Purchasing new card, advice please!

[Tayrun]

Evening all,

My current graphics card is a 7800GTX. It's old and loyal, but after trying to play Arkham Asylum with 4fps, I think it's time that it's put out to pasture.

So I need a new card!

As you can probably guess from my having had a 7800 until now, I don't care about keeping up with the latest tech - the 7800 is a DX9 card and I haven't felt inclined to move to DX10 just for the sake of it.

I'm looking for a card that will last me a good few years, so something near the top of the benchmarks now, but with a reasonable price/performance ratio.

My motherboard is an Asus A8N-SLI, PCI 16x. I don't want to buy a crossfire/SLI solution, but a dual-core single-card is fine.

Another important factor is noise, the less the better. If stock coolers are known to be noisy for a given card then this is a problem as I hate messing around changing coolers and such. I'd much rather just buy something that works as desired right out of the box.

With these criteria in mind, the card that has stood out so far is the Sapphire 4890 Toxic.

Unfortunately, I can't find anywhere that has any in stock! The online retailers I have contacted don't seem to know if there's even any more coming!

So my questions are,

1) Does anyone want to recommend an alternate card, if so, why?

2) Given that OcUK aren't selling the Sapphire Toxic, I'm not sure where I could get hold of one. I'm also not sure if it's ok for people to mention where I could get one. However as OcUK aren't selling them, PM'ing me with this information won't hurt their sales at all! (Hope that's ok with the forum staff!)


Thanks in advance,

-Tayrun

 

[OrphanBoy]

4fps? Really?! Yikes!
I have a 7800GTX at work, and I'm tempted to try it out with this game! I figure my X1800XT is equivalent to a 7800GTX and that could play Crysis at average settings. Is Batman AA really harder on the machine than Crysis?

 

[D13]

I would recommend a gtx 260.
Reason being
1. I am using it myself and it has given me nothing but reliable consistent and stable performance.
2. the stock cooler is quiet, if you do opt for an ati card then make sure it doesnt have the stock cooler
3. you mention batman aa, well performance is notably better on nvidia cards and you will also have access to physx

gtx 260 can be found very cheap indeed.

Oh yes btw, wahat is your budget and what resolution do you game at?

 

[Tayrun]

OrphanBoy - I may have exaggerated a bit. Maybe 10fps? Some unplayable number.

D13 - I game at 1920x1200. I don't have a specific budget but I'd say around £150. I was planning to order a Toxic that was going for £170, so there's some give in the numbers.

 

[D13]

well at £170 you are getting very close to the price of a 200 quid 5850. That is one of ati's brand new dx11 card bearing in mind I dont own one so cant tell you how loud the fan is

p.s what psu are u using?

as you say, you want something that will be able to play games for a good while. You may want to try and stretch the budget to a dx11 card as that may help the card last a lot longer.

 

[coupe69]

Get the 5850, it's only 30 quid more than the 4890 you're looking at.

 

[gurusan]

you are still on socket 939, honestly putting a new GPU in there above something like an 8800GT is pointless.

 

[muggs]

ive just got the bits for my bro's gaming pc, he is kinda like you ish, he has a 4800ti ge force in his lol. ive bought him a 5850 will last him years and years

 

[D13]

you are still on socket 939, honestly putting a new GPU in there above something like an 8800GT is pointless.

rofl, uhh yeah you will need to either upgrade your rig or get a much weaker (but cheaper ) card

 

[Tayrun]

you are still on socket 939, honestly putting a new GPU in there above something like an 8800GT is pointless.

Oh whoops, forgot to mention. Naturally the rest of the system is also to be upgraded soonish, so please ignore that as far as possible.

 

[gurusan]

In that case I would recommend a 5850....better bang/buck than a 5870.