What graphics card(s) for this system?

[Yannic]

Hello,

I finally joined the world of 2560x1600 and low and behold my 8800gt 512 is starting to struggle going up from 1680x1050 to this resolution in titles like L4D2 and Bad Company 2.

I bought one of the overclocked bundles from OCUK about 3 months ago. It is based on a Asus P7P55D-E LX Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard. It uses an i5 750 at 3.6Ghz and uses 4GB of RAM.

My question is which of the current crop of ATI cards are the way forward? Ideally I would like it if I could use the card to play at native res considering I could potentially be spending over £400 on this one piece of hardware!

Can this motherboard handle 2x5830's or 2x5850's or should I just go for a single 5850/5870 or really do I need a 5970? I really am hoping a single 5850 is enough but am worried it just wont handle very well at 2560x1600?

 

[Yannic]

Good idea

 

[Yannic]

If I were to get a single 5870, which of the makes has the best/quietest heatsink and best warranty?


I was looking at that Powercolor PCS++ version on the site. Is their solution one of the best or should I look to Sapphire, Asus, HiS, MSI or XFX?

 

[Yannic]

after much measuring of my case and reading about. A 5970 is out of the question as I am not ready to also replace the case on top of getting the new card.

I decided to purchase the PowerColor 5870 PCS++ as it seems to be one of the fastest cards on OCUK for £350.

 

[Yannic]

If I had that monitor and I was considering spending over £300 on a 1gb 5870, I would be having a serious look at the £393 1.5gb GTX 480. I think the extra VRAM will mean it will last you longer with having such a high resolution. If the 5870 was £240 then this wouldn't be the case but the fact is most of them seem to be about £330

All i hear about those Nvidia cards is;

Very hot, very noisy, high power draw.

From what I gather, the entire line seems to be sub-standard when compared to the 5xxx series. This is just from reading reviews though, so I cant confirm it.

 

[Yannic]

Arg! A worry. I was just reading a review on the Asus Voltage Tweek 5870. They took the card up to 1GHz core at 1.3v and although the idle temps were fine. Apparently the load tems soared by 40 degrees.

My worry is that as this card comes pre-overclocked to 950Mhz, with no information on how many volts are in it, the card will be a noisy hot thing?

Has anyone got one of these PCS++ cards from Powercolor? Are they significantly hotter and noiser by bumping the clock up 100Mhz and an unknown voltage increase?

Should I cancel the order and go for a cheaper, stock card as noise and heat is a big concern of mine.

 

[Yannic]

+1 I'd like to know this too since I'm considering the same card.

Well its installed and its smaller than I thought. I removed my hard drive cage from my lian-li thinking it wouldnt fit but it just fits in nicely. This PowerColor model puts the power connectors on the rear of the card, not the side like the stock ATI cooler but even still there was still plenty of room.

The 6 year old lian-li is still holding out

Re: heat - havent really given it a full long work over but idle is very quiet. Loaded BC2 for 20 mins and L4D2 for 20 mins and it didn't turn in to a hoover so I am still quite happy.

PCS++ @ 950mhz from Powercolour - no heat probs from me.


Only downside is I loaded L4D2 @ 2560x1600 full AA and AF, and low and behold - it still wasn't responsive enough to consider fully playable and smooth.

Now running it at 1920x1200 4AA and 8AF and it runs nice and smooth although I havent been in the rain storm scenes yet.

BC2 was a lovely improvement over the 8800GT, settings up much higher (although still only at 1920x1200) looks much nicer and much smoother.

 

[Yannic]

Sounds good Yannic, can you have a look at overclocking the core to 1ghz, and also what kinda temps are you seeing?

I dont know the temps to be honest. Just so long as it isnt a hoover or a power sucking noise maker im happy.

Its quiet, fast and looks great. It also didnt take up as much room as I thought... im happy