New GFX Card

[Thorsson]

Looks like my 4870 has bitten the dust; not been that happy with the drivers, and with it only last 2 years I'll probably go back to NVidia. What's the best buys around £200 at the moment? In particular 275 vs 285 and the 896/1792 & 1Gb/2Gb divides - is the 285 and.or the extra memory worth it? And why do they all come with Batman?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The HD5850 is as fast as a GTX285 and is around £200.

The GTX260,GTX275 and GTX285 are now EOL it seems too. The HD4890 is as fast as the GTX275 and cheaper too AFAIK. I would look at a GTX260 216 shader version as it is slightly faster than a HD4870 1gb although sometimes you can get an HD4890 for around £130.

Also Nvidia are no more reliable than ATI as my 8800GTS 512mb died in just over a year and my 6800LE started having an issues with its capacitors.

[kalniel]

Looks like my 4870 has bitten the dust; not been that happy with the drivers, and with it only last 2 years I'll probably go back to NVidia. What's the best buys around £200 at the moment? In particular 275 vs 285 and the 896/1792 & 1Gb/2Gb divides - is the 285 and.or the extra memory worth it? And why do they all come with Batman?

Cos they did a deal with the publishers. Just like most AMD cards come with DiRT2.

The extra memory is worth it if you're gaming above 2560x resolutions, or have mutliple monitors. Otherwise no.

For £200 the best bet is the 5850 as cat mentioned.

[Thorsson]

I know, but I have problems with the drivers on the non-mainstream stuff I play. Never had such problems with NVidia.

[kalniel]

In that case I'd buy the cheapest 260 you can find for the meantime and wait for the new products next year. The 275/285 are good products, but really not worth nearly twice the price of a 260.

[Thorsson]

Thanks. I'm sure my bank manager will appreciate it as well. Anyway 5850s not in stock at Scan.

Hmm, but which 260?

The Gainward has faster memory and changed cooling FWIW. http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/896MB...-DL-DVI-I-HDTV

The XFX has a faster GPU & Shader, but looks like a stock cooler. Plus it's £19 more. http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/896MB...V-plus-FarCry2

[Thorsson]

As I'm going to save money on the card, I might get that new Monitor I've been thinking about. Any recommendations for 24"?

[spoon_]

If you can find BenQ FP241W is the best screen money can buy

http://www.trustedreviews.com/monito...een-Monitor/p1

[funke_munke]

Look at the price of it though! Crazy.

[Thorsson]

Look at the price of it though! Crazy.

That's a 2006 price!

Are you sure you got the right model spoonie?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Here are some GTX260 216 shader cards for around £130 and under:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Index.aspx?NT=1-0-17-588-0

http://www.ebuyer.com/search?q=GTX260&x=0&y=0

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...ort-price-asc/

[spoon_]

That's a 2006 price!

Are you sure you got the right model spoonie?

Yeah I'm sure, got it on my desk

They're discontinued now so might not get it for less than £300ish quid, one place in Dartford sells them however got under £200...

[Cheapy]

http://www.scan.co.uk/ShopOffers/Index.aspx

Right at the bottom the Gainward GTX 260 GS is going for £110 with the Batman download. Just to make the decesion even harder

[DeludedGuy]

I cant understand why people should even consider a GTX 260 when you can buy a 5770, the performance is on par with the GTX 260 with lower temps, lower power consuption and DX11. The card is smaller and also comes with a free game.

Meh.

[nightkhaos]

I cant understand why people should even consider a GTX 260 when you can buy a 5770, the performance is on par with the GTX 260 with lower temps, lower power consuption and DX11. The card is smaller and also comes with a free game.

Meh.

Because it's not nVid? I dunno some people are funny like that.

[kalniel]

He's already mentioned his reasons - stuff he plays works better with nVidia. It's the same reason I went with an ATI card - stuff I play works better with ATI *shrugs*. Both are valid viewpoints and it's one of the advantages of having choice out there. I agree it's not a good time to buy nVidia, but that's why he should consider a 'cheap' nVidia card (which ever way you slice it, the amount of power you get for the money is still amazing with the 260) at the moment.