Best graphics card for athlon x2 6000+

A 7600GS? Yeah it was time to upgrade that 3yrs ago. It depends on the games you want to play and your resolution, but I'd say a Radeon 6570 or 6670 would be a good match for that system. There's also the 5670 but it's a bit harder to find now. If it was me though, I would spend a little more on the 6770 since it falls into your budget and you can use it in your next build.

I was running a hd-4870 with a 6000+, it worked well but some games that are more cpu limited like GTAIV ran at about 25fps. It will depend on the game. Many other games ran well with that setup.
The 6770 is the replacement for the 4870, it gives you 800 shaders for a reasonable cost. The 6770 is the best bang for the buck.(or pound in your case)

If you overclock your CPU, it would certainly be a better match for the 6770 and you'll get a little more life out of that system, so yeah buy a 6770 and get a good tower cooler to OC your CPU  

definitely go for 6770, it's twice as fast as the 6670/5670, and even if your system bottleneck's it in some situations in others it will be faster than the 6670/5670.

Really though, it's time for an entire system upgrade.

thanks guys, looks like a pretty clear consensus here!



this is that upgrade. my system was a X2 4000+ with 2gb of RAM a couple of weeks ago. For a net spend of about £35, it's now x2 6000+ with 4gb of RAM.

I wish I could afford a proper rebuild, but this will have to do!

No a 6000+ is from back when amd was binning their cpus really, really close. My 6000+ maxed out at 3.15ghz. The extra heat/voltage to get a measly 150mhz was not worth it and i ran it at stock clocks. 3.15ghz=140watts, its already 125watts@3.0ghz.
At stock clocks because it has 2mb cache it does pretty good.

An 6770 is overkill for an AMD Athlon x2... The CPU is going to bottleneck, you should update your entire system... (Or do a massive overclock)

I can't afford to get a new system.

I just need something better than a geforce 7600GS in there! SO what's the fastest thing I can get that won't bottleneck?

Anything slower than 6770 you seem to lose a lot of power but save very few pennies...

I agree that anything below 6770 doesn't have "high performance/$" ratio.
You can get an 6770, but you would probably need to overclock your CPU.

Even if you don't, it won't be an major bottleneck. Maby you'll just loose ~7Fps because of your CPU. But don't go for an card above the 6770...

That 6000+ cpu wont really overclock, i am talking from experience as a former owner of a 6000+.

The hd-4870 and 6770 both have 800 shaders and are similar, about the same speed.

In some games that are more cpu heavy it will be somewhat cpu limited, in those games the 6770 will only be about the same as if you had a 6750 or 6670.
In most other games that are not so cpu heavy, the games will not be cpu limited or bottlenecked. It does depend on the game.
Games like dirt2 ran at 1080P with 35fps with med-high details.
Cod duty black ops ran ok with the occasional slow down during heavy action.
Fear 2 ran the same as black ops.
GtaIV ran but it was not ideal.
Batman ran nice
Bit older games like fear, prostreet, serious samII, ect flied on that system matching the monitor refresh with v-sync on.

The Crysis demo was a slideshow, something like 8fps.