Is a 5770 a Viable Upgrade to a 8800 GTX? And What is a Decent HDD?

[glogan92]

Over the past week I had a pretty catastrophic PC failure, resulting in my good old 8800GTX dying, and my somewhat good old 10k RPM Raptor hard drive getting a ton of bad sectors.

Though I would have really liked to hold on to my 8800 GTX for a bit longer, it looks like it's time for a new card. I'm kind of reluctant to go back to nVidia, as I really don't know why this card failed, and I know it was always running at a cool temperature, given I've had it for almost 4 years now. Also, some buddies of mine have had nothing but awesome experiences with the 5000 series from ATI, and with the Direct X 11 monopoly it makes sense.

Currently I'm mainly playing Starcraft 2 which was running fine on my GTX, but I'd like to future proof my system a bit. It sucks that the 5770 is still around the same price point that it was about a year ago, but it still looks like the best bang for your buck on the market (... right?). Right now what seems like a solid plan would be to get a single 5770 now, and if I need some more power in the future just get another and Crossfire it. From the benches I've seen it looks to be pretty solid, but I'll still take any input I can on getting a new GPU.

As for the hard drive, I had a 10k RPM drive before, but I haven't noticed a big difference in performance from rigs with 10k RPM drives and 7200 RPM drives. As long as the price is right, it has a 64mb cache, and it's 7200 RPM plus, I don't really care. Right now I'm looking at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533 , but if anyone has a drive they've fallen in love with please let me know

 

[Helltech]

I'd say the GTX 4601GB is the best bang for buck atm, but thats just me.

What resolution do you play at? What motherboard do you have? There is a 5830 that is on sale down to about 160 dolalrs after rebate right now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127491&cm_re=5830-_-14-127-491-_-Product

I love my velociraptor and have had it forever, but this is a great HDD for the price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185&cm_re=samsung_f3_spinpoint-_-22-152-185-_-Product

 

[glogan92]

I'm currently playing at 1600X1200, but eventually I am going to be at full 1080P.

Hmm.... The motherboard. I think I might have just run into a problem. I'm using a NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Motherboard, I'm guessing I can't Crossfire that?


That looks like a pretty solid hard drive. I'm currently using a 16mb cache HD, how huge would the difference be between a 32 mb and a 64?

 

[sadseada123]

UR Resolution is way too low for a 460.go for something cheaper.

 

[glogan92]

Isn't 1920x1080 kind of the standard now? I'm sure eventually 2560X1600's are going to take over but I'd just rather not drop 1000$ on a monitor.

Pardon the beginning noobery on the crossfire... I forgot about my mobo.

So, I guess it really comes down to the 460 GTX 768mb or the 1gb. There seems to be about a 7% difference in frame rates between the two, and a 50$ price difference. That's really personal preference, but I'm leaning towards the 768 mb.

 

[sadseada123]

if you are going to upgrade your monitor shortly go for the 460 but if you are gonna use the old monitor for two or more years than you might as well buy a 5770,gtx 260 or hd 4890.coz by the time you nuy a new monitor something new will come up.