Card to replace my (I think it is) dieing 88GTX

[Zhaoman]

You get GTX280 performance so yeah, it's a good deal!

[NightshadowUK]

OcUK are offering Leadteak 9800GX2 for £225 this week - that's almost a £100 discount. Do you reckon it's a good deal for the money?

The words in bold never come in the same sentence without a catch...

[Noxvayl]

Yeah, the HD4870 is cheaper. I dont have money to burn, but the HD4870 burns through electricity

I know the HD4870 is more powerful, its just the GTX260 is so much more efficent. But if the HD4870 is more futureproof, then you have saved money that way too. Its just like gah :s The money you will save on the HD4870 goes on electricity, and the GTX260's higher tag kind of defeats the elec bills. But then if the HD is more futureproof, it wins that way. so confusing!

Does this look like excessive power draw?> http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-20.html

Its hardly 30W extra... it costs 15p for every KW/h or as the electricity companies call them "units". Lets say you run your PC 24/7 at maximum power draw(will take the system draw from the link, 300W/0.3KW).
0.3/3600 = 0.000083KW/h
0.000083X744(hours in a 31 day month)=0.061752 units your PC contributes in a month.
So that would be a total of £0.01 or 1p that you would be paying to run your entire PC each month. I highly doubt purchasing any sort of "efficient" equipment is saving you any noticeable amount of electricity.

OcUK are offering Leadteak 9800GX2 for £225 this week - that's almost a £100 discount. Do you reckon it's a good deal for the money?

No I don't... that technology is 2 years old and the drivers are currently at the peak of the performance they can supply the card with. As the GX2 remains the same the HD4000 and GTX200 series will both be increasing there performance through new drivers. Its HIGHLY advisable to steer clear of the 9800 series from nVidia for this reason.

[Crevan]

Its hardly 30W extra... it costs 15p for every KW/h or as the electricity companies call them "units". Lets say you run your PC 24/7 at maximum power draw(will take the system draw from the link, 300W/0.3KW).
0.3/3600 = 0.000083KW/h
0.000083X744(hours in a 31 day month)=0.061752 units your PC contributes in a month.
So that would be a total of £0.01 or 1p that you would be paying to run your entire PC each month. I highly doubt purchasing any sort of "efficient" equipment is saving you any noticeable amount of electricity.

Your calculations are a bit off. If we have a draw of 300 W (that's per hour), we'd get 24 x 300 = 7200 W per 1 full day. 7.2 kW x 30 days = 216 kW (units) per month, or £32.4 each month. It's easy to see that a 30W power draw difference will mean around £3.2 on (or off) your bill. Significant? You decide.

No I don't... that technology is 2 years old and the drivers are currently at the peak of the performance they can supply the card with. As the GX2 remains the same the HD4000 and GTX200 series will both be increasing there performance through new drivers. Its HIGHLY advisable to steer clear of the 9800 series from nVidia for this reason.

Even if that is the case, £225 is still a bit over my budget, performance or not