Upgrade card for gaming

[suzyb]

I recently got Battlefield 3 for pc but when I played it I was getting some graphics issues and the gfx card fan was really loud. I think the rest of my PC is good enough for a little gaming but my card lags behind so I would like to uprade. But what should I go for.

Current spec is
GeForce GTX 460
Athlon Quad Core processor 3GHz
OCZ ModXStream Pro 500w Silent PSU
4GB ram
Dell U2711 running 2560 x 1440 resolution

 

[suzyb]

I don't want to spend too much as I will only be gaming occasionally but at the same time I'd like a good card

So say £250 max as a budget.

 

[suzyb]

hmmm.... i have the same processor (athlon x4 640/645)as you suzy and i wouldn't go anything above the 7850 or your cpu will bottleneck the performance of your graphics card!

I went for the gtx560 and i run my games brilliantly, including bf3...

The 7950 that gregster offered, would be bottlenecked by your cpu... i would go for the 7850... great card and they can be picked up for around £120ish now like this one:http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-179-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=411

What's the cooling like on that card. Would it be better paying a little extra to get this with the twin frozr cooler (I think I read somewhere on here that was a good cooler).

Or should I go for the 7950 to save having to upgrade if I upgrade the rest of the PC. Hmmm.

I wish I had thought of this sooner than today so I'd have more time on this week's offers.

 

[suzyb]

Just done a little comparison between my current card and the 7850 & 7950 and find my current card uses more power than those 2

Am I right in saying the Gigabyte one is overclocked out the box, hence the OC in the name and the core clock of 975 instead of 900.

 

[suzyb]

Have ordered the Gigabyte 7850. If I get more into PC gaming then I can just upgrade the entire PC.

Thanks for the advice everyone.