Upgrade advice please

[CSA]

Im thinking i may upgrade my machine these holidays, now atm i think its a pretty decent rig to run the games i play mainly BF2 & COD4 but its let down by the graphics card (1800xt) and my cheapo monitor (19" 8ms WS TFT)which makes the games look really washed out and colourless, i think thats because it only has 500:1 contrast ratio or summat, im not overly clued up on monitors

anyway so my intial thoughts was that i was going to buy a 8800GT to last me till around april/may when i'd prolly upgrade to one of nvidias new offerings, but then my monitor still sux, so now im thinking i may just buy a cheaper graphics card and a new monitor thats has way better spec than my current one

ive been looking at these ATI Radeon HD 3850 Pro's dunno whether to get a 265 or 512 version, that should leave me enough cash to get a 19/20" 5ms WS monitor with summat like 3000:1 contrast ration, my budget is around 250 to 300, deffo cant spend more than 300 (GF would have a fit)


so are these 3850 pros any good ?, how do they compare to 1800xt's and would getting a better monitor improve game graphics ? OR should i just get a 8800gt and naff the monitor off ? OR dont buy a new card and just upgrade my monitor then look at cards in a few months ?

 

[WJA96]

I would take the time to get clued on monitors, as the problem with your existing screen is almost certainly poor setup. Very few TFTs I've seen have been great straight from the box.

 

[CSA]

I took along time to set it up when i first got it last xmas, and no matter what i have tried i cant get games to look right , i only paid 100quid for it from the purple shirt brigade thus i always put the washed out colours down to its poor contrast ratio, is that not the case then ?