Graphics Card For £150 ish!

Hey guys,

Before I waffle on, I have looked through and found lots of info about cards and such but to be honest graphics cards aren't my speciality and I'm stuck to say the least.

I suppose I should start by saying that I have £150 to spend approx, I'm running a :-

Dual core E6300 OC'd 3.2ghz
2GB OCZ Reaper
Gigabyte 965P-DS3 Board

and currently a crappy card, I've never really been into games TBH...

BUT.. BUT... now I have found a certain enjoyment for gaming and now with a 20mb BB online gaming too, but with my current card an 8500GT Nvidia I have quickly realised it's limitations... windows pinball i fear :-P

If it helps I will be mainly playing crysis, bioshock and other pretty high intensive games

So here is the muse, I have £150 to spend and have been considering a few options..

ATI 3870x2 Quad Core 512mb card - looks impressive and results seems great
ATI 4850 512mb - As above
Nvidia 8800GT 512mb - Seems good but possible old hat now?

Anyways sorry for the babbling, if users of the above gear shed light or anyone can offer alternatives I am all ears

Thank You in advance!
Alex.

sorry to sound an ass but i mentioned it lol...

Gigabyte 965P-DS3 mobo

and it's not an SLI board... i considered revamping my system but to be honest the amount i get to play it's not worth it..

not game specific i only wanted to give examples really, im looking for something generally good...

the 4850 looks nice does it overclock well? how is the standard fan attatched...

thanks for reply liquid

if u want 4850 then go for non reference cooler like Powercolor PCS HD 4850 512 MB or Sapphire Toxic HD 4850 512 MB.

both cost around 120 Great Britain Pound or around $210.

If your going 4850 I would seriously consider one with an aftermarket cooler. The best one at the Moment is the HIS ICEQ 4
http://www.hisdigital.com/html/pro [...] 8&view=yes
with also the Xpertvision Sonic
http://www.xpertvision.com.tw/main/vgapro.php?id=167
but that one has a 8 PIN P-CIE connector
there are also versions from Sapphire and Powercolor but the powercolor one is identical to the Xpertvision one

and liquid....

in the light of it being a non crossfire or sli board would you still choose a 4850 over a 3870x2?

Alex.

ahh i see

well the 4850 toxic is the one for me

If anyone knows of some really cheap uk prices i would be most appeciated!

Thanks again guys, especially liquid!

Peace. x

www.ebuyer.co.uk will get you a 4870 for £169.89

I suspect the £185 was excluding VAT ending up in a price of around £217 Where as the 4870 price is including vat. £185 including VAT would be a very good price for the card. Even at that price though I would pass on it.

I dont like to rely on patchy SLI \ Crossfire support for performance, particularly given that my most played game doesnt even work with SLI enabled, even though its demanding when using the DX10 options...

I figured £20 isnt a lot of over budget for a decent boost, even if the card is out of his ability to extend his budget, then the ebuyer site is still worth looking at for prices as its generally one of the best priced places on the net over here. He can get a sapphire dual slot cooler card there for £110 inc vat and they offer free delivery! Which can help extend the budget a little...

I generally think if you can stretch the budget a little for the graphics card you rarely regret it long term.

The toxic as far as Im aware isnt a special GPU in anyway its just got better cooling and a warranty that covers the overclocking.

The 4850 and 4870 GPU's are the same GPU in effect, with different clock speeds, cooling solutions, more power available (2 power connectors required on the 4870) and memory speed.

The 4870 should come with standard speeds far higher than the toxic 4850 (675mhz for the toxic 4850, 750mhz for the 4870) The 4870 also has far faster memory than the toxic 4850 (2200 mhz on the toxic 3600mhz on the 4870) I dont see how the toxic can come close to the standard 4870 on performance...

As far as overclocking potential goes, on core speed a toxic MAY be able to reach the same speed as a 4870 due to the aftermarket cooler, I just dont know the toxic cooler to know if its better than the 4870 one, certain the 4870 cooler is far more effective than the the stock 4850 one.

If the toxic 4850 does manage to hit the core speeds of the stock 4870 it would still be behind on memory speeds! And likely to be less stable. The 4870 certainly has overclocking potential beyond its stock clocks.

ppl are fogeting that the 4870 can OC as well.

And I didn't kno including VAT it would be that expensive

Here in Canada GX2s go for as low as 200$ (Galaxy) 400 (Palit).

I would recommend paying a little extra and doing 4870 since its a 15% increase over the 4850