Best "bang for your buck" videocard

Even if your motherboard is only PCI-E 1.0 or 1.1, 2.0 cards are backwards compatible, and will be hampered in performance by only a very very small amount, especially in the price range you are interested in.

I am not familiar with UK retailers or prices enough to suggest a specific card, to be honest, but ATI 4870 or GTS260 would probably be a good starting point in finding a big increase in performance.

someone on another board said i shouldn't put an ATI card on a 680i

is that true? and if so why?

they also said i should get a DX11 card? (i know DX limits compatability and older cards can't support newer versions but how bad is it really?)

i had a look at old 8800GTs but mine came factory overclocked and most of the cards on UK ebay are over £60 ($90) also i need a card to use in a secondary system so that'd be £30 if i dont replcae the 8800GT

well, i'd get windows 7 when i needed to, ie when a game needs DX11, thats not COD:MW2 but i guess it will be within the life of this gfx card (2-3 years)

and the 5850 seems pretty damn sweet for £200 (how do the 5770 and 5870 compare? out of interest?)

last one, ballpark howmuch better would a 5770 or 5850 be than the 8800GT? like 50% better, twice as good?

edit: i've found a

for £176

edit 2: no stock on the MSI so

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 / 1GB GDDR5 / PCI Express 2.0 / Graphics Card

for £210 with shipping

reckon thats a pretty safe bet?

buy another 8800gt. Should give performance as good as gtx 280. No need for dx11 now, just pick up a cheap 8800gt and squeeze the life out of your system till it just cant play.

I dont think so, the cars have different bioses and probably other little things that make it so you cant do it easily.

Radeon HD 5770 x2 as long as your motherboard supports it. I believe it can run as well as the 5870 for around $100-150 cheaper.

Have you seen this ?

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2464.html

Two 8800GTs is not roughly equal to GTX 280 performance. Two 8800GTX 512MB is about equal to GTX 280 (NOT a GTX 285). Two 8 or 9800GT is roughly equal to a GTX 260 216sp if they're both 1GB. If they're 512MB it's roughly equal to a 9800GX2 which is around a stock GTX 260 192sp (probably a bit lower). Adding another is a decent decision if they're both 1GB. If not, and they're 512MB, just get an HD 4870 or GTX 260 216sp.