Upgrade time! What to buy?

[Reaper652]

Time to upgrade from my old palit 9800gt. Its starting to lagg behind a bit in new games and the fan is really really loud.

Have a budget of est. £260-70, with a bit of stretch in it, so i think a 5850 is my best option?

I Would like it to be as quiet as possible when idling (don't mind if it gets a bit louder when gaming) and be capible of a desent oc.

Looked around a bit and found a Sapphire 5850 toxic for just under £250, whats this card like on terms of noise?

 

[Alex74]

what's the rest of your rig and what resolution do you game at?

Generally for a 5850 I'd suggest the Asus DirectCU because it's in stock at OCUK (unlike the standard board), has 3 years of warranty, has a decent cooler on it and has nice easy overclocking on it

If you're thinking of overclocking then there's no point buying a 'pre-overclocked' board as you'll be doing it yourself anyway, so there's no point paying the premium.

 

[Reaper652]

Just thought that was a pretty good deal.

Running an E7500 @ 3.4 (could go higher, at stock volts atm) in an MSI p43 neo-f (crappy board) and 2gb of ddr2 800 ram.

Behind a 5850, but being upgraded around chrismas (or mabee to a 1155 in q1)

EDIT: forgot to say I usually play at 1366x768

 

[bells]

As you already know it's the 5850 all the way

 

[Alex74]

Actually...if you're not going to be heading up to a higher resolution than 1366x768, you'd probably be best off with a 5770 and then just saving the rest for upgrading the main rig.

Any 5850 will be really overpowered for the resolution and the rig as it stands atm.

 

[Reaper652]

Monitor will probably be replaced before the gpu, i want something that will last a good long time while i have the money.

Also discovered the toxic is a custom pcb at 10.1" and end mounted power plugs, might be a squeese. Which reminds me, it has to fit into a CM Storm Scout, so ~11 inches of room if this helps?