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Which card for how much?

Haegin

Haegin

Haegin

Associate
Joined
8 Jan 2010
Posts
11
Hi,

My old 8800GT died a short while ago so it needs replacing but I'm not sure what to get. I don't do a LOT of gaming but would like to be able to play Skyrim on full settings (or near full at least) at 1920x1080, ideally with nice graphics mods installed (though I realise that might be pushing it).

I'm also tempted to get a third monitor in the future so have been looking at ATI cards though if there is a significantly better card from Nvidia I can be persuaded to go without. At the moment I'm looking at between 100 and 150 pounds but this is depending on what I get for the money. This card only needs to last a few years as I'm just leaving uni and about to start work.

As a probably unrealistic goal, how much would I need to spend on what spec card to run Skyrim across 3 1080p monitors? I'm assuming this is way out of my budget.
 
What is the rest of your spec?

If you are still on a older Q or E or AMD chip, a card like a 670/80/7950/70 may be bottlenecked. Skyrim did run nicely on my 560TI but saying that, I didn't have many mods installed then (IIRC).

We can advise better when you list the rest of your spec though :)
 
Thanks for the reply. My specs are:
Intel i5 2500k (not overclocked)
8GB of fairly fast DDR3
500GB main drive but I'm thinking of upgrading to an SSD. Probably a Samsung 128GB thing.
I can't remember the rest of my specs while I'm not at my pc but I can update this when I get home later if that's useful.
 
That will be plenty fast enough for a 670/680/7950/7970, whatever you choose. Its criminal not to overclock that 2500k though;)

Read lots of reviews and decide if you want to overclock or not, and then base your decision from there.
 
Lets assume I decide to be a good citizen and overclock my CPU. What kind of card would I need to get Skyrim running on three monitors using Eyefinity. Alternatively, how good a card can I get for running existing games at 1920x1080 with decent settings for the next year for as cheap as possible?

For the record my motherboard is an ASUS P8P67-M PRO and my RAM is 8 gigs of DDR3 PC3-12800.
 
your gunna need the horsepower of the 7970 or gtx670 for decent fps @ 5760x1080, you might get away with a 7950. bit over budget though
 
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Also from experience if you plan on doing a lot of modding in skyrim then vram can become an issue. 2gb vram became a bottleneck for me at 5760x1080 with lots of texture mods installed.
 
Okay, yeah, as I suspected that is rather far outside my budget at the moment. Especially if I want to get an SSD as well. Would buying a Radeon 6850 (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-163-MS) give me enough juice to run Skyrim and Deus Ex HR (probably the two most demanding games I'm playing at the moment) on decent settings at 1920x1080? If so I think I'll go for that which means I can afford an SSD. If I need to upgrade graphics cards in a year or two that's fine, I can do that when I have a job and more spare cash.

The reviews on that card say it can be pretty noisy so I'm planning on putting some kind of aftermarket cooler on it. In the past I've gone with arctic cooling stuff. Is Arctic Cooling good or should I look elsewhere? I don't mind a bit on noise when gaming but I'm aiming for pretty silent operation when I'm not. Currently I have a P180 Mini with the top fan on low and a passive CPU cooler and it's working well with temps around 30-40 degrees.
 
The ATI guys will correct me if im wrong but isnt a 5870 a better option that the 6850? Same VRAM but way more horsepower. May have a problem sourcing a new one though. Plus if your gunna spend another £25 on an aftermarket cooler I'd pay the £15 extra and get the 6870. All cards now a days can be put on a custom fan profile to be silent at idle so if thats your concern it needn't be.

To answer your initial question, you should be able to get decent enough frames out of Deus Ex as its a console port but Skyrim I'm not so sure.
 
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I actually already have an Accelero S1 on my old 8800GT. Provided I can find the rest of the stuff that came with it in case I need different mounting plates I won't need to buy a new cooler. The only thing I might need is some heatsinks for the VRAMs. Also I can find the 6850 for 85 quid and the 6870 is 120 quid which seems quite a bit more expensive.
 
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