4850x2 Replacment Under 250 Help..

[devilhanzou]

So for the last year I have been shopping around for cards, and have gotten lots of good advice from the forums here and a lot of advice of people telling me to wait for the ati 7850, well it is now in my price range, and just wanted to ask before making my decisions if there is any other cards to look at? I did some comparisons with Nvidia cards but been using ATI since the 3850 so rusty on knowledge, so any help would be great. If there is any particular makes or models please link, thanks in advance

 

[mightymaxio]

I recommend a GTX 660 TI. Less than $300 and faster performance than a GTX 580 and 7870. Almost as fast as a 7950 but you also get Physx which Borderlands 2 uses.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130809

 

[swifty_morgan]

rest of hardware and resolution ?

 

[devilhanzou]

I play only MMOS, SWTOR at the moment. Sorry Should of put all this in originally

CPU: Phenom II Deneb Quad-Core 945 OC'ed to 3.5 GHZ
Mobo: ASUS M4A78T-E
Ram: 12 Gigs G.Skill DDR3 9-9-9-24 Running at 7-7-7-22 1333mhz
PSU: 850 Cooler master

 

[EzioAs]

7870. Period

 

[lunyone]

I would go with the 7870 if you want. It's about $250 and is probably the best performance that you can find at that price point.

List of 7870's at Newegg.

 

[devilhanzou]

IN your opinion like when I got this 4850x2 It was bad ass, and while it still can run games in 1980x1080 4xAA etc..It sucks alot of friggin power, and puts out so much heat, I installed a Window unit and got a nice Cooler Master Case and installed 200mm fan and down so my case gets good temps and air flow , so of course that means my room becomes the SUn on late night raids lol. Do you think I will see a nice enough difference a hell ya difference maybe

 

[diec4st]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102983

 

[devilhanzou]

Out of left field but do you think going for the video card this year, and cpu/mobo next is the way I should go. I would go with like a Intel I5-2500 Sandy Bridge, and probably ASROCK Z77 or P67 if I did go that way

 

[lunyone]

I'd go with the i5 3570k Ivy Bridge to take advantage of all of the benefits of Ivy Bridge. Your GPU can move over to the newest setup when you upgrade.

 

[devilhanzou]

I'd go with the i5 3570k Ivy Bridge to take advantage of all of the benefits of Ivy Bridge. Your GPU can move over to the newest setup when you upgrade.

So you would say hang on to the 4850x2 one more year, and upgrade CPU/Mobo this year?

 

[lunyone]

So you would say hang on to the 4850x2 one more year, and upgrade CPU/Mobo this year?

Depends on what you want most. If you upgrade the GPU now you will enjoy it now and might give your older system some new life. If you upgrade the CPU/Mobo now, might see some gaming improvements, but probably not a whole lot. Most of the gaming experience is weighted towards the GPU capabilities. The CPU will help too, but isn't as critical as the GPU.

 

[mightymaxio]

Well if you have a badass case Newegg carries the 480 gtx for 200$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130759

Nothing beats it for price/performance especially for 200$. It is faster than a 570 gtx.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

 

[devilhanzou]

Ya just raids are so CPU intensive, hell I remember when i got my 3850 playing cry-sis and *** maxed out with my phenom I quad with low GHz etc...then playing lotr maxed graphics then when stepping into raid everything back to low, upgraded the cpu to a 3.0 GHz from the GHz and everything became right in the world.

Hell I play swtor maxed out except shadows, and battlefield maxed out, both around 60 fps, just had the card so long and like I said would love something better but more efficient, just worried my Phenom II X4 945 was going to catch up to me quick, I looked at those A-8 and A-10 AMD chips but there not much more than what I have. I think I am leaning towards gpu after talking to you, and the others of course. The 4850x2 is four years old to get 4 years out of her with maxed out gaming is nothing to shabby if u ask me, I am gambline the 7800 series card I choose will do the same, and then maybe 2 years form now add a second just to be a bad ass lol

 

[devilhanzou]

Well if you have a badass case Newegg carries the 480 gtx for 200$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130759

Nothing beats it for price/performance especially for 200$. It is faster than a 570 gtx.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

Sorry just saw yours above the one I was responding to, well I have a ATI 4850x2, Is only 1 step above what I have and I follow the golden rule of the Heiarchy at least two above before ever replacing, and a solid piece of gear of course So neither of those would really be for me the ATI 7870 is the one for me right now.

 

[mightymaxio]

Very true I would have gotten two 7970 ghz editions if they went on sale the week that I bought my 660 ti's. Then next week they had a sale for them for $320 and I missed out, could have had the best cards from ATI for the same price lol.

 

[devilhanzou]

Best answer selected by Devilhanzou.