I'm going to be buying a new card for around $200, maybe I'll spend a bit more [I just missed a Newegg subscriber deal, a 216 core GTX260 for $209 + free shipping ). I had an ASUS EAH4870, but the fans on those things break and just stop working. That's what happened to mine and Newegg are sending me another one as a replacement.
I don't want this problem again, so I'm gonna e-bay it and buy a 260 (216 core of course). I want to know if a 600W can handle this card.
1. What brands are good? I'm comfortable with XFX, BFG and eVGA. Is MSI any good? What about Zotac?
2. Are the factory overclocked cards worth the money?
1. MSI is good, Zotac is okay. Go with Evga, BFG, or XFX if you can, they're support is really good.
2. Yes, and no. If you don't want to overclock them already, yes. If you can overclock them yourself, and you have the right fans/watercooling to keep the temps stable, do it yourself.
+1, especially EVGA as I have had good luck with serveral of them. As far as preclocked cards possibly the highend clocked cards as they have been pretested however, of the Vanilla cards I have purchased all but one was able to be clocked well past SSC levels. I would probably avoid the SC (middle ground) cards as I read somewhere that they may have failed to qualify as SSC high end spec'd cards and the 'vanilla' ones were never testeed so there is a chance they may run high end specs no problem. No reference for proof of that so could be FUD but seems to play out in my experience.
Thanks for the replies guys. I have decided to go with buying another brand 4870 instead. They are less than $200. The reason I decided this was because I had my eye exam today and I need a new prescription which was expensive. I don't feel willing to spend too much money now >.<
What brands are good for ATi cards?
I won't go with ASUS again after this experience.
Out of these cards, for less than 200, what is the best choice:
I have decided I will go with coozie7's suggestion, since it is the cheapest option and I know the 4870 is a good card, it played all my games on max. settings no problems.
One last question, the only difference I see between these two cards is the fan and color. They're both the exact same price, both have the 10% off promo (which I will use) and both come with a free game (STALKER Clear Sky, a game I have wanted). Which is the better choice:
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