What graphics card should I get?

[KiiYzOo]

My friend wants to buy my MSi Cyclone gtx 460 768mb card for £100 and if I decide to do this should I save up £100 and get an ATI 5870, save up £50 and get a 6850 or get another higher spec Nvidia card for around £200 or less?

I want to play as many games as possible maxed out at 1680x1050.

 

[J.D]

Upgrading to the 5870 or 6850 wouldn't be much of an upgrade as I've heard people mention that a highly overclocked GTX460 can compete with the 5850. Even if it's not true, my guess would be that the GTX 460 would not be far behind a highly overclocked 5870 too.

The 6950 is about your range when you mention £100 that you are willing to save but I don't feel the 6950 is worth over £100 on top of a GTX460 but it seems to be going that way with higher price graphics cards more so today than ever before.

If you would be happy with a card that trades blows with a stock GTX570 then get the 6950, flash it to the 6970 and then overclock it a little. I'm lucky I can hit 950Mhz on the core with stock voltage but not all of the 6950s flashed can do that.

The GTX470 would be a good card to think about also but, the GTX560 should make an arrival this month so if your friend can wait till the end of the month, I'd wait and make your decision then.

 

[Cleeecooo]

Probably gtx 560 whrn it arrives. Otherwise the 460

 

[J.D]

Probably gtx 560 whrn it arrives. Otherwise the 460

Cleeecooo, please in future could you at least READ the question before providing an answer?.

He is selling a GTX460.

 

[KiiYzOo]

Upgrading to the 5870 or 6850 wouldn't be much of an upgrade as I've heard people mention that a highly overclocked GTX460 can compete with the 5850. Even if it's not true, my guess would be that the GTX 460 would not be far behind a highly overclocked 5870 too.

The 6950 is about your range when you mention £100 that you are willing to save but I don't feel the 6950 is worth over £100 on top of a GTX460 but it seems to be going that way with higher price graphics cards more so today than ever before.

If you would be happy with a card that trades blows with a stock GTX570 then get the 6950, flash it to the 6970 and then overclock it a little. I'm lucky I can hit 950Mhz on the core with stock voltage but not all of the 6950s flashed can do that.

The GTX470 would be a good card to think about also but, the GTX560 should make an arrival this month so if your friend can wait till the end of the month, I'd wait and make your decision then.

Thanks I never thought about getting the 6950 and unless the 560 has only a small difference in performance (which I doubt) to the 6950/570 then I will probably get the 6950 as it has eyefinity and the card looks awesome even with the stock cooler and there are MSi lightning versions coming out soon that look even more awesome. (plus the bonus of flashing the bios )

Thanks again for the response

 

[cmndr_andi]

May I ask why you are selling your GTX 460 - are you not happy with it?

If you want to keep it - your friend could get a brand new GTX 460 with a custom cooler for £14 more.

if you do want an upgrade, then I would strongly suggest you go for the 6950. This will give you a meaningful performance upgrade. Also there is a good chance you will be able to unlock it to the even faster 6970 - have a look at this page.

 

[KiiYzOo]

May I ask why you are selling your GTX 460 - are you not happy with it?

If you want to keep it - your friend could get a brand new GTX 460 with a custom cooler for £14 more.

if you do want an upgrade, then I would strongly suggest you go for the 6950. This will give you a meaningful performance upgrade. Also there is a good chance you will be able to unlock it to the even faster 6970 - have a look at this page.

It's not that im not happy with it it's just that my friend asked if he could buy it and I thought that that would give me an opportunity to spread out the upgrades I am planning to do to my system this year and doing it this way would save me spending a huge amount of money at one time when the next generation of cards come out. It also means that I can have more enjoyment out of my system for longer with games like crysis 2 coming out this year i would rather upgrade now than wait till the end of this year.

 

[cmndr_andi]

That's fair enough.

Here is a direct link to best value 6950.

 

[KiiYzOo]

That's fair enough.

Here is a direct link to best value 6950.

Thanks, I was thinking about getting an XFX or an MSi card as I already have components from both of them and they are pretty good, although my MSi motherboard has an annoying bios which is restricting my overclocking of my i3 cpu I think :/