Best card for sub £180?

[5867dude]

Hi,

I am getting a new graphics card for Christmas, as my ATI 4670 just isn't good enough. I have £180 to spend, and ideally don't want to go over.

I am currently looking at the Nvidia GTX 470, and the ATI 5850. The GTX 470 looks like it will be the better card, but what do you think? I don't plan to overclock.

And also, I have a AMD Althlon X4 620, will this bottle neck the GPU at all?

Thanks,
5867dude

[Phage]

Neither. Go for the 6870 at that price.
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-g...-d-hdmi-minidp

The CPU is probably at it's limit for that GPU, but OK. Upgrade next time.

[cptwhite_uk]

Or a slightly cheaper alternative, although performance seems less overall than the 6870:

http://forums.hexus.net/current-barg...oday-only.html

This card is pre-overclocked to very decent speeds so would probably be about 5-15% slower than the 6870. But then it's about 11% cheaper so it's swings and roundabouts.

The GTX460 I linked would run quieter during load and cooler during idle and load, but power consumption is very similar.

[5867dude]

Neither. Go for the 6870 at that price.
*LINK IN ORIGINAL POST*-NEW MEMBER SO CAN'T POST LINKS

The CPU is probably at it's limit for that GPU, but OK. Upgrade next time.

I thought the 6870 was worse than the 5850? Will this card see me through two years, at 1680x1050?

Or a slightly cheaper alternative, although performance seems less overall than the 6870:

*LINK IN ORIGINAL POST*-NEW MEMBER SO CAN'T POST LINKS

This card is pre-overclocked to very decent speeds so would probably be about 5-15% slower than the 6870. But then it's about 11% cheaper so it's swings and roundabouts.

The GTX460 I linked would run quieter during load and cooler during idle and load, but power consumption is very similar.

I would rather spend a bit more, if it means it will last longer, however its pointless buying more than I need. Do you think this card will see me through 2 years, gaming at 1680x1050?

Thanks for your replies,
5867dude

[bearbear]

The 6870 is better than the 5850. It'll be more than enough for 1680x1050 on current games. After 2 years though, you may have to turn settings down a tad.

There's a good graphics card ranking here: http://www.overclock.net/graphics-ca...time-last.html

The 470 is marginally faster than the 6870 (depending on the game), but draws a lot more power and runs a lot hotter, which therefore leads to it being noisier as the fans have to spin faster to cool it down. However, being a Nvidia card, you also get the benefits from PhysX and CUDA - how useful those 2 are is up to you.

The 6870 has the new morphological anti-aliasing which is arguably a better feature.

Unless you can get a good factory overclocked 470 which has a decent non-reference cooler on it at £180 (which I don't think you can), then the 6870 is a better buy in my opinion. Unless of course you don't care for heat/noise/power consumption, then the 470 is probably better.

You'll need a heavily overclocked 460 to match or beat a 6870, whilst it's possible, it's not always obtainable and you wouldn't want to run a card constantly with those kind of overclocks.

This post makes me sound somewhat like a ATI/AMD fanboy, but I actually own a 460.

[5867dude]

The 6870 is better than the 5850. It'll be more than enough for 1680x1050 on current games. After 2 years though, you may have to turn settings down a tad.

There's a good graphics card ranking here: *LINK IN ORIGINAL POST*

The 470 is marginally faster than the 6870 (depending on the game), but draws a lot more power and runs a lot hotter, which therefore leads to it being noisier as the fans have to spin faster to cool it down. However, being a Nvidia card, you also get the benefits from PhysX and CUDA - how useful those 2 are is up to you.

The 6870 has the new morphological anti-aliasing which is arguably a better feature.

Unless you can get a good factory overclocked 470 which has a decent non-reference cooler on it at £180 (which I don't think you can), then the 6870 is a better buy in my opinion.

You'll need a heavily overclocked 460 to match or beat a 6870, whilst it's possible, it's not always obtainable and you wouldn't want to run a card constantly with those kind of overclocks.

This post makes me sound somewhat like a ATI/AMD fanboy, but I actually own a 460.

Thanks for your detailed reply.

After doing a bit of searching, 'morphological anti-aliasing' does sound interesting. And by 'you may have to turn settings down a tad.' does that mean small things like going down a notch or two on AA? I am more than happy to deal with that if it prevents me upgrading before 2 years.

And since I don't want to overclock, it looks like I'll be going for the ATI 6870.

Now, is there any brand that is worth extra, or should I go with the cheapest? They are all the same GPU, mind, but I wouldn't mind a long warranty (3-5 years) because even though I will be upgrading in 2 years, I will probably sell this to a friend or something.

Thanks,
5867dude

[bearbear]

And by 'you may have to turn settings down a tad.' does that mean small things like going down a notch or two on AA? I am more than happy to deal with that if it prevents me upgrading before 2 years.

Well no one know what future games will bring, but at current rate, it's likely by the end of 2 years you'll have to turn detail settings down, not just AA but maybe model quality or some other settings. I mean in usage, it's probably not going to look significantly different, so I wouldn't really worry about it too much.

If you are curious about it, just look up reviews of the 6870 and see how well it fares on games like Crysis, Metro 2033 and Civilization 5/Unigine Heaven (for tessellation) at your resolution. If you take those games as being the current high-end, then you can somewhat gauge what sort of frame rate you may get 2 years down the line. Do bear in mind a lot of games these days are either console ports or multiplatform so they generally won't be as demanding as the few games I mentioned previously.

Now, is there any brand that is worth extra, or should I go with the cheapest? They are all the same GPU, mind, but I wouldn't mind a long warranty (3-5 years) because even though I will be upgrading in 2 years, I will probably sell this to a friend or something.

They're all the same reference design, so they're all going to be pretty much the same. Only the factory overlclocked cards with custom coolers are going to be worth the extra money. So then for me, it comes down to warranty and customer service (if you ever have to deal with them).

A lot of people prefer Asus over the other brands as they generally come out with "better" cards, but looking at the 6870's on Scan, their "overclocked" version is only a measly 15MHz which is laughable.

I know XFX have a double lifetime warranty which means not only do you get a lifetime warranty, but if you resell it, the buyer will get a lifetime warranty too. I don't know if it's worth the extra price though also considering a lot of people complain about XFX's RMA service.

Scan's page doesn't seem to mention how long each of the manufacturer's warranty are, but try to find out which is the longest and just go with whichever is within a reasonable price. If they're all the same, then the Gigabyte (cheapest one on Scan) should be fine.

[Phage]

I've got two XFX 5870s - I found their customer service very responsive. I'd rate them.
But in the end, go with the best deal you can get on the day.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I assume the OP has a decent PSU??

The best card in pure performance terms would be a GTX470:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1280m...ores-dvi-mhdmi

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1280m...res-2xdvi-hdmi

However,it has high peak power consumption.

The HD6870 has performance close to a GTX470 with much lower power consumption. The overclocked GTX460 cards have significantly higher peak power consumption than a GTX460 too but lower peak power consumption than a GTX470.

According to Anandtech the GTX460 768MB even has higher peak power consumption than an HD6870:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/a...ange-market/20

[5867dude]

Well no one know what future games will bring, but at current rate, it's likely by the end of 2 years you'll have to turn detail settings down, not just AA but maybe model quality or some other settings. I mean in usage, it's probably not going to look significantly different, so I wouldn't really worry about it too much.

If you are curious about it, just look up reviews of the 6870 and see how well it fares on games like Crysis, Metro 2033 and Civilization 5/Unigine Heaven (for tessellation) at your resolution. If you take those games as being the current high-end, then you can somewhat gauge what sort of frame rate you may get 2 years down the line. Do bear in mind a lot of games these days are either console ports or multiplatform so they generally won't be as demanding as the few games I mentioned previously.


They're all the same reference design, so they're all going to be pretty much the same. Only the factory overlclocked cards with custom coolers are going to be worth the extra money. So then for me, it comes down to warranty and customer service (if you ever have to deal with them).

A lot of people prefer Asus over the other brands as they generally come out with "better" cards, but looking at the 6870's on *CAN'T POST LINKS-REFER TO ORIGINAL POST*, their "overclocked" version is only a measly 15MHz which is laughable.

I know XFX have a double lifetime warranty which means not only do you get a lifetime warranty, but if you resell it, the buyer will get a lifetime warranty too. I don't know if it's worth the extra price though also considering a lot of people complain about XFX's RMA service.

Scan's page doesn't seem to mention how long each of the manufacturer's warranty are, but try to find out which is the longest and just go with whichever is within a reasonable price. If they're all the same, then the Gigabyte (cheapest one on Scan) should be fine.

I read that because of EU laws, it depends on the reseller to provide the warranty. All the 6870's have a 2 year warranty RTB from Scan, so it looks like I'll be getting the Gigabyte one. And I don't really play 'high-end' games, I usually play 'console ports' like Assassins Creed etc.

Thanks for all your help,

5867dude

[bearbear]

I read that because of EU laws, it depends on the reseller to provide the warranty. All the 6870's have a 2 year warranty RTB from Scan, so it looks like I'll be getting the Gigabyte one. And I don't really play 'high-end' games, I usually play 'console ports' like Assassins Creed etc.

That Gigabyte will do you proud, it is leagues faster than your current 4670

[5867dude]

That Gigabyte will do you proud, it is leagues faster than your current 4670

Yeah, last year I did a whole system upgrade, and so couldn't spend much on the Graphics Card. I then realised why people spend so much on graphics cards

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Why has no one apart from me bothered to ask what PSU the OP has??

[5867dude]

Why has no one apart from me bothered to ask what PSU the OP has??

Hi,
I have a "Sumvision PowerX2 700W PSU". It is quite a cheap one, but I figured that I would only be using ~400W at full load, and the reviews on ebuyer suggest it can handle 700W, so I should be safe.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Hi,
I have a "Sumvision PowerX2 700W PSU". It is quite a cheap one, but I figured that I would only be using ~400W at full load, and the reviews on ebuyer suggest it can handle 700W, so I should be safe.

I would change the PSU as a lot of these el-cheapo PSUs cannot even output half their rating. On top of this the ripple on many of these units is terrible.

You should have gone with the following PSU:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...U-400CXUK.html

It is a Seasonic made unit and actually is a 450W unit underrated to 400W so it could get an 80+ certification.

On top of this you can even get cashback from TopCashBack and Quidco on Novatech purchases.

[5867dude]

I would change the PSU as a lot of these el-cheapo PSUs cannot even output half their rating. On top of this the ripple on many of these units is terrible.

You should have gone with the following PSU:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...U-400CXUK.html

It is a Seasonic made unit and actually is a 450W unit underrated to 400W so it could get an 80+ certification.

On top of this you can even get cashback from TopCashBack and Quidco on Novatech purchases.

That is temping, however do you think I would be fine with 400-450W?

AMD X4 620
M720-US3 motherboard (Does that matter?)
2xDVD R/W's (Again, does that matter?)
ATI 6870 (obv.)
4GB DDR2 RAM
2 SATA Hard Drives

Anything else, tell me and I'll be more than happy to tell you. So is 400W okay for all that? That looks like a good investment, if it prevents my computer being blown up