Please help me to upgrade my GPU for Xmas

[BionicShrew]

Hi,

I have an opportunity to upgrade my GPU at Xmas. I know very little about what to look for and the choice available is mind boggling. I have a couple of questions and would be very grateful of some help. I have only ever used Nvidia as they have always been reliable so would prefer to stay with them.

1) There appear to be different variations of Core MHz, Shader Clock MHz, and Memory. Which is the most critical to this decision, what numbers should I be looking for ?

2) Which product do you think best suits my needs ?

Information:
Budget: £230 - £290
Next upgrade: Approx 2 years
Usage: Priority is gaming (shooters / driving sims) with 1920x1080 resolution + some light video editing
Monitors: Two monitors - only one used for gaming, second monitor is just there to extend my desktop when video / music editing.
Expectations: Decent FPS (60 upwards) for new shooters and driving games on high settings

Current Spec:
Case: Cooler Master Cosmos S
OS: Windows 7 64bit
PSU: Corsair CX600M Modular 600W
MBO: Asus P8 Z77-V LX2
Ram: 8Gb Patriot DDR3 1600MHz
GPU: Nvidia GeForce 275GTX
CPU: i5-3570k @ 4.5 GHz

Any help would be much appreciated

 

[svensonbanks]

1) At 1080 2-3GB Memory is sufficient. The rest would be to go for the highest specifications that your budget can buy.

2) I know it's not Nvidia, but if you do decide to come to the dark side I would recommend the Sapphire Radeon R9 280X Toxic. Best bang for the buck and fits your budget perfectly. A friend of mine has purchased this card and is highly satisfied.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-324-SP

 

[systemerror]

For your budget amd is definitely a good choice or their is this from nvidia

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-180-GW&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1750

 

[yannis76]

the cheapest from GTX770, R280X or 7970 that you can find.
Unless you care about noise -which I do- the brand (only for garanty) or the cooler don't play a big part.

 

[fowler002]

if you can stretch your budget then the 290(non-x) is the best you can get, however I'm not sure if the corsair cx600m will be up to the task.

for the upto £290 I'd go with what svensonbanks suggested, I was looking at getting 1 or 2 myself but the fact there's not going to be a waterblock for them stopped me getting it(ended up getting a 290x).

 

[BRIGGBOY81]

For your budget amd is definitely a good choice or their is this from nvidia

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-180-GW&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1750

if you get a gtx 770 then get the msi lightning.