Best GFX card for sub £150?

Hello All,

I stumbled across this board after looking for a new GPU for a system that I am building for my girlfriend for a xmas present. As money is a bit tight I have an AMD 5200+ @ 3.0GHz, ASUS M3A78-CM board, 4GB OCZ SLi Ready Ram @ 800MHz, 2x Seagate SATA-1 120GB HDD in Raid 0 and now I am stuck at what to buy her for a GFX card.

The aim of this machine is to allow her to play Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning at maximum bang for buck, this is the only game she is interested in as she is not a gamer in the slightest but she likes this MMO. I ordered an ASUS HD4850 with Glaciator Cooler that on paper and in reviews looked a bargain at £115 including delivery from eBuyer. After playing with the card for a couple of hours though I noticed that I was running on average 10fps less than my 8800GT 512mb clocked at default settings in Warhammer at Maximum Settings.

The game also jerked and stuttered on average 20% more on loading and high detail PvP fights where lots of spell animations proc at the same time. I personally have 2x Inno3D 8800GT 512mb SLi'd at stock settings and get 90fps with no stuttering on an Intel QCore at 3.0GHz with the same OS and RAM. As I only have around £150 maximum to spend on a card for her system, I was wondering what you guys here thought on my current options on cards this close to christmas. It doesn't matter if one card can get 5fps more in GRID for example as she will never play it so I am looking for the best all rounder for that price.

I should add that all this hardware is running on Vista x64 Ultimate Edition.

Many thanks all and I hope you can put me out of misery!

What resolution?

hate to say it but it maybe the cpu causing the stutter not the gpu.
One thing that bother SLi and crossfire do well in increaseing the minimum fps and smoothing out performance spikes


also to put this simply
HD4850 512mb is better than a 8800gt 512mb
HD4850 512mb vs two 8800gt 512mb in SLi is harder to call, peak performance may be higher but the minimum fps for a single card will be lower, but this is also effected by a few other settings.

Resolution, game and graphical settings can have a major effect on which is better

There is a sticky guide for questions such as this :)