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Which Card for Gaming?

Danger Phoenix

Danger Phoenix

Danger Phoenix

Soldato
Joined
21 Jul 2004
Posts
6,368
Location
Harrow, UK
A friend of mine is thinking of building a new gaming PC and has the base station more or less sorted... apart from the graphics card.

Now he plans to have a 24" monitor or TV attached (not decided which yet - which would you recommend?) and will therefore be running quite a high resolution.

He wants a good gaming experience, but doesn't particularly like the price tags on the GTX 295 range. I was reading a few threads on here, and people were recommending cheaper cards as the performance wasnt that different to the high end cards.

So, which cards should he be considering?
 
Radeon 5850 or 5770 depending on his price range.

If he doesnt care for DX11 then a 4890 is a viable choice. Better than 5770 but quite a bit worse than 5850.
 
Danger Phoenix said:
Now he plans to have a 24" monitor or TV attached (not decided which yet - which would you recommend?)
Click to expand...

I would recommend a monitor rather than a TV.

Danger Phoenix said:
He wants a good gaming experience, but doesn't particularly like the price tags on the GTX 295 range. I was reading a few threads on here, and people were recommending cheaper cards as the performance wasnt that different to the high end cards.
Click to expand...

So his budget is less than £300 as this is about the cheapest a 295 can be obtained for? Hmmm, perhaps a 5850 or 2 x 5770 - should be good for anything maxed-out up to 1920*1080, plus they are DirectX 11 compatible.
 
Agreed.

5850 = best choice for high performance & future proofing (if you can find one anywhere).
5770 = excellent budget choice for DX11 compatibility. Great performance running two in crossfire if the motherboard supports it.
4890 = superb 'bang for ther buck' choice now the prices are dropping, but lacks DX11 support.
 
What are the specs of his system? Crucially, what is the capacity/make/model of his power supply?

I see you mentioned "Dell" there, that gave me a bit of a shudder. Which model did he subject himself to?
 
"I see you mentioned "Dell" there, that gave me a bit of a shudder". lol :D Gaming on a tv rather than a monitor isnt too bad to be honest not as good as, but it wont be too noticable. As for the card yeah ofc for the budget the 5850 is best but good luck finding it in stock:( not enough supply to meet the demand at the monent it seems.
 
He hasn't gone for the Dell yet, but we are looking at something which doesn't have to be built and is relatively cheap whilst having the performance.

Looking at:
Inspiron 545
- Intel® Core™ 2 Quad-Core Q8300 Processor (2.50GHz, 4MB cache, 1333MHz FSB)
- 6144MB Dual Channel DDR2 800MHz [2x2048 + 2x1024] Memory
- 1TB (7200rpm) SATA Hard Drive
- 512MB ATI® Radeon™ HD 4350 graphics card

It doesn't give details about the PSU, so I am not sure if it will be capable of powering a ATI 5850 :confused:
 
Danger Phoenix said:
He hasn't gone for the Dell yet, but we are looking at something which doesn't have to be built and is relatively cheap whilst having the performance.

Looking at:
Inspiron 545
- Intel® Core™ 2 Quad-Core Q8300 Processor (2.50GHz, 4MB cache, 1333MHz FSB)
- 6144MB Dual Channel DDR2 800MHz [2x2048 + 2x1024] Memory
- 1TB (7200rpm) SATA Hard Drive
- 512MB ATI® Radeon™ HD 4350 graphics card

It doesn't give details about the PSU, so I am not sure if it will be capable of powering a ATI 5850 :confused:
Click to expand...

As I suspected, dell desktops at their finest. How much are they expecting him to pay for this? I would be happy to come up with a build spec or an OCUK prebuild in his budget that will knock this out of the park.

I don't say this to be mean, but there are several things wrong with this machine if used for gaming.
- The RAM, there is lots of it, but due to its configuration it will only run in single channel mode.
- The Q8300 may be a quad core, but at 2.5GHz and 4MB l2 cache it will be one of the weakest for gaming.
-Graphics card needs to be binned
-PSU is likely insufficient to power better graphics card
-motherboad is locked, so no overclocking and limited upgradability.
-motherboard and case are usually non-ATX design - so upgrades and new GPUs will be difficult to install.

Have a look at this, its a great system costs £500 with a 4850 graphics card and will play games far better than the above dell. If you want a 5850, just select it in the drop-down menu - the PSU is more than capable.
 
We just called OcUK enquiring about the AMD Gamer which cmndr_andi linked to, and they mentioned that the graphics card comes in every few days and so the wait time should be no more than two weeks.

My main question is, will this be able to play any current game at maximum settings (eg. Arma 2 etc.):
- AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 245 2.90GHz
- Corsair XMS2 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 TwinX Dual Channel
- ATI Radeon HD 5850 1024MB
- Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 AMD 770 (Socket AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
- LG GH22NS40 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black)
- Corsair TX 650W ATX SLi Compliant Power Supply
 
Last edited:
The above setup will play almost every game at high/full settings except a few.

With that graphics card and CPU I reckon Crysis will actually be very playable at high.
However, as it only uses a dual core I believe ARMA2 and GTA4 will not play particularly well. This is because these games make use of multiple CPU cores and 2 isn't usually enough for them.

With this in mind, I would suggest asking OCUK to replace the CPU with this. It will cost about £50 more, but It will allow you play the above games MUCH better.
 
Danger Phoenix said:
Would it be worth considering going down the Intel Quad route?
Click to expand...

It depends what you mean by intel quad. If you mean Core i5/i7 - then maybe but it may require a larger budget.

However, if you mean Core 2 Quad, then i'd suggest against it. The chips are relatively expensive compared to their AMD competition, no faster in games and use a platform that is about to be End-of-Life. At this price range, the AMD X3 720BE is the gaming chip you want, have a look at this review where it holds its own against much more expensive CPUs in a variety of games.

Ideally, I would suggest building yourself (actually not too difficult and a very rewarding experience) then you can pick every component personally. If you do decide to go down this route, i'd be happy to come up with some lists of parts for you.
 
Or when selecting parts, I have come up with:

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail + Colin McRae Dirt 2 Full Game A
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 10666C9 1333MHz TwinX Dual Channel (TW3X4G1333C9)
Corsair TX 650W ATX SLi Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-650TXUK)
Asus M4A785TD-V Evo AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD6401AALS)
NZXT BETA Classic Series Case - Black (No PSU)
Sony Optiarc AD-5240S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM
2 x Xilence XPF120R Red Wing 120mm Quiet Fan
2 x Akasa SATA-2 45cm Silver Data Cable
 
This is what I would suggest. Just a matter of waiting for some 58xx series cards to come back in stock.

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