budget is around the £250 mark but more importantly I want to get the right card so a few quid either way isn’t a problem.
My uses are going to be mainly gaming, COD, Star craft 2, Arma 2 (I know nothing will run that smoothly) and new Crysis and Civ when they are released plus some ‘minor’ photo editing with Adobe Lightroom 3. And some light 2d Cad work. I also want a degree of future proofing; I don’t want to change the card again for at least 18 months. Don’t think I will be going down the multi monitor route apart from running a 19 inch alongside for Cad work.
I have one major question; to run my monitor at reasonable high end res, say 1600x1200 should I go for a 2 gb memory card over a 1 gb card? I was looking at either the Sapphire 5850 2 gb, or maybe an Nvidia 470 (will I need a new PSU for this) with 1280 gb which is on offer this week, will I see much of a difference getting a 2 gig card? Please don’t let this post descend into an ATI V Nvidia battle, they both make great cards after all and without the competition between the two we would all be paying a hell of a lot more.
Second question is there are so many makes of cards, how do I decide which is better, I have my PC under my desk with good fan cooling so noise isn’t that much of an issue. I’m not a tech head so although I’ve dabbled with over clocking in the past I’d rather play safe and use the card vanilla as they say in the states. Still like the option to OC though.
Current System
Asus P5 pro, BFG 8800 GT (320 gb) Intel Q6600 Go, Tagan 420watt PSU, 2 gig ram (but will have another 2 gig added) Hanns G 28inch Full 1080p monitor. A couple of SATA drives. Running Win 7
 
I would say the 470 @ £235 it will handle all of thoses games no problem at that rez but its abit louder and runs hotter than the 5850 the again you sayed noise and heat isnt that much of a problem.

You could proberly get your posts up and sell your 8800 on the MM and use the cash to get you a decent 600w PSU ? :D
 
Thanks stiv121, you just reminded me of something. i had planned to put the 8800 into the kids P.C, trouble is to do that I will also need to give them my PSU as their 300 watt won't have a power cable for the 8800. So looks like a PSU upgrade as well. I'm still a bit unclear as to why they make GPU's with 2gb mem? There must be a market for them otherwise they wouldn't make them?
 
Usually for that sort of cash you'd be looking at getting a GTX470. It sits right between the 5850 and 5870 in both performance and price, perfick!

As to getting 2gb of RAM on the card, there's no point unless you're getting a multi monitor setup, the extra RAM just isn't used until you really crank the resolution up to enormous proportions
 
Just had another idea, as i will have to get a new PSU why not go for a Zotak GTX460 1 gb at £190 then I can get the PSU within the £250 budget? Is there much of a boost going for a 470 over a 460?
 
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stratman59 said:
Thanks stiv121, you just reminded me of something. i had planned to put the 8800 into the kids P.C, trouble is to do that I will also need to give them my PSU as their 300 watt won't have a power cable for the 8800. So looks like a PSU upgrade as well. I'm still a bit unclear as to why they make GPU's with 2gb mem? There must be a market for them otherwise they wouldn't make them?
Click to expand...

Under very high resolutions they may be a little better but not enough to justify the extra cost maby 1-2 fps better than a standerd 5850 at your rez.
 
stratman59 said:
Just had another idea, as i will have to get a new PSU why not go for a GTX460 at £150 then I can get the PSU within the £250 budget? Is there much of a boost going for a 470 over a 460?
Click to expand...

Ye you can do that but i would recommend you get a 1gb version with a good cooler i dont know what ones are the best maby somebody can recommend one?

For the power supply this would be good...

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-031-OC&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=
 
Spent more than a few hours reading reviews of GTX460/470 and ATI5850, and reading threads right here at OC. I think i'm leaning towrds the 5850 1gb mainly on power consumption and heat, for the sake of giving a few FPS why not help save the planet, and my lecy bill. Stiv121, that was the exact PSU i had short listed, thanks.
 
Why Oh Why?

Does life have to be so complicated, the Corsair is £5 cheaper and an extra 50watts, but I like the idea of the OCZ's modular system, will save having loads of unused cables cluttering up the case and restricting air flow. What to do? That extras 50 watts could be usefull if I go dual card later on.
 
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