New GPU for £180

[JonnyW]

So I have finally buckled whilst waiting for the 660ti to be released, and realised that infact it will be bottlenecked by my Q6600@3.0Ghz anyway. Therefore, for a budget of about £180 I see myself as being left with two choices, the GTX 570 and the HD7850. Myself being more of an nvidia fan and generally more trusting towards that brand I have been leaning towards that. Any advise that could be offered on the matter would be greatly appreciated (I plan to order next week).

Edit: I do not intend or feel comfortable OCing my GPU. Also this is coupled with the purchase of a 1080p monitor (my 9800GT will not handle this resolution )

 

[MEMOFLEX]

Hey buddy. For £180 you may be struggling to get a decent 570 as the cheapest I could find is at least £210. I always go Nvidia myself as I have never had any problems with them but there are some great AMD cards out there.

I am currently running Asus 560 ti DirectCU II Top 1GB which has been a great card apart from on games like Battlefield I begin to run out of Vram. The 2GB version of my card : http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-geforce-gtx-560-ti-900mhz-2gb-pci-express-hdmi-directcu-ii-7Z58.html?refs=4294944469-55050000-55110000&src=3

is a good gpu for your price range. It comes pre overclocked with a custom cooler that keeps the card cool with very little noise. If you were to go the AMD route you could possibly get a better performing card but don't know enough to recommend other than by looking at benchmarks.

 

[JonnyW]

Hi there and thanks for the advise, I think i probably will look down the Nvidia route afterall. I have found the two following GTX 570 on sale for a decent price (with a free copy of borderlands 2 as well):

EVGA 1280MB GeForce GTX 570 HD DS NVIDIA Graphics Card (£180):
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1280mb-evga-gtx-570-hd-ds-40nm-3800mhz-gddr5-gpu-732mhz-shader-1464mhz-480-cores-dvi-dp-hdmi-plusfre

Would you think this is a good deal/worth buying?

I could also opt for the EVGA 1280MB GeForce GTX 570 HD Superclocked NVIDIA Graphics Card(£192):
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1280mb-evga-gtx-570-hd-superclocked-40nm-3900mhz-gddr5-gpu-797mhz-shader-1594mhz-480-cores-plusfree-

The latter being the factory OCed version with a different cooler. With the price difference being irrelevant, and both have a 3 year warranty, which would you suggest as the better purchase?

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Hi Jonny,

Funnily I have the same set up and only just recently went with the same choices. In the end for me money called the shots. But looked at 560ti, 570 and the HD 7850. I as gonna plump for the 7850 after all considerations as it can play BF3 on ultra with no real issues. But I settled on the 560ti Zotac AMP, and I love it. It rocks every game maxed out bar BF3. You have to dial back a number of settings with the 560ti and q6600, specially on multiplayer as it eats CPU processing power on larger maps, or maos with lots of playes.

I can't recommend the 560ti enough. Easily overclockable, with no effort really required, although really high clocks need a voltage bump, which I'm not one for doing. My q6600 is at 3ghz too, and I've been advised to try push a little more out of it. 3.2 plus! So thats my plan this weekend, to try and tweak to get as much out of my dated tech, and my new DX11 card. Yes, could have waited for th 660ti, and given the supposed performance, would be nice, but it would have required another upgrade CPU/MB/Mem to get the most out of it.

Anyway good luck with your choice. Any of the afore mentioned cards will be really good. 570/7850 for ultra with no issues, 560ti for slightly dialed back settings.

The card recommended by Memoflex is prob one of the better 560ti's available. The 2gb version allows you some leeway with maxing BF3 as at 1680 x 1050 vram on my 560ti is already over 800mb!! So 1gb+ is defor the way to go!

Cheers

 

[MEMOFLEX]

I would look into going for the second pre overclocked card matey at that price. The extra speed will do you some good at some point, its by a good manufacturer with good customer support and you get a free game. I still think the 560 ti 2GB is a viable option but the 570 probably outperforms it without having to work as hard.

Hope that helps

 

[JonnyW]

Thanks a lot for the quick replies and advise and its good to know that whether i go for the 560ti 2Gb or one of the 570's I will see great performance

Edit: With regard to the 480, i considered this but my case cooling is turd

 

[MEMOFLEX]

No worries. The 480 is a good deal but they do run hot as hell and like you said if your cooling ain't great then might not be best idea, good shout though.

 

[nicelynicely]

Heres a EVGA GTX 570 thats on sale for £180.77 although i there is a delivery charge for this site.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1280mb-evga-gtx-570-hd-ds-40nm-3800mhz-gddr5-gpu-732mhz-shader-1464mhz-480-cores-dvi-dp-hdmi-plusfre

 

[MEMOFLEX]

Yeah that was the one in the link above buddy (although one I completely missed when looking )

 

[nicelynicely]

Yeah that was the one in the link above buddy (although one I completely missed when looking )

O yeah, missed that, also apparently mid-range for 600 series will be launching in mid august, according to some of rumours the GTX 660 will be $249 whic is £158 although they are usually more expensive in uk so like £170 maybe.

 

[MEMOFLEX]

Haha the very first post reads that he is getting these cards as he doesn't want to wait for the 660's to come out. Come on nicelynicely start from the beginning

 

[nicelynicely]

Ye sorry, wasn't really paying attention just read a few bits and scrolled down, as far as the HD DS vs Superclocked is concerned i would probably go with the superclocked version, mainly because i couldn't seem to find much info or reviews on the DS and i read somewhere that the fans were loud but i dunno.

 

[JonnyW]

Yeah I think ill go for the Superclocked version, I also read that people have found the DS fans to be loud, thanks again.