New Graphics Card needed for desktop.

[Wolfram23]

Very important question: What's the budget???

IMO a 5670 or 5770 is a good way to go as you get DX11 support which is great on a quad core CPU (DX11 brings multi threading to help accelerate GPUs, on top of tesslation and some other nice bits like lighting and advanced depth of field).

If you have $300 or $400 then a 5850 or 5870 are really great and efficient cards. For these high end cards the hierarchy is 5850 < GT470 < 5870 < GT480 < 5970.

A 4870 is a really good card, I think it's faster than a 5670 maybe than a 5770 too but only DX10 support.

9800GT is old tech, I'd look at (for Nvidia) the GT 250 or GT 260.

Definitely browse this article (Best GPU for the money from Toms Hardware): http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-card-geforce-radeon,2646.html

 

[CaseySmith]

Radeon 5850s are cracking cards, decent price too.

Hear-hear!

I just got mine today, for £60 off (They're usually about £250 ish new) of ebay, expecting to repair it because it was sold as faulty... But there was nothing wrong with it in the first place!

Only disappointment about it, is that there's not many games out there to show it off yet. :< Alien Verus Predator I'm pretty sure only have tessellated character models, Dirt 2 is... Well, a racing game; I'm not into those. But well anyway, it is a decent and powerful card.

I do truely recommend the ATi 5000 series this year, they give more bang for your buck. But if you have the money to throw at anything, go for the GeForce 480.


PS: Just as a tip: next time it might be a bit better to mention how much you're willing to spend, as that's the main factor to give a more precise recommendation. :>

 

[Wolfram23]

Radeon 5850s are cracking cards, decent price too.

Hear-hear!

I just got mine today, for £60 off of ebay, expecting to repair it because it was faulty and have a cheap but powerful card... But there was nothing wrong with it in the first place!

Only disappointment about it, is that there's not many games out there to show it off yet. :< Alien Verus Predator I'm pretty sure only have tessellated character models, Dirt 2 is... Well, a racing game; I'm not into those. But well anyway, it is a decent and powerful card.

I do truely recommend the ATi 5000 series this year, they give more bang for your buck. But if you have the money to throw at anything, go for the GeForce 480.


PS: Just as a tip: next time it might be a bit better to mention how much you're willing to spend, as that's the main factor to give a more precise recommendation. :>

Metro 2033 ftw (DX11 support, this game is gorgeous!)
Or STALKER: CoP - not the best graphics but it uses DX11 lighting for awesome effects (in particular, the lightning storms are really cool)

 

[Xiorell]

Radeon 5850s are cracking cards, decent price too.

Hear-hear!

I just got mine today, for £60 off (They're usually about £250 ish new) of ebay, expecting to repair it because it was sold as faulty... But there was nothing wrong with it in the first place!

Only disappointment about it, is that there's not many games out there to show it off yet. :< Alien Verus Predator I'm pretty sure only have tessellated character models, Dirt 2 is... Well, a racing game; I'm not into those. But well anyway, it is a decent and powerful card.

I do truely recommend the ATi 5000 series this year, they give more bang for your buck. But if you have the money to throw at anything, go for the GeForce 480.


PS: Just as a tip: next time it might be a bit better to mention how much you're willing to spend, as that's the main factor to give a more precise recommendation. :>

I use a 5850 in my second PC.

Metro 2033 looks sweet in DX11, assuming the rest of your rig can keep up when the games running with everything on max. AVP looks hardly any different to me.

To be honest if I was just throwing money at a PC, I'd have a 5970 (I have one in my main PC but want a 2nd one for Xfire), they bend over the Nvidia stuff and make it thier ***** at the moment. Or if you're getting really stupid, a Sapphire HD 5970 Toxic, the new 4GB dohickey. Just... just a fucking mental card that is.

 

[AceAngel]

Depends, for my Graphic Design needs, I HAVE to use an Nvidia, ATi if you want power for games...

 

[CaseySmith]

I was looking into Metro 2033. But I'm a bit skeptical of it to be honest. I'm under the impression I'll play it for however long it takes to complete it, and never play it again....

But holy hell guys! Look at Steam! The THQ pack with Metro 2033 in...

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/4587

I'm deffinately getting that, so I guess I will be playing it after all. :>

To be honest if I was just throwing money at a PC, I'd have a 5970 (I have one in my main PC but want a 2nd one for Xfire), they bend over the Nvidia stuff and make it thier ***** at the moment. Or if you're getting really stupid, a Sapphire HD 5970 Toxic, the new 4GB dohickey. Just... just a fucking mental card that is.

And yeah, I should've said that, was thinking I should've edited what I said.

 

[Wolfram23]

I wouldn't go with a 5970 unless you really need a single card... otherwise CF 5850s for less money and similar performance at stock, but way better performance when OCed - and 5850s OC significantly easier than 5970s. I have 2 5850s overclocked and I can tell you, they are beastly. Metro 2033 DX11 Very High settings, 1920x1080, tesslation and depth of field... basically everything is maxed out except AA is set to AAA not 4xMSAA - but literally nothing can run the game with depth of field and 4xMSAA at max settings - anyway, runs at an average of about 40fps, generally more like 50 but some heavy scenes it's more like 30fps. Still, very awesome.

Here's a fun little vid I did:

[http://s746.photobucket.com/albums/xx103/Wolfram23/?action=view&current=Metro2033.mp4]

 

[CaseySmith]

I wouldn't go with a 5970 unless you really need a single card... otherwise CF 5850s for less money and similar performance at stock, but way better performance when OCed - and 5850s OC significantly easier than 5970s. I have 2 5850s overclocked and I can tell you, they are beastly. Metro 2033 DX11 Very High settings, 1920x1080, tesslation and depth of field... basically everything is maxed out except AA is set to AAA not 4xMSAA - but literally nothing can run the game with depth of field and 4xMSAA at max settings - anyway, runs at an average of about 40fps, generally more like 50 but some heavy scenes it's more like 30fps. Still, very awesome.

Here's a fun little vid I did:

[http://s746.photobucket.com/albums/xx103/Wolfram23/?action=view&current=Metro2033.mp4]

Nice. Downloading that as I type this, from that awesome offer on steam.

I was planning to get another HD 5850 for crossfire, and upgrade from a Phenom II 955 @ 3.7GHz with 800MHz DDR2, to an i7 920 with DDR 3 ram and use my 19" 1280*1024 monitor as a secondary, and get a beasty 1920*1080 or 1920*1200 monitor (not sure what size yet).

Oh, and they're all going into my beloved Silverstone Raven 2 case. =p I really do love this case.

 

[Abedeus]

I'm upgrading my 9800 GT to a Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 for the DirectX 10. Drains as much power as my 9800, but has a lot more kick (33% more, basically). And Europe has so high prices, it's shocking... Almost twice as much as in US.

 

[WaNNaBJusTLiKeU]

Buying this GFX Card tonight, but i'm still not really sure what to get, everything is too expensive, I'm looking at £75 max. So around $120. It's only for SC2.

 

[Arachon]

Nvidia GTX 260, arent too expensive (Graphics cards wise, mine only cost £120) but still fully DX11 capable and can run pretty much anything

No it's not, NVIDIAs only DX11 line is the 400 series.