Right I have exactly £226.15 now that the new cards are out and over priced as usual. Can anyone suggest me the best card for this money.
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Right I have exactly £226.15 now that the new cards are out and over priced as usual. Can anyone suggest me the best card for this money.
An Nvidia GTX260 216 shader version. Either the 65nm or 55nm version will do as there is not much difference it seems!!
Here is one for £215 from Ebuyer:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152386
Here are a few still on last weekend's Today Only for around £200:
http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx
This nearly 20 quid off their normal price. However the deals will be changed in the next hour or so to Monday's Today Only.
The other alternative is the HD4870 1gb. This is faster than the GTX280 192 shader version but not the 216 shader version is slightly faster.
Scan have some for around £205:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Search.aspx?q=hd+4870
The most important thing is to have a good PSU as these cards consume a lot of power.
How much will they realistically draw on the 12V rail(s) do you think? (assuming PCI-E v1)Quote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
As long as you have a decent 450 to 500w class PSU with stable rails it should be OK. The Corsair VX450w, Silverstone 500w PSUs and Enermax 500w PSUs in the £50 to £60 price bracket should all do the job. On Today Only currently there is a CWT made 650w Xigmatek for £50 for example.
What's the expected draw on the rails then?Quote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
Handy link for youQuote:
Originally Posted by kalniel
http://archive.atomicmpc.com.au/foru...s=2&c=7&t=9354
The power draw is almost purely on the 12v rail
So a single gtx280 you're looking at around 15a max
However remember that there are other things to take into account
eg other devices on the 12v load, psu ageing, temptures in the psu, cross load, ripple, etc, etc
So if you had to pick a GFX card right now for a system as follows:
19' Monitor: 1440x900px
CPU: Q6600 Intel Quad Core 2.4Ghz
RAM: 3GB PC6400
What would you choose and I'll be playing things such as COD5, Mirror's Edge, Crysis etc. :embarrassed:
Is this for the 226.15? For that I'd get the best 260 I could afford - preferably a 55nm, if not then a 216 shader version.
If you can go higher, then I'd consider a 280 when they try to sell off old stock now the 285 is out. The games you list are definitely nVidia friendly, and most will take all the power you can throw at them, even at that res.
According to some reviews I saw there seems to be a not a huge difference between the 55nm and 65nm of the GTX260.I think it was due to Nvidia trying to reduce the total cost of the card (including the PCB and power regulation circuits). Perhaps the non reference 55nm GTX260 are much better??
It is important to get the 216 shader version though.
must admit normally I'd say a 9800gt or 4830 would be best for that res, extra is not going to be much different
However, crysis is a game that takes everything you can throw at it graphics wise
not sure about cod5 or Mirror's Edge
However Mirror's Edge is one of the new ones that makes real use of nvidia's CUDA to run the physx on the card, this means you get better performance out of an nvidia card if it has spare processing capasity so the bigger nvidia card the better (or look at hacked ati/physx drivers that run it on ati cards and execpt the risks and possible stability issues)
Or get a 2nd-hand physx card or a cheap 8400 (or above) and use that for Physx alongside your main gfx card.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pob255
I would recommend either a GTX 260 (its £200 when you "buy" it through the scanshot email) or a 4870.
GTX260 is my choice too :)
I would say ATI HD 4870 either the 512Mb or 1Gb version but tests have shown that for a few quids more, the GTX260 is slightly better on a couple of games.
Pob255: PhysX in mirror's edge is really just a layer of useless effects. Fair enough it's nice when you see it in videos, but you don't even notice it in game. All i'm saying is that I wouldn't go with Nvidia because of physX. When ATI is going to realize that physX the way forward physics-wise, they will include it in their drivers anyways.
If the 4850X2 came down to within that budget would you recommend that over the 260?