GTX 460 or HD 5770

Sorry forgot some vital information too, my current PSU is a Corsair GS600, not the best but enough for me at the moment. Sorry for my mistake.  

Hey Brian,

the GTX 460 1GB is usually compared against the HD 6850. Two HD 5770's would be better than a GTX 460, but that doesn't mean you should go for it. I would recommend going for either the 6850 or the 460. You wouldn't be able to double up on either of those cards (the HD 6850 only uses 1 6-pin connector per card but recommends 650W PSU). You MAY be able to sneak by with your solid Corsair PSU but that's not the best idea.

Dual 6850s or 460s are some of the most competitive solutions around right now and provide excellent value. That kind of horsepower is probably not necessary at 1680x1050 but you never know if you'll upgrade your monitor in the future.

Let us know what you decide on!

Metro 2033 is a pretty demanding game on high settings. I would suggest a hd6870 or 6950 for AMD cards, or a Nvidia gtx 460 or above. If you want something that is just around a gtx 460, my hd6850 is good.

So basically the cheapest card i should get is a GTX 460 1gb and not the 768mb one? My budget is roughly 170 euro (including the 70 i'll get for my 4850) thats around $200 or little over but keep in mind prices over are bit overpriced and i cant get delivey from newegg and tiger direct charge outrageous delivey to Ireland. So really my options are the GTX 460 and a 6850? What about the 5850 isn't that supposed to be more powerful then the 6850?   and in reply to HostileDonut i dont want it at max settings just maybe near max settings with no AA as a 6870 and 6950 are outta my price range.

Thanks Brian.

Just a thought...4850's in CF pump out the same performance as a single 5850.And is more powerful than a 460 and 5770.Although getting a 5770 and corssfiring later is good too but if you were to save your money until next year all the recent cards will hae droped in price and new cards will come out.4850cf seems likea real ez fix ot get playable FPS at high settings.

A 5770 is only just slightly faster than your overclokced 4850.

The 5770 is meant to replace the 4870, and is a little slower, around 5%, Given the 4850 is just below the 4870 and yours is overclocked, I'd say buying one of those for an upgrade is clearly a very bad idea.

Your system is a perfect match for the GTX 460 1GB. Get that one. Either way, with a second 4x PCIe slot, you're not going anywhere in SLI or Crossfire. Your best bet it to use that for a PhysX card, if your really want or need.

Oh, and why did you consider buying Metro 2033 and Crysis after buying a Xbox controller ? If there is one type of game that is best played with a keyboard and mouse, those games are FPS, and that includes Metro 2033 and Crysis.

Leave the Xbox controleer for racing games. It's not as good as a racing wheel and pedals, but it's the next best thing. I also have one Xbox Controller and play Dirt 2 with it. Playing a racing game with a keyboard or a Xbox controller is a night and day difference. Especially so because I can customise the controls of the Xbox controller in Dirt 2. But for FPS's the best is keyboard and mouse. It's actually why FPS's that are on PC and consoles don't have joint multiplayer. The guys on the PC would always win because they have better and especially faster controls.

@tpi2007 Thanks your theory makes sense with regard the 5770 and ye i think the card i'll go for is the GTX 460 1gb. But i know the responsiveness of a controller over keyboard and mouse in FPS is not good but it wont bother me because any of my online gaming and multiplayer will be done on the PS3, and getting used to keyboard and mouse isn't something i want to do. Thanks for your advice and i know your 100% percent right in what your saying   also @purple stank one of the main reasons i'll be upgrading apart from the need of a better gpu is to future proof my machine i.e having dx11 ao cf 4850's isnt really an option but thanks for your advice

Brian.

Get the gtx 460 msi hawk edition.

The HD 5770 FleX is the first card available to support three DVI monitors in ATI Eyefinity mode.

or, a 5770 Vapor-X is best if you wish to get a good cooling.

quick question in relation to the GTX 460 . . . is there much of a difference between the 768mb model adn the 1gb model on 1680x1060 res? I know the 1gb also had 256 bit while the 768mb only has 192 bit does that affect it much?

Brian.

The 768mb is a little slower,I would reccomend the full 1G for future upgrades for your monitor,possibly a 1080p mointor in the future.

Games will more and more take advantage of the full 1GB.

GTA IV (and Episodes from Liberty City) for example takes advantage of the full 1GB, even at 1680x1050, and even more if you want higher resolutions and all the quality settings at the highest.

It's not exactly the 192-bit bus that makes the noticeable performance difference in this case, it's the amount or memory. The 1GB version is geared towards this year and the next. The 768MB version is geared towards last year.

Oh, here are my two suggestions for a GTX 460:

- Asus GTX 460 1GB DirectCU (excellent cooler + VRM Heatsink)

- MSI Cyclone (excellent cooler, but I think it does not have a heatsink on the VRM's.)


One last word of advice: the Gigabyte GTX 460 has been having a lot of RMA's. Check the newegg for feedback. 20% of unhappy 1-egg customer reviews (I had checked a week ago and it was 18%, so the problem is still growing) + 7% unhappy 2-egg reviews. It's cheap, has free Just Cause 2 and Mafia II coupon, but there's a reason for that.

Get the 1gb MSI hawk, cooler is great, and performance is good too, not to mention that it can OC very well.

Gigabyte GTX460 Superoverclock
The fastest and also the quietest GTX460 out of 16 tested by Guru3d:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-460-...

Still do not forget the hd6850.

as hostile donut pointed out i have it narrowed down to a eVGA Superclocked GTX 460 768mb or a MSI HD6850   now reason being there really all is in my budget and any cards like hawk edition that ye mentioned or the gigabyte super clocked are way to overpriced over here   to give you an idea in my local computer shop a 5850 stock costs around after conversion $360 so i'm still buying from the UK and there still bit overpriced towards america, so there my options at the moment and the 6850 is about $20 dearer?

Any ideas?

Brian.

If the super 460's are out of range getting a regular version 460 isn't bad either.Their is still enough room to O.C. to a stock 6850.But if you have the money then 6850 would be the way to go.At your resoultion all cards will be able to max out games easily.

Thanks guys I think il order a 6850 on monday and its factory overclocked to so thats a little bonus too, hopefully it allow further overclock it needs be in the future   thanks for all the advice, typical ending up buying a card that wasnt even an option at the start  

Thanks  

Brian.

The hd6850 sapphire toxic is good, I have one.  

ye just seen one there for about $35 dollars more then msi one   they have the same core clock but the toxic is probably the better card   i'll see what i can afford but it's definitely going to be the 6850 i buy  

@manmental . . . its simply not in my price range   theres a nearly £50 pounds difference and that about $100 or so and at my resolution a 6850 is plenty for my need i feel, but thanks for your input it's appreciated  

Ye, there out like the 25th of January (did i see that somewhere) or are they already out? Will they be competing with the 6870 range ye?   im just guessing here but surely there at least an upgrade over a 6850 ye?

Put the same vapor chamber cooler from the 570/580 on a GTX 560, and that will be one quiet and cool card.

If not for aything else, wait and see at what price point the GTX560 will come out (it comes out the January 25th). It might force the HD6870 prices to drop and the HD6850 prices to drop in consequence too. Oh, and the GTX 460 too.

Thanks for all your opinion's and yes maybe i will wait to see prices off the gtx 560 just to make sure i wont regret buying anything else  

Thanks

You will do well with the HD 6850. It's simply not accurate to say that's a "bad choice". The 6850 performs just slightly below the 5850 at 1680x1050 (really at all other resolutions as well), while using slightly less power and only requiring 1 6-pin PCI-e connector (which means you only need two to crossfire if you decide to later). It is a great competitor to the GTX 460 1GB, which is another great card- there is no clear winner. This is why Tom's gave them a tie for best card at the $185 price point this month:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-radeon-hd-6870-geforce-gtx-570,2834-4.html

Some would argue that the HD 5850 would be a better decision, as it does get slightly better performance. However, it does not make the 6850 a bad buy whatsoever. Additionaly, AMD has stated that they will be implementing Crossfire optimizations to the 68xx cards that I don't believe the 58xx cards will get (as it stands most reviews show the 6850 scaling better than the 5850 in crossfire already). Below is a link to the Tom's 6850 review (starting on the Metro 2033 page, but check out other titles as well). You will see very comparable performance with the 6850, 5850, and 460.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-6870-radeon-hd-6850-barts,2776-10.html

Any of these cards will be a good decision. Select a brand that you are comfortable with (maybe have used in the past or that is known for great customer support), take a look to watch out for lots of negative feedback on newegg, and let us know how it goes!

Thanks beltzy, cleared things up alot.  

I'm going for the 6850 over the gtx460 because, i have a crossfire board and because my power supply only has 2 pci connections i know i can buy adapters and that but   and it also runs cooler i believe  

That advantage for benchmarks should be tempered by the knowledge that AMD used image quality optimizations to boost performance at the expense of image quality.

Ok i said i'd let you know the story, i'm ordering the card tuesday (just giving the GTX 560 a little more time to shuffle up prices) i'm more then likely going for the ASUS HD 6850 it was voted best 6850 for cooling and overclocking  

ps. my dads has a couple of spare 24" HD 1920x1020 monitors   would the card handle that resolution easy or would i better of to stay with my current monitor? Thanks.

Brian.

1920x1080 ** Sorry