whats a decent card for £200?

Boogiemaster · 22 Mar 2011 at 00:44

Love playing games but need a decent card to play them.

I have about £200 but can go a little higher if needed.

Could you also spec me a decent card for about £415 as well?

Hopefully i will get the money I'm owed plus sell my pc and have £415 if not its £200 for the time being.

Thanks

kylew · 22 Mar 2011 at 00:50

£200 = 6950, £400 = 2x 6950s.

Strife212 · 22 Mar 2011 at 00:55

GTX480

RavenXXX2 · 22 Mar 2011 at 00:58

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-078-GI&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1750

mufcmark · 22 Mar 2011 at 00:58

If I was to spend £400 I would go for crossfire 6950's unlocked to 6970's and for £200 the 6950.

Reaper 392 · 22 Mar 2011 at 01:06

if your computer has a decent power supply, and you oar ok with a loud and hot card, then go for the GTX480 for £200, or 2x GTX480's for £400

if you want a quieter, cooler card with a much smaller drain on the PSU go for the 6950 for £200, or 2x 6950's for £400.

the 6950's can be flashed to become 6970's too, which is a nice bonus

GTX480 vs 6970 (flashed 6950): http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/292?vs=309

GTX480 SLI vs 6970 crossfire: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/298?vs=310

tommybhoy · 22 Mar 2011 at 01:27

tommybhoy said:
The only other factor to make my mind up would be if I wanted SLI or Xfire, Cuda/ Eyefinity/ 3D.

On this occasion I picked 6950>70 as at christmas it was the best bang for buck and had my eye on Xfire.

If I was buying now though, I would have had to factor in the price for a new psu to power the 480 sli setup and 6970 xfire scales better than 480 sli in the games I play.

You may hear the usual 'drivers are rubbish' argument but in my honest experience both sides can be as good/bad as each other and most of the time pebkac(I've had more cases of pebkac than I would like to admit to) is usually to blame.

From Geforce cards all the way to 7800GT sli, I always stuck to Nvidia because I just liked them, until I saw sense and bought the best bang for buck. I went to ATI 4870 because it was the best value I could get for what I was willing to pay, then a 5870 because Nvidia were late to the party.

If you don't have a preference for red/green, then get the setup to suit you. You should always buy the best bang for buck.

cmndr_andi · 22 Mar 2011 at 01:52

If you are going for a single card, then I would strongly recommend this Gigabyte GTX 480 which has been mentioned above (so long as you have a solid PSU). If you have a look at this review, this card's custom cooler is much better than the standard one meaning it is at the same noise level as other modern high-end cards. Also, there is currently a deal being run (ends Wednesday) with this card where you get 10% off -bringing the price to just over £200.

As for a £415 graphics solution, due to the power requirements of dual GTX 480s, I wouldn't recommend buying two of the cards I mention above unless you have a good quality 900W PSU. Instead, dual HD 6950 2GB in CrossfireX would be a very good option. Not only do these cards use a lot less power than the GTX 480s and can be unlocked to 6970s (see here) they also scale extremely well in crossfire.

postmanfw · 22 Mar 2011 at 02:38

Remember that only the revision one 2Gb cards can be unlocked though

bru · 22 Mar 2011 at 07:40

first question would be are you willing to overclock/flash...?

if the answer is yes then the AMD 6950 flashed to 6970 is a stonking card at a good price.

if the answer is no then the Nvidia GTX480 will outperform all the other options at stock settings, yes it is a hotter running card and it does use a bit more power, but the newer variants are not as bad as the launch versions.

arc@css · 22 Mar 2011 at 09:04

What is the power usage of a reference 480 in comparison with either the SE or SOC ones? Anyone know?

OCPete · 22 Mar 2011 at 11:34

cmndr_andi said:
If you are going for a single card, then I would strongly recommend this Gigabyte GTX 480 which has been mentioned above (so long as you have a solid PSU). If you have a look at this review, this card's custom cooler is much better than the standard one meaning it is at the same noise level as other modern high-end cards. Also, there is currently a deal being run (ends Wednesday) with this card where you get 10% off -bringing the price to just over £200.

As for a £415 graphics solution, due to the power requirements of dual GTX 480s, I wouldn't recommend buying two of the cards I mention above unless you have a good quality 900W PSU. Instead, dual HD 6950 2GB in CrossfireX would be a very good option. Not only do these cards use a lot less power than the GTX 480s and can be unlocked to 6970s (see here) they also scale extremely well in crossfire.

+1

Mojo · 22 Mar 2011 at 11:48

If your overall aim is going dual GPU I would suggest the 6950s. AMD's 6 series has the best multi card scaling out at the moment, having improved by quite a large margin over the 5 series which was mediocre. Two 6950s will outperform two 480s.

However, if you aren't going dual gpu, that non reference 480 does look rather nice! Sorts out the heat and noise problems of the 480s quite nicely.

Dark_Angel · 22 Mar 2011 at 11:49

I'd go for the 480...

bru · 22 Mar 2011 at 12:02

Mojo said:
Two 6950s will outperform two 480s.

er not according to this they don't
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/299?vs=310

and if your going to say they will after being flashed, then i would offer that if your going to flash the AMD cards then you should also overclock the Nvidia ones, putting you somewhere near this comparison.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/298?vs=308

In my honest opinion two AMD6950's will not outperform two Nvidia GTX480's

and with the voucher code offer available till Wednesday they are not even any cheaper.

Caracus2k · 22 Mar 2011 at 12:04

Mojo said:
If your overall aim is going dual GPU I would suggest the 6950s. AMD's 6 series has the best multi card scaling out at the moment, having improved by quite a large margin over the 5 series which was mediocre. Two 6950s will outperform two 480s.

However, if you aren't going dual gpu, that non reference 480 does look rather nice! Sorts out the heat and noise problems of the 480s quite nicely.

(Two 6950s will outperform two 480s.)
Eh (generally) no they wont (even when flashed to 6970's) look at the linked benchmarks. If your get the 480's with the better coolers most will overclock better than a flashed 6950 anyhow as I assume that if you are happy with flashing your cards BIOS you would also be happy overclocking. Other than a few benches were the 695(7)0 Crossfire pulls ahead of 480 SLI the main advantage of such a setup is power consumption.

Caracus2k · 22 Mar 2011 at 12:05

bru said:
er not according to this they don't
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/299?vs=310

and if your going to say they will after being flashed, then i would offer that if your going to flash the AMD cards then you should also overclock the Nvidia ones, putting you somewhere near this comparison.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/298?vs=308

In my honest opinion two AMD6950's will not outperform two Nvidia GTX480's

and with the voucher code offer available till Wednesday they are not even any cheaper.

Damm beat me to saying it! As above an overclocked 480 SLI setup will almost universally stomp all over a flashed and overclocked 695(7)0 crossfire setup unless you are talking about power consuption. NOte the benches linked above were for cards that were not overclocked (the 480 sli one) A lot of 480's will oc to 800mhz.

kylew · 22 Mar 2011 at 12:07

bru said:
er not according to this they don't
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/299?vs=310

and if your going to say they will after being flashed, then i would offer that if your going to flash the AMD cards then you should also overclock the Nvidia ones, putting you somewhere near this comparison.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/298?vs=308

In my honest opinion two AMD6950's will not outperform two Nvidia GTX480's

and with the voucher code offer available till Wednesday they are not even any cheaper.

So why not overclock the 6950s after flashing them? It's the same thing. On top of that the actual performance difference shown there is very minimal in favour of the 580s, and in fact pretty much level pegging. So when the 580s are faster, it's not by so much that they become worth twice the price of the crossfire 6950(70)s.

Relentless81 · 22 Mar 2011 at 12:09

I paid £200 for my Gigabyte 560 OC and its very impressive for the price if you are running 1680 res it will rip apart most games with max detail and 8xaa

If your running 1080p you will need to knock the aa down a bit.

Never again will I spend more than £200 on a card, its just not needed

bru · 22 Mar 2011 at 13:20

kylew the price of the 580's in this particular discussion is not really relevant as we are talking about the 480 and its potential when overclocked the same with the 6950/70's.
the thing is that the 480 is faster at stock speeds and when both 480 and 6950/70 are pushed the the 480 is still faster...just. now the 6950/70 does have more memory and uses less power but it is (till wednesday)more expensive.

kylew said:
....the actual performance difference shown there is very minimal in favor of the 580s, and in fact pretty much level pegging.

this comment is so good, and its something that we all seem to forget. the performance difference between all of the top cards (read as 560ti soc,570,480,580,6950 and 6970) is so small in most commonly used scenarios that choosing between them is almost ridiculous.