Best Graphics Card at 1680x1050?

I'm currently building a new PC to run on Vista 64, currently awaiting q9450 processor although at this rate I may be tempted to get a E8400 to go with a Gigabyte x48 motherboard.

I currently have a Geforce 7900GT.

What graphics card provides the best value at a resolution of 1680x1050? From what I understand, the 3870 X2 and 9800 GX2 only start to show a significant benefit at higher resolutions.

Most benchmarks I've seen don't include 1680x1050 results.

Currently considering one of the cheaper 8800GT's although an ATI solution may be better for my crossfire motherboard although I only intend to use/buy one card at this time.

I'd be interested in Crysis performance as well as any other games at this resolution. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

To be honest with you anything above £100 at the moment will give you awesome performance at 1680 x 1050. Thats what I play at and I'm using the older 8800GTS which is very similar (if a little lower) to, ATi's HD38** and nvidia's 9600GT performance.

The 8800GT will give you a bit of a performance boost after that so might be worth the extra. If you plan on changing the GPU quite frequently though the ATi HD3850 512mb can be around £90 and would seriously impress you for that money I'm sure.

Crysis at 1680 x 1050 on these cards you are looking at medium to high settings and I have played it at this.. it still looks great and is very playable.

8880gts 512mb prob best option

or a hd3870x2 if u can get cheap

I use a BFG 8800GT OC2 crysis plays all high at 1680 x 1050 with a bit of slow down at times.

Using the latest ATI hotfix with a HD3870 I am getting framerates in the late 20s to the late thirties in Crysis at 1440x900 in the jungle parts. With Crysis anything over 20 to 25 fps is quite smooth. Object ,shader ,texture,particle and water quality settings are all at high and other settings are at medium. I am running the game under Vista(DX9 mode) with a E4500 at 3ghz with 2gb of RAM. Bioshock runs at 1680x1050 at maximum settings in Vista(DX10) fine.

Hence I imagine that a HD3870X2 or even a pair of HD3850 512mb should be able to play Crysis fairly well.

well if you go for the 8800GT.. i recommend the eVGA 8800GT on Scan, only £137, lifetime warranty, plenty of extras and you can change the cooler without voiding the warranty..

i have this card, OC'd a bit.. get a decent framerate at 1280 x 1024 in Crysis with everything on high, or ultra-high at the start before it goes all strange near the end..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by matty-hodgson

i have this card, OC'd a bit.. get a decent framerate at 1280 x 1024 in Crysis with everything on high, or ultra-high at the start before it goes all strange near the end..

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The last levels which have the snow and the ones on the ship are quite demanding graphically - had to drop the resolution a bit to keep it playable.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by matty-hodgson

well if you go for the 8800GT.. i recommend the eVGA 8800GT on Scan, only £137, lifetime warranty, plenty of extras and you can change the cooler without voiding the warranty..

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That's a very good price! Stock clocks and cooler, but great brand, and as you say, can change the cooler without voiding the warranty! :) There's also this £134 Asus one with the "Glaciator" cooler.

I'm a 1680x1050 gamer, and the 512MB 8800GT does a great job. :) If your budget goes above £160, though, the 8800GTS has dual-slot cooling and a little bit more future-proofing 'oomph', although most of the initial impact is wasted at 1680x1050.

i've also got the bfg 8800gt oc2 and at 1680x1050 all games i've tried run great. Crysis runs fairly well, most slowdowns were suffered near the end of the game, on the ship

Superclocked EVGA:

Advance Tec Ltd 512MB EVGA e-GeForce 8800GT Superclocked GDDR3 PCIE Dual DVI Fan Graphics Card

Here for only 135. Have dealt with them before too

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ommid

Superclocked EVGA:

Advance Tec Ltd 512MB EVGA e-GeForce 8800GT Superclocked GDDR3 PCIE Dual DVI Fan Graphics Card

Here for only 135. Have dealt with them before too

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VERY good price, would go with that over Scan tbh.. unless you'd rather know that Scan are selling you it instead of some website i've never heard of..

I chose the BFG OC over the EVGA @ £138 from OCUK :S Price now gone up, but that EVGA seems cheap

is a 9800gx2 a waste at 1680 res?

yes. 1900x1200 only for that card, basically.

even the 8800GTS is a waste at that res

I have received the eVGA GeForce 8800 GT (it's still sealed) but I'm waiting now for the Memory to arrive (from Novatech) ... my hopes are pretty high.

One little unsignificant remark: the box is designed quite boring. Would have chosen the BFG one with the awesome picture on the card - neon effect in the dark ! ... but then again if i change to a 3rd party GPU cooler - it doesn't play a monkey anyway.

And one -off topic- remark: the keyboard Saitek Eclipse is surprisingly the best keyboard I have ever used ! I had chosen it by the looks, but it is solid quality too ... for £ 22.27 (Scan).
The quality difference to my previous Dell keyboard is huge !

Problem with the picture on the card is that in a normal tower case you can't see it due to the cooler facing down.