spending £400 on graphics

[TerrorBird]

Im spending £400 max on graphics to finnish my pc ugrades off but really dont know what to get! Im looking at either 2x nvidia 460's or 2x 5850's
Im currently playing on a reso of 1680x1050 using an ati hd4870

I play bc2 online most of the time but spend a lot of time playing offline games too which i love playing in max settings. (havnt yet played thru crysis)

im thinking 2x nvidia 460's??

My specs are as follows:

Case - Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred
PSU - Corsair hx620

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4
CPU: Intel Core i5 750 @ 4.2ghz Watercooled
Ram: 4gb Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600mhz c7 (7-8-7-20)
GC: 1x ATI Saphire HD 4870 (512mb)
Monitor: 22" Samsung 226BW 1680x1050
SC: Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music - Rev2
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

 

[kieves1]

Im spending £400 max on graphics to finnish my pc ugrades off but really dont know what to get! Im looking at either 2x nvidia 460's or 2x 5850's
Im currently playing on a reso of 1680x1050 using an ati hd4870

I play bc2 online most of the time but spend a lot of time playing offline games too which i love playing in max settings. (havnt yet played thru crysis)

im thinking 2x nvidia 460's??

My specs are as follows:

Case - Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred
PSU - Corsair hx620

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4
CPU: Intel Core i5 750 @ 4.2ghz Watercooled
Ram: 4gb Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600mhz c7 (7-8-7-20)
GC: 1x ATI Saphire HD 4870 (512mb)
Monitor: 22" Samsung 226BW 1680x1050
SC: Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music - Rev2
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

With that budget i would wait and see what AMD 6*** has to offer.

 

[HW91]

1) a 620w PSU won't power two 460's

2) get a GTX 480 instead, better minimums

3) actually get a 470 instead and use the spare ~£180 on something else as the extra £140 for the 480 isn't worth it

 

[Telltale Boy]

1) a 620w PSU won't power two 460's

2) get a GTX 480 instead, better minimums

3) actually get a 470 instead and use the spare ~£180 on something else as the extra £140 for the 480 isn't worth it

1) I thought that a 620w PSU should easily be able to power SLI 460s, according to most reviews full system draw never goes over 500w even when running Crysis and Furmark.

2) I havn't seen a single review that suggest this. Care to share?

3) That could be a better idea, but the GTX 460s outperform the 470 by enough of a margin to make them worth getting. Also you can now get 2x 460s 768mb for about the same price as the 470s now. Far better performance + cooler temps + same price = win.

Personally, with the new ATI 6XXX series coming so soon I reckon it'd definitely be worth your while to see how they play out.

 

[HW91]

3) yes but a single 768MB 460 is castrated quite a bit by losing 256MB, and since you're using double the computational power in the same amount of memory you'll lose a lot of fps, so at the moment you'd save about £115 getting a 470 over 460 1024MB's.

 

[Defunkt]

As said you would be daft to spend up to £400 right now with the 6XXX cards about to be released. Wait and see what they offer 1st.

 

[Cycrow]

if your only playing at 1680x1050, then getting SLI would be pointless.

a 480 would handle any game at that res, and a single card is always preferable to 2.

that way u can always get another 480 later down the line so it'll last longer (would need a new psu too thou)

 

[Mason-]

why would you want 460 SLI over a single 480.

Sure it performs a lil better, but there's nothing a 480 can't handle. Plus 460 SLI is your limit straight away, where as you can add one or 2 480s in the future.

 

[JeffyB]

£400 for just a graphics card at that res is mostly overkill with most games but it will last a while i guess.

The main problem with multi gpu and minimim fps is that although it may show as higher than a single faster card it won't feel that fast or smooth due to frames being output at unequal intervals (otherwise known as microstutter) and if sli doesn't work or works poorly with a game you'll only be as fast as a single card. So i would recommend a single faster card over 2 slower cards.

Peronally i'd wait though and see what the ati 6 series has to offer and go for one of those or a get a 470 and a bigger monitor/ssd or just keep the extra cash.

 

[straxusii]

I would go single card, the 470 is by far the best bang for the buck of the powerful cards right now, go 480 if you absolutely want the fastest but its worse value.

If you are spending that kind of money I just dont see the point going multi gpu, you wont notice the improvement over a 480 but you will definitely notice the lack of performance on the rare times when you are down to ~single gpu due to lack of driver support.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Firstly at that res, a 5850 through a 480gtx would be fine, SLi/xfire anything is COMPLETELY unnecessary.

Secondly the ENTIRE 5xxx series from AMD is being replaced starting with the high and mid end (6770(with serious upgrade, probably faster than a 460gtx 1gb) through 6870) at the end of October. So at worst theres a much better choice available for better price/performance, at worst, the 5850/460gtx 1gb's, 470gtx, 480gtx, 5870 will all be cheaper in a month or so, maybe a lot cheaper, maybe a little, this is THE worst month to buy in the past 12, after October theres nothing new till likely NEXT Sept/Oct, some people will say you'll always be waiting, you won't, these cards ARE launching next month and theres going to be nothing new for basically a year afterwards.

Thirdly, the 460gtx is a castrated 480gtx(though cut down in size rather than disabled bits unused) thats the reason its lower power at stock, a STOCK 460gtx doesn't use that much juice, but not that little either, when you overclock them and add a little voltage(the ONLY way to get a good overclock) they go up in power usage very very quickly. 2 maxed out overclocked 460gtx's will use more power than a 620W psu can handle.

They might use, IIRC around 160-170W stock, they'll use WELL over 470gtx power overclocked, which means 200-250W per card once overclocked well.

Honestly, without overclocking the 460gtx 1gb isn't a particularly good card, they do overclock very well, they offer decent performance heavily overclocked, but the trade off is high power usage.

Also keep in mind that pretty frequently a 5850 will come out 30-40% ahead, as in quite a lot of games will show that difference, less so at your resolution, more so at higher resolution. Round ups of performance often include games like Supreme commander(or other rts's) L4D, several others that are cpu limited, when roundups are done these are factored in reducing overall performance differences but don't respresent real life. The 460gtx 1gb in non cpu limited situations is rarely less than 20% ahead, and quite frequently 40% ahead, its a MUCH better card.

If you're spending £400, frankly I'd buy a single 24" 1920x1080 and then buy a single 5850/460gtx 1gb to go with it, or wait a month and buy the best single card the fits in your budget with a 24" screen of your choice.

 

[Rroff]

At that res get a GTX470 and overclock it. Or wait til the ATI 6 series and see what happens. Spend the rest on an SSD for quicker load times.

 

[skotish|]

I would wait its not long before you will have newer tech

 

[Xelene]

4870 should be alright for Crysis @ 1680x1050. Wait to see what the 6xxx brings.

 

[PhoenixUK]

if your only playing at 1680x1050, then getting SLI would be pointless.

a 480 would handle any game at that res, and a single card is always preferable to 2.

that way u can always get another 480 later down the line so it'll last longer (would need a new psu too thou)

A 460 would handle any game at that res as well.
Actually if we don't count crysis and 24xAA, an 4870 worth 40quid second hand will handle anything at that res.

I see no point in anything over 460 tbh if he wants to upgrade now, it will be silly to buy anything more expensive when new cards are just around the corner.

 

[RavenXXX2]

lol a 460 will handle anything at that rez, bigger lol for a 4870, we talking low to medium settings with no AA? metro 2033, crysis/warhead, just cause 2, ARMA, GTA 4, BC2, play all them maxed out at 1680x1050? yeah they will, if you can live with sub 30 fps.

 

[TerrorBird]

you all say that it wont make a difference in sli at my res? yet i read reviews that say different! a lot different

anyway i bit the bullet before coming back to this thread, i just orderd 2 gtx 460's woops! never knew the 6000 series is out soon. Might think about sending back now i know that

 

[nalla]

people arent saying sli wont make a difference,they are saying you wont notice a difference, because when u get over 60 fps you cant tell the difference, and at your res a single card should do that unless youre going for very high aa/af.

 

[discobiscuits]

Agree with raven above, to run at 1680x1050 with decent aa/af you need more than a single 460 to keep decent frames

 

[Jono8]

A single 460 will not cut it in some games if you want 60fps and lots of nice image quality settings.

I would suggest either 2x460's (as they scale very well in SLI) or wait till October and see what the ATI 6 series has to offer.