Need help choosing a replacement graphics card

[intense.ego]

Hi!

My situation is as follows: My Radeon 4850, which I ordered from Aria in Aug 2010, was apparently faulty and died on me in December. After returning it I was eventually told that it was returned to the manufacturer, but as Aria did not have any in stock they would credit my account with 60 pounds which I could use to purchase another graphics card.

I want to use this opportunity to purchase a better graphics card as I now realise that I play quite a few games on the PC. I want to contribute some more money to my purchase, but I'm not sure which graphics card would be the best bang-for-buck.

This Radeon HD 5770 would be a good replacement, but isn't a large step up from my 4850.

Alternatively I am looking at this HD6850 which would be a large increase over my previous setup.

As I admittedly have little to no knowledge of graphics cards, are there any other graphics cards I should consider that would provide me better bang-for-buck? They have to be available from Aria though, and preferably under £150. And would the ones I suggested work with my current system?

Thanks!

My system specs:

OS: Windows 7 x64 Ultimate
CPU: AMD Athlon II X3 440 3.00ghz
Motherboard: ASUS M4A87TD/USB3
Memory: 4gb (2x2gb) OCZ Gold DDR3 1333mhz
Graphics Card: ????
PSU: OCZ Stealth Xtreme 500W
Case: NZXT Hades
Hard Drives: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 7200rpm

[Cheapy]

Another option would be the GTX 460 either the 1Gb or 768Mb version depending on how much you want to spend.
Either card will be powerful enough to play at 1920x1080.
I would probally go for the 6850 as it performs same as the GTX 460 but uses less power. Shame that aria doesnt have the dual fan XFX one.

Andtech has a nice benchmark so you can roughly compare the cards.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/291?vs=313

[intense.ego]

OK, after some convincing Aria are willing to refund me the price of the graphics card rather than give me credit, meaning I can purchase a card from any retailer.

I have found a Sapphire Radeon 5850 from pixmania for £138.50 after delivery. This is similar to a Sapphire Radeon 6850 from novatech for £140 delivered.

The 5850 is supposed to have slightly better performance according to the benchmarks you posted, but I would have to purchase it from the deplorable pixmania. Would the benefit in performance be worth using pixmania? and do Sapphire cards have warranty with the manufacturer or the retailer?

Thanks

[intense.ego]

PowerColor 6850:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/248746

£135. Would it be any better/worse than a Sapphire branded one, or not?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The HD5850 1GB is slightly faster than an HD6850 1GB but is worse at tessellation and uses more power too.

You can also get an MSI HD5850 1GB for around £145 delivered from OcUK:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=GX-103-MS

I will probably get an HD6850 1GB as it is better suited to my Shuttle SFF PC as it is a shorter card which only requires a single PCI-E power connector.

[intense.ego]

Is Sapphire a respectable brand? Moreso than PowerColor I assume? The Sapphire is £5 more expensive, but comes with 2 year warranty rather than 1...

[intense.ego]

And sorry to bombard you guys with so many questions, but which card would you recommend?

I'm leaning towards the 6850, because of the newer architecture. Would/Could new firmware change the performance of the card to better than the 5850?

[Cheapy]

Top end of your budget at £150 but seems a good choice for a dual fan cooled 6850.
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-x...-dvi-i-hdmi-dp

Ulti gets one as a replacement in his new build in the thread here
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...-pictures.html

As for brand it depends on who you ask and their experiences with that brand.