Graphics card for occasional gamer?

[judge56988]

I'm finally getting around to replacing my 5 year old PC and am stuck on what graphics card I need.
I am not much of a gamer although I do sometimes play an oldish flight sim (Pacific Fighters) and Rome Total War. I will be using a 24" monitor at 1920x1080 resolution and would like all the game setings to be max quality.
I've been looking at the Radeon HD 5xxx series but don't know which one to go for; obviously I don't want to spend more than I need to. It is also important that it is quiet at idle.
Other stuff I do is mostly Premiere/Photoshop elements and 2D CAD (Vectorworks) along with the usual office stuff. I think that stuff is really more CPU dependent rather than GPU?

Any advice will be much appreciated... Thanks in advance.

[Iron Sights]

whats your budget??

[Phage]

Budget dependant really - £130 or so would get you a 5770.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-A...I-I-D-Sub-HDMI

[Callum1001]

eBuyer have a deal on the 5770 today at 112 quid.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/199404

[scaryjim]

I should think at the resolution the absolute minimum you should be looking at is a 1GB HD5750, for ~ £105: like this ASUS from ebuyer. A 512MB 5750 would save you another £10, but you'd be sacrificing some performance at that point. Another £20 will buy you more performance in the shape of the 5770, though.

Anything lower in range than that from ATI probably isn't going to cut it at 1080p, although if you can find a 48x0 cheapish anywhere that would also be a decent buy.

Your other option would be to look to a 512MB GTS250 from nvidia - they start at < £90 and have similar performance to a 5750 (see this hexus review for details). The 5750 has a better feature set and significantly lower power draw, though.

[judge56988]

I was hoping to spend no more than £100, less if I could get away with it. I have looked at a Sapphire 5750 VaporX which has had good reviews and said to be pretty quiet, also the HIS 5750 IceQ.

From the research I've done I was going to stick to 5xxx series and avoid nvidia for reasons you give.

[scaryjim]

If you want an ATI 5k series for under £100 that can run games at 1920 x 1080 your only option is a 512MB 5750. Both the ones you mention are more like £120.

Of course, if you're happy to run your games at a non-native resolution you could start looking down the scale at the 4670 / 5570 / 5670. But if you want to run at 1920 x 1080 and you want to spend less than £100, then it's a 512MB 5750 or a GTS250, I'm afraid...

[Phage]

The ebuyer deal from Callum1001 above looks like a winner on those numbers.

[Zak33]

Pacific Fighters (IL2 based) is definately CPU bound. not so mucvh video card bound. At those resolutions, you're gonna need 512mb or 1024mb of graphics ram, but it need not be a very fast card in todays terms.

You'd be hard pressed to improve upon a Geforce GT240 for £69 inc vat and it's a 1gig job frm Asus
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-A...ub-DL-DVI-HDMI

I say this because I just fitted a 220 to a mates PC and it runs IL-2 1946 like lightning, with a good cpu.

So a 240 with double the cores is gonna be pretty good.
The latest incarnations of 1946 and ATI's drivers are not... best suited.

[Zak33]

Lower power draw I agree with, but it's minimal

Feature set? What.. DX11?

Lets face it... there's only a handful of DX10 games and that's been out years!
I'm a hard cut and dried ATI boy.. but I can't help but be impressed with the mid range nVidia stuff... and with the phrase "Pacific Fighters" you gotta feel the nvidia vibe.

[Callum1001]

If you dont wanna spend more than £100, I would say quickly rob £12 off a friend or something and get yourself the 5770. Its going to go back to £120+ soon enough.

IF you can get your boss to buy it for you or something you might be able to save on the VAT meaning it comes in under your £100 mark. I work as a web designer employee and when I buy new parts I put it through the company, paying them the ex vat price.

[judge56988]

The latest incarnations of 1946 and ATI's drivers are not... best suited.

Sorry, I'm not with you... can you explain? So many people seem to rave about ATI cards.

@Zak33 - I'm not bothered about dx11. I'll have another look at the Nvidia cards. I've got a Nvidia Quadro in my laptop and it works well - never had any reason to complain there.

@Callum1001 - I can spend more than £100 if needs be - I just don't want to unless I really need to.

Cheers.

[Zak33]

Sorry, I'm not with you... can you explain? So many people seem to rave about ATI cards.

I RAVE abot them.. I love ATI. But in IL-2, it has tradiotionally been an OPen GL party.. and for a long time ATI played along.

But late in 2009, they must have givenup on older IL2 games, and the driver support dropped rapidly for that one game.

Cos, you see, on an ATI card we used to use OpenGL in IL-2/Forgotten battles/Pacific Fighters/PE2 /Sturmovichs/ 1946..... cos it was fast AND we could use PERFECT| settings for ground, which also meant good sea/water.

But late in 2009, it all went wrong in ATI drivers, for this game..... and the franme rate dropped... and so nVidia drivers and cards now rule the roost again.. in IL2 based games.

[judge56988]

OK - thanks for that info, I didn't realise that some specific games were so driver dependent.
That just makes the choice more difficult really because I have yet to find one favourable review for the GT 240 - mostly in terms of value for money when compared with similarly priced ati cards. It does however have support for CUDA which might be an advantage for Adobe Premiere and CAD work and it also seems to run much cooler and quieter than the ATI cards.

[Zak33]

well, reviews and thing are essential to your peace of mind and not having buyers remorse...

but the thing is, sometimes certain items just do the job better for one person than another. I didn't expect the 220 to be any good. It was. I'm as suprised as you!

I was gonna suggest you get a 220 1gig GDDR3 card... it needs no power lead, runs just off the PCI Express slot, can run CoD w@w on a 19" TFT dead easy, and IL2 1946 like a dream. It's chea too.. about £63.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-G...-DL-DVI-I-HDMI
But' it's sooo far down the pile in comparison to spending £100 -£110 I thought you'd ignore the advice.

I'm suprised by it.... it's not a 5570.. it's not supposed to be though

It's low power draw, cool and good value

[Pob255]

I'd say look at one of the 9800gt "eco" cards, such as this http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169143 or http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173758
they perfrom better than the gt240 and cost around £75