Good Card for gaming at 1680x1050

Looking to build a gaming rig, and im spending time trying to find the best card to game on a 22" screen running at 1680x1050. I know that most prefer a higher res, but I'm limited by space and price.

After looking around I'm torn between the GTX 260,280, and 285. Iv not spent much time looking at ATI so I havent listed any. Also my experience with gfx cards if very limited so I suspect that the cards I have selected are a bit over powered.

Can any one provided me with a bit of advice, or point me towards some where with descent advice.

Thanks

The gtx 260 and from ATI 4850/4870 are perfectly suited for gaming at that resolution (with any amount of memory).

The budget choice is the 4850, but the others will all perform at very similar levels so you can't really go wrong.

Pretty much anything £90 or more will suit that resolution these days. GTX250, HD4850, HD4770, 9800GT all pretty good.

the GTX280 and 285 are overkill for that resolution.


GTX260 and AMD 4870 are also potentially a bit over the top, but to be honest I would go with them just to ensure a bit of future-proofing if you dont mind spending that much......otherwise it's a step down (GTX250, 4850, 4770)

4830 will do that res happly

As kalniel correctly said, the ati 4850, 4870, nvidia gtx260 all of which will do you fine.

If you want best value for money, I've seen the ATI 4870 512MB available for £98 on both scan and overclockers. You can also get he 1GB version for £110 :). Both bargains in my opinion and provide serious bang for buck.

Also if your budget can stretch a little, I've seen the 4850X2 1GB for £136 on scan 'today only'. Another very good card for the money :)

Wow over shot it by a quite a bit more that I thought. My wallet will be happy with that. Gonna spend some time looking through the different cards and post again later.

EDIT: Can anyone point me towards some articles that explain the various clocks and components of a gfx card and how they effect real performance.

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Originally Posted by razor92

Wow over shot it by a quite a bit more that I thought. My wallet will be happy with that. Gonna spend some time looking through the different cards and post again later.

EDIT: Can anyone point me towards some articles that explain the various clocks and components of a gfx card and how they effect real performance.

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What do you mean, reviews that show gaming performance of each card or something else?

+1 for the 4870 1Gb.
A touch of future proofing is always a good idea.

+1 for the GTX 260 / HD4870 option.

I'd pick the one which you can SLI/Xfire on your system down the line, in lieu of replacing it in a year to potentially keep up with the latest releases.

Added bonus to this is the second card will be rock bottom pricewise once the new DX11 cards come out, if you don't mind missing out on the sparse DX11 offerings.

Anyway, don't forget you might need a new power supply to run any card you buy. So don't tell your wallet the good news yet;)

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Originally Posted by AntiTalent

Anyway, don't forget you might need a new power supply to run any card you buy. So don't tell your wallet the good news yet;)

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Good point. If you plan to get a new psu then any good quality 450 watt+ will do you fine. (If you plan to go sli or crossfire then 600watt). And by good quality I mean brands such enermax, seasonic, corsair, ocz, antec, fsp, etc. Pretty much everything but Ezcool :D

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Originally Posted by shadowmaster

What do you mean, reviews that show gaming performance of each card or something else?

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I mean articles looking into the actual architecture of graphics cards.

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Originally Posted by razor92

I mean articles looking into the actual architecture of graphics cards.

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Sure.

ATI HD4850 and 4850:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341

nVidia GTX 260 and 280:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3334

And an interesting story about how the RV770 (4850/70) came about:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3469

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Originally Posted by razor92

I mean articles looking into the actual architecture of graphics cards.

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Probably not worth it unless you want to do a thesis on the various different architectures ;)

ATi and NVidia use decidedly different architectures so comparing them directly isn't really worth it. Hexus's reviews do an architectural overview though, if you're really interested: that's here for the GTX260 / GTX280, and here for the HD4870 / HD4850.

Your best bet for comparing performance is simply to read reviews of the cards you're interested in. Hexus do a reasonable set of tests which will directly compare the performance of grpahics cards in some of the more popular current games. That's your best starting point for performance comparisons - not the underlying architectures.

I run 2 x 4870´s which is total overkill for my 22" monitor.

I did however do a build for someone using a EVGA GTX 260. This was exceptional and all the games i tested it on looked amazing (FarCry2, COD:WAW, BF2, Mirrors Edge).

I would highly recommend it.

Assuming you're not going to buy a higher res monitor any time soon I only have one thing to say: 512 MB HD4870 under £100.