Advice on a graphics card.. not bought one in many years!

[Thebatfink]

So.. haven't brought a graphics card since my first xbox 1 so I'm just a little out of touch with all the models and where performance goes in terms of gameplay quality.

I would like to start playing a few games on the PC again, FPS etc. It would also be nice to know what sort of performance I can expect on say for example Battlefield 3 or some other recent big title so I can gauge if I should hold out and save up a bit more cash before buying one.. At the mo, I'd rather spend no more than £150.

My current set up is:

AMD FX-6 6100 Black Edition 6 Core 3.3Ghz Link to CPU
Asus M5A78L-M LX V2 (Integrated ATI Radeon HD 3000 GPU) Link to board
Crucial 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz Ballistix Sport Memory Kit CL9 (9-9-9-24) Link to memory

So what would you recommend for £150 and will that be enough to enjoy the most recent games with reasonable settings?

Thanks for any help!!
Batfink

[deejayburnout]

i have just purchased a HD 6850 and for £90 its damn good.

So far playing Skyrim & NFS The Run on max settings. Not so sure how good it would run BF3.

If you spent £150 you would get better performance than i am getting.

shop around

[teppic]

You'll be able to do this without a problem so long as you're playing at 1920x1200 or less.

If you can go a little bit higher I'd strongly recommend the HD7850, it's about £180. Otherwise the HD6870 is well under budget (£120) and would perform well.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What PSU do you have?

I would be rather tempted to wait a few more months. Hopefully the HD7850 2GB will drop down to this price level. Ebuyer had it for a while back for around £160.

[Thebatfink]

What resolution are you running skyrim in?

My biggest concern is I'd rather not just buy based on cost.. Sometimes I see crap hardware at high prices amungst normally priced items even on sites like Ebuyer and I'm worried I'm liable to pick one of those and waste cash..

It would be nice if they just incrementally increased the model numbers instead of adding various prefixes and suffixs!

[Thebatfink]

Not sure on the PSU till I can get back and have a look. It won't be anything crazy high power, I'd figured it would likely not be powerful enough, but I have a link somewhere to a tool I used previously that took all the components and spat out the wattage it all needed that I was going to use again.

Hmm, I was hoping to grab something like in a week or two rather than months..

[Phage]

Anandtech has a list which ranks all the current GPUs in order here.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU12/

[Useless]

As others have said what PSU do you have? and what resolution do you play at?

A good choice within your £150 would be AMD's 6870 @ £122:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-xfx-hd-6870-4200mhz-gddr5-gpu-900mhz-1120-cores

At 1920x1080 resolution and on high quality you should be looking at around 40-50 FPS


If you can fine another £11 on your budget you could get AMD's 6950 @ £161:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-xfx-hd-6950-dd-cooled-pcie

At 1920x1080 resolution and on high quality you should be looking at around 50-60 FPS

Link to Battlefield 3 Benchmarks:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-gfx-performance

[Thebatfink]

Thanks for all the help, much appreciated.. So its looking like the HD6870 or the 6950. I'd of thought Nvidia cards would of got a better look in, surprised everyone goes for the AMD options.

I'll try shopping about for a HD6950, Scan left me with a bitter taste I'd never experienced anywhere before some time last year regarding a motherboard and I vowed never again to use that company as long as I live

Regarding the screen size, I still only have a 4:3 ratio 17" monitor attached to the PC (I mostly mess with .net on it) so just that for the time being until I bother getting a monitor for it, but obviously I want to grow into the card rather than replace the card when I get a new monitor.

[teppic]

I'd say that if you can stretch to the 6950 then save a bit and go for the 7850. It's considerably better and only £20 more. Of course all of these cards are massive overkill for your current monitor (I assume it's 1280x1024?), but if you later get a 1920x1200 monitor you're in a good position.

Nvidia doesn't compete well at the moment as they haven't released any new midrange products, and at the budget end they don't get a look in.

edit:

Here's a good price for one:

http://www.dabs.com/products/sapphir...?q=7850&src=16

And if you can think of something else you need for £20 or more, you can use their £10 discount!

[Thebatfink]

Just looking at monitors and its probably going to be a 23" 1920 x 1080. Based on that do you think the HD6870 would be the most efficient option for this res? Useless mentioned this combination would give 40-50 fps but something is telling me 50+ is what I should be aiming to achieve for smooth play?

[Phage]

Depends on the game tbh. This is why I always buy the best GPU I can afford because they date faster than anyother component.

[deejayburnout]

Get a good card and get a monitor later on. i run 2 x 22' 1680 x 1050 and all my games as described above now run at high settings on this resolution. For me good resolution, however now toying with a newer higher resolution monitor or a 3rd for 3 screen madness.

[teppic]

At 1920x1080 you're pushing a 6870 very hard on some of the latest games (though it's fine for most). If you want to keep your costs low it's a very good performer - if you want something that's going to keep up with new releases, you'll want a 7850.

[Soul]

I'm a console gamer at heart but theres a few things I want to play with. Trouble is where do you stop, its always 'for just £20 more' lol. If I catch a 7850 for closer to £150 in the next couple of weeks on offer then I'll grab one. Else its gonna be a 6950. Thanks for the support.

PS the PSU is only 430 watt. Guess thats gonna want upgrading too?

[kalniel]

PS the PSU is only 430 watt. Guess thats gonna want upgrading too?

Not unless it's a crap one.