Best but card at the moment?

[eugenie]

I was looking at the 4850 from ati because they had a great rebate and free shipping bringing it to 89 after everything and rebates.

That rebate has passed DOH, shouldn't have waited.

So now that there isnt such a slam dunk cheap for its price range card that i know of ill have to turn to you guys.

I'm looking for something that costs about 100 +/-10 after rebates, most important thing would be gaming(fps) followed by hd video output.

No sli now or in the future, and I would prefer something with a better cooler or that runs at lower temps as i tend to keep my cards for a very long time, often moving them between builds if im still playing the same games.

I'm perfectly happy with my 9600gt right now but its starting to die on me and giving me system instability, I've let it run too hot too long. (I should mention I heat fried my 6800gt before this as well, I'm pretty hard on my gpus!)

My system info is:

amd phenom 965 BE quad
4 gigs ddr 3 1800ocz ram
m4a77td mobo
1080p display

 

[eugenie]

otherwise, im looking at these two and could use some advice

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125236&cm_re=4850-_-14-125-236-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161297&cm_re=4850-_-14-161-297-_-Product

There are a few differences here, and im not sure exactly how to interpret them.

On one hand one runs a faster clock speed, the gigabyte, and seems to have a superior cooler, however the runs at a lower speed and is presumably a bit cooler and has a flashy heat sink with less aluminum surface area.

Not to mention i tend to distrust 'flashy' heat since solutions a bit.

The connectors themselves dont really matter to me, I have run dual screen in the past but my two current monitors support dvi hdmi and vga, so if I aquired another display i would have full flexibility there for what i used where.

But im worried that the card with the vga output option might be using some older chips or something, is this concern warranted?

I notice one only has 512mb of memory but a slightly higher memory speed, is less memory a concern when running at 1920x1080?

are there any other differences im not noticing?

 

[rolli59]

I would take the HIS card over the Gigabyte one.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

If you don't care about rebates, a slightly better option is the GTS250 - about the same performance, but runs a bit cooler and uses a bit less energy.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&Description=gts250&bop=And&Order=PRICE&PageSize=20

If you are actually going to do the rebates, do indeed get the HIS 4850

 

[JackNaylorPE]

I agree w/ bluescreen dude....the 250 st $89 and two free games is just about untouchable

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130539