460 or 6850?

I'm trying to decide which graphics card to go for, so any recommendations?

The two cards are :

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-e...dl-dvi-i-mhdmi

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

Avoid the 460 SE; its not a proper 460.

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/Gainward/G...rfrel_1920.gif

Are the nvidia features such as cuda and folding any use to you? Otherwise the lower power consumption of the 6850 may make it the better buy.

yes avoid the 460SE it's near enough junk, under powered and over priced.
If you want a real gtx460 1gb then look at the MSI cyclone £136 725mhz http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-m...2x-dvi-i-mhdmi or the EVGA SC £143 763mhz 10year warranty http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-e...dvi-i-minihdmi

for 6850 again look at the msi cyclone edition £140 at a 860mhz core http://www.ebuyer.com/product/254378

other than that pick you flavour ati or nvidia

For power consumption under normal usage it's pretty even, idle is the same, under normal gaming load the gtx460 is about 10watts higher, it's only under furmark which the gtx460 climbs and that does push cards past there normal load http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/H...D_6850/26.html

Oooh didn't know SE was some lower model, you saved me from wasting my money! thanks for that!

Hmm slightly confused on what to get now. I think the 6850 is much 'newer' then the 460 right? Also I want something that will run cool, so I would assume the ATI would be better, don't really need features like cuda, but would be nice to have along with physx, but are they really worth it?

Also which brand would be good, is the Power Color 6850 any good, good customer service etc? I want the cheapest card possible and that seems to be the cheapest at £130.

btw the cooler on those MSI, are they any good? where do they dissipate the heat?

Ok so between these three, which would be best?

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/248746 - PowerColor HD 6850 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/254378 - MSI HD R6850 Cyclone 1GB GDDR5 Power Edition

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-a...2x-dvi-hdmi-dp - Asus HD 6850 DirectCU ATI - AMD Radeon Graphics Card - 1GB

You seem to have made up your mind but can I try to throw a spanner in the works?

I'm biased on this as I have one but this is very cool and very quiet:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-g...s-dl-dvi-mhdmi

From all reports the MSi cyclone cooler is very good gets about 10c lower than the stock cooler on both the 460 and 6850
460 http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-16.html
6850 http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/..._card_review/9

That gigabyte card is also said to have a very good custom cooler.
However for the same cost you can also get the MSi Hawk http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-m...dl-dvi-i-mhdmi which also has a good cooler and higher clocks.
Gigabyte do do a SuperClocked version, @ 815mhz but it costs more and there's been a lot of reported problems with it.
Some of the gpu's they've been using haven't been up to clocks that high, however the basic OC version hasn't had any issues that I know of.

As to CUDA, I doubt it'll be any benefit unless you have something that specifically uses it, I do personally like PhysX however very few games use it for little more than additional eyecandy, developers could integrate it into the game engine better (some of the original PhysX games from back when it was a separate PPU from Ageia, Warmonger was one of the few games that used PhysX for more than just added prettyness) however developers don't want to integrate it that fully as that would cut all ati card users out of their potential client base, so these days it's just done for added effects to make a game look better.

All told it's a nice feature but not a deal clincher.

EDIT: if you're a folder then I seem to remember that nvidia cards still win out on that.

The GTX460 does seem to use much more power than an HD6850 1GB under load:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4002/a...asus-xfx-msi/8

An overclocked HD6850 1GB at 930MHZ to 960MHZ for the core is using a similar amount of a power as a GTX460 1GB at stock clockspeeds.

The overclocked versions of the GTX460 1GB use even more power:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/19844/15

It seems that at load under a game a GTX460 1GB is using around 30W to 40W more than an HD6850 1GB.

I would probably look at MSI HD6850 Cyclone as it has a shorter PCB than the Asus HD6850 DirectCU AFAIK.

Massive thanks guys, really helped, I think I will go for the MSI 6850 cyclone as it seems to fit the bill, think it comes with a 3 year warranty too?, failing that the MSI 460, i remember seeing one of the two on ebuyer for around £130, so might wait a little while and hope they drop in price, massively over budget already. :( but hoping the 6850 might be a decent investment and last longer then my 8800GT!

Well if you want a guarantee on quiet the go for the Asus 6850 Cu Core I use it and god its so quiet when i first put it in i thought i might hear it a bit but no all i hear is the annoying h50 pump noise and not the fans of the 6850, I have a nzxt tempest with the 5 fans turned off i still cant hear it. Under load you can hear it a bit if you listen carefully. Cant comment on other cards though. I play all games on highest settings, i have never seen it lag everything is smooth, gta iv, just cause 2, crysis warhead all very smooth.

Well I ended up buying the MSI R6850 Cyclone and really pleased with it so far. Runs so much more quieter and cooler then my old 8800gt, when i was playing a few games the fan went highest to around 60% and it was quiet and the temps on load were around 50-55c, whereas the old 8800gt would start sounding like a hoover with temps around 80c!