£300 to spend on a graphics card - What do I do??

[lostprophet]

There are so many options to choose from, and I have no idea what to get. The board I am getting is a crossfire board which kinda narrows my choice to ATi cards, but there are some single slot Nvidia ones worth looking at

2x 4850 (1024mb RAM)
4870 (1024mb RAM with the option to go CF at a later date)
4870X2 (if I can afford it)
GTX280
9800GX2
Superclocked 9800GTX (738MHz Core, 1836MHz Shader, 512MB 2250MHz GDDR3)

Can you understand why I am so confused?!

 

[fugben]

get a 4870x2. by far the best choice

 

[sarwar_r87]

get 4870 if u can or else go wit 4850 CF........

btw, at wat resolution do u game at.

 

[pulasky]

^ +1

 

[outlw6669]

Of your choices, the yet to be released 4870x2 is the best by far.
If you can afford it and according to the previews, 4870 CrossFire will give you the same performance with slightly higher idle power consumption.
4850 Cf will give you about 20% less performance for about half the price.

Unless you are planning on adding a second 4870 fairly soon, I would say go with the 4850 Cf.
A hell of a lot cheaper and still offers more than enough performance for any game out there.

The offerings from nVidia are not really worth taking.
The 4870 will perform fairly closly to the GTX 280 and 9800GX2 in terms of performance but will cost much less.
A single 4850 will match to outperform a superclocked 9800GTX (AKA 9800GTX+) bye about 10% and cost less.

 

[lostprophet]

Thanks Guys! I think I will go with the 4850 CF with the 1GB cards, just because I think the 4870X2 is gonna be out of my range.

At the moment I game in 1680x1050, but I am think about taking the leap up to a 24" soon. Not sure if I want ultra qualtiy at the lower resolution or slightly worse at a better rez... but that's another thread for another day!

 

[outlw6669]

You should be able to play all current games (except Crysis) with everything turned all the way up on a 24" monitor with Cf 4850's.

 

[lostprophet]

You should be able to play all current games (except Crysis) with everything turned all the way up on a 24" monitor with Cf 4850's.

With the 512mb cars or the 1gb versions? I just realised I can save £50 a card by going with the 512mb ones

 

[outlw6669]

With current games, 512Mb is enough.
If you don't plan on upgrading for quite a long time, it may be worth your while to get the 1Gb versions.
Benchies with current games show 512Mb Cf 4850's doing very well even at high resolutions.

 

[lostprophet]

With current games, 512Mb is enough.
If you don't plan on upgrading for quite a long time, it may be worth your while to get the 1Gb versions.
Benchies with current games show 512Mb Cf 4850's doing very well even at high resolutions.

Thanks for your help, very good advice

 

[shaundwm]

As far as I have seen, going from 512 to 1024 mem on a 4850 makes hardly any difference, even perf drops!!
The only upgrade from a 4850 512 is a 4870 512 imo...