Graphics card: Now or later

[Ulti]

To put it simply, I have a 8600GT (LP so it's sort of a crippled 8600GT) and I want to upgrade.

Now I see a 4850 2nd hand in the 2nd hand section and it's £60. Should I get this or wait till next month (I'll have £75 definitely) and get an XFX 4770. I really like the design of the XFX 4770 haha.

Or should I save up a bit more and get a 5770?

Hope someone can help, thanks!

P.S. I'm a student so every £10 saved is a lot saved lol.

[Fishpan]

8800gt. (:

[spoon_]

You can get the 4850, good card! I know because mac123 bought it from me 3 weeks ago! :O

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Originally Posted by Ulti

To put it simply, I have a 8600GT (LP so it's sort of a crippled 8600GT) and I want to upgrade.

Now I see a 4850 2nd hand in the 2nd hand section and it's £60. Should I get this or wait till next month (I'll have £75 definitely) and get an XFX 4770. I really like the design of the XFX 4770 haha.

Or should I save up a bit more and get a 5770?

Hope someone can help, thanks!

P.S. I'm a student so every £10 saved is a lot saved lol.

The HD5770 was around £110 at release but had now gone up in price!! The same is true of the HD5750 which could be had for under £100 at launch!!

The HD4850 for sale has the Akasa Vortexx Neo aftermarket cooler BTW. It is a good card for the money although you could get a brand new HD4770 and HD4850 for between £70 and £80.

TBH,I would wait until the HD5750 and HD5770 have dropped in price as they offer better performance,low idle power consumption,DX11 and also have more RAM which may help at higher resolutions.

[Ulti]

Well I won't be getting a new monitor so I'll only be gaming at 1280*1024. I'll be playing stuff like World of Warcraft, Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2. (And I'll play the L4D2 demo - which is why I wanna get a GFX card soon)

EDIT: Reason why I'm asking is because I don't really like the look of the 4850 and the blue LED lights of the Vortexx Neo and I much prefer XFX's 4770 for £75 (which is £15 for a new card)

Not sure if I should bother waiting for a DX11 card though...

[Biscuit]

I would stick it out for as long as you possibly can

[watforddude]

I have got a 4850 and i think its a really good card (now) for an example at 1200x800 and 4x AA i can play Call of Duty 4 and never really drops below 80 FPS and stays at 125 FPS most of the time (depending on what map) but it never go's into the red (below 60 FPS) but i got mine for a bargin of 50 pounds, i dont really think the 4770 is worth it.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/ati-ra...-4770-review/9

When you look at this chart i think the bench's start on page 8 or 9 it have the same or less preformance than the 4850 and just becuase you like the look of the card isnt a big factor seeing as you will be looking at your screen, not inside your case.

[scaryjim]

If you keep waiting for the next thing out you'll be waiting forever, there's always something else around the corner!

Given that the 8600GT and the 9500GT are basically the same card, a HD4670 would be a massive upgrade (~ double your existing framerates) and you can currently get a Sapphire version on ebuyer for £47. Assuming you're sticking with your existing 17" monitor you don't really need anything more expensive than that - a 4670 will happily chew through pretty much anything (except Crysis, of course ) at 1280 x 1024...

That said, a 4850 (or indeed a 4770) would probably double your framerates again from a 4670, and give you more flexibility if you choose to upgrade your monitor in the next year or so, too. The 5770 / 5750 have similar performance with a much better featureset, and while they have a significant price premium at the minute it may well be worth waiting for those to come down in price, as CAT says.

I'd also anticipate a new lower-midrange GPU from ATI soon leveraging 5k series technology (based on the 58x0 -> 57x0 transfer, I'd guess it'll have 400 stream processors, but that's pure speculation ), and perfoming better than a 4670 at ~ £60 street price - I guess it all depends on how long you can wait

[Pob255]

I'd not bother with the 4770, yes it's a decent boost over your gimped 8600gt, which was never a great card to start with, however at £75 it's way too much.
You can pick up a 4850 new for under £80
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...tech/4850.html
4850 @ £72.44

a 2nd hand 8800gt or 9800gt or 4830 would be good if you can find one cheap
or a 8800gts 512mb
I'd not pay over £50 for one.

[McstylisT]

Another vote to consider a 4850. Fine card and should be available for a good price for the performance.

Good luck

McT

[Ulti]

Ah, put in an order for a 4770 already this morning :/

Don't really want to cancel it seeing as it's already confirmed my order.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The XFX HD4770 is one of the better ones and should be a massive upgrade from an 8600GT!!

Here are some reviews:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...7/xfx-hd4770/1

http://www.motherboards.org/reviews/...re/1897_1.html

http://www.elitebastards.com/?option...=723&Itemid=27

http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/xfx_hd_4770/

[scaryjim]

I shouldn't worry, the 4770 has performance very close to the 4850 (better in some games), and the XFX version has the funky big cooler that AMD announced as the reference cooler but hardly made it into any retail cards. Hopefully it should give you plenty of OC headroom

[Ulti]

Well hopefully it arrives soon 8600GT is the "weakest link" in my pc right now haha.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Originally Posted by Ulti

Well hopefully it arrives soon 8600GT is the "weakest link" in my pc right now haha.

You are not going to say "good-bye" to it are we??

[nightkhaos]

8600 GT, you are the weakest link, goodbye.

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