Suggestions for Graphics card

majiktripp

Hello all,
Recently upgrade my main machine at home from old skt939 AMD to Intel i7 920 with new Gigabyte UDR3 Motherboard and 6GB ram.
I'm using Windows 7 64 bit at the moment and still using my old BFG 512mb 7900 GTX card. I intend to run most modern games on the machine, the foremost being the eagerly anticipated release of COD : MW2 which is due next month.
I will sell my 7900GTX to my friend who already inherited my old motherboard and cpu combo so he'll do well for 40 euro but I'm looking for a replacement card preferably within the 150 euro ballpark.
I was looking on eBuyer as I bought all my new hardware from there and they have a GTX260 for £112 by Zotac which looks to be well favoured and has 28 good reviews so I'm leaning towards that at the moment. Link here
I'm aware with the launch of the new ATI 5XXX series that the 4870/4890 may start to drop in price so would I get more bang for buck by going with one of these?
Any advice or input appreciated!

jonny72

What size/resolution monitor will you be running?

The card you linked is the old 260GTX with 196 stream processors, which isnt worth getting. Try and get one with 216 stream processors.

Otherwise you may choose to go for a 4870 1 gig, which are at v good prices now, and are perfect for 22 inch monitors

If you want more power then the 4890 should be available for less than 150 euros and basically competes with the GTX 275.. is a v good card

Go to www.techpowerup.com and choose a graphics card review and go to the performance summary to get a rough idea of how all the cards perform.

majiktripp

Will be running on Dell 24" monitor I've had for years at 1920x1200 (got it in 2005 and cost me a small fortune but running solid ever since)
Have been looking at the 4890 alright so will shop around a bit more. Do you reckon the price will fall anymore now the new 5XXX series are out? What about the 5850? Worth a punt over 4890?

batman2000

These???,

Sapphire 4870 €137
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=48529
ASUS GeForce GTS 250 €119
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=490246

Just a suggestion

jonny72

Would recommend the 4890 for that monitor

If you have an extra 60 euros or so you can go with the 5850

majiktripp

Starting to look like I might need to upgrade PSU as well at the same time. My Current PSU apparently won't be up to the job. Runs eveything thats in the machine now fine but with the addition of a more power hungry card coupled with the need for a 2nd 6-pin gfx card power connector, upgrading it may be inevitable.

TerrorFirmer

4890 will tackle that pretty well. I have the Vapor-X 4890 and I'm running Crysis Wars at 1920x1200 everything at the highest settings available on XP with 2x AA, runs great. Other games tend to be a little more forgiving, so all in all, you're good for games at high-max settings at that resolution. I had to slap myself in the face recently for even considering the 5890.

Your old PSU is an old design and it's completely skewed for modern requirements...all the power was delivered primarily on the 5v. You would get away with a 550w Corsair PSU fine, or the 650w for more headroom. PC Power and Cooling supplies are also excellent in that same price range (60-90), I have the Silencer 700w (OK, bit outside that budget) and it's the best PSU I've ever owned.

Rezident

+1 for the Vapor-X, great cooler and nice and quiet, reference fan is supposed to be loud.

bennyc

Rezident wrote: »

+1 for the Vapor-X, great cooler and nice and quiet, reference fan is supposed to be loud.

Would there be any point spending a bit extra for the 2GB version of the Sapphire HD4890. Giving that the 1GB seems to handle everything very well.

majiktripp

Had a look at the reviews and details for the sapphire Vapor-X 4890 2GB version and wasn't greatly impressed. Currently my cart over on overclockers contains a Palit GTX275 and 600w OCZ Modular PSU.
Sigh....my credit card hates me.

Solitaire

Mediocre PSU. Oh, and that comes to €270

Off-hand you can get a HD4890 and an Antec Basiq Plus 550W for around €250 from HWVS even with "that shipping charge" :rolleyes: And you can get a HD4890 and a Corsair VX550 for €240 from Pixmania - yep, shipping included!

majiktripp

Pulled the trigger on the Palit GTX 275 876mb and 600w OCZ Modular psu. Looking forward to the weekend! COME ONE TWO DAY DELIVERY!

majiktripp

The GTX275 was beating the 4890 in every benchmark I checked so I ended up going for that in the end. The psu will suit me fine as my current one wouldnt handle the whole lot combined and I hadnt really factored in the cost of the new psu initially. I'll recoup some funds by selling the 7900gtx to a friend but over all I think the combo I got will do the job nicely For the next while anyways

jonny72

majiktripp wrote: »

Had a look at the reviews and details for the sapphire Vapor-X 4890 2GB version and wasn't greatly impressed. Currently my cart over on overclockers contains a Palit GTX275 and 600w OCZ Modular PSU.
Sigh....my credit card hates me.

Ouch, don't they charge you the 21% VAT at the checkout?

Most go with the 4890 because its v close to 275 in performance but cheaper, that said I haven't checked the prices on overclockers

Solitaire

Its darn cheap for a GTX275, and that's before you add the free copy of Batman:AA Stuck it on the BA thread because of that!

batman2000

There is a number of different versions of the HD4890 ranging from €253-€146. They are all ATI 1GB DDR5. Although the €253 is OC. Beside the OC is there any difference in them?? http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/r/hd4890

Deano12345

No real differences,other than the clock speed's like you said.

I would go with the Sapphire 4890 Vapor-X though.I've read a few reviews and it seems to run cooler and overclock higher thanks to Sapphire's improved cooler

Solitaire

Lots. Although the MSI is old stock and scandalously expensive - they now use far superior Cyclone coolers on their cards. Although the €159 Sapphire has a neat Vapor-X cooler

The €179 Asus looks like an (increasingly scarce) HD4890+, with increased clock speeds. Unlike "fake" "OC" or "XT" types that isn't a manufacturer-OCd card; they're certified 900MHz GPUs. Why the hell didn't AMD just stick with simple Pro/XT naming? The "OC" business turned into an utter mess with MSI selling OCd 880MHz cards with an "OC" tag even though they were slower than the "real" ones, and when the community started calling them "Pro" and "XT" to differentiate XFX then went and called their "fake OC" an "XT" for good measure. Thanks guys, now there's no way to tell which cards are genuine... :rolleyes:

Oh, and the €199 Asus is an oddball... it actually has software included to mod the voltage regulators The result at stock is a i7-style "Turbo Mode" to bump the 850MHz card up to 950MHz for a stint. Nice

batman2000

Great stuff. Thanks Solitaire. You really have been a mine field of information (in a good way !!). Thanks Deano also ;-) So its either this Vapor Xhttp://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/2955756/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-hd4890-vapor-x-1-g.html for €159 or this http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/2627053/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-hd4890-1-gb-ddr5-p.html for €146. As there is not much in the difference (prob just saving P&P) I will probaly go the €159 Vapor X as it has a better cooler ... Also Komplett have a Sapphire 4890 fir €183 http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=444231

TerrorFirmer

Get the Vapor-X. The cooler is excellent and it's slightly overclocked out of the box (though they don't advertise that). It also overclocks better then a stock 4890.

somakasvh

I'd vote for this if it also had go-faster stripes :P

majiktripp

Slightly having a case of buyers remorse now at the moment(although no real reason too), the order from OCZ is still "In Warehouse Queue", I think they may be short on the Palit GTX 275's as they are now sold out. Tempted to contact them and cancel the order if possible and change to the Sapphire 5850 which they get in stock tomorrow.... HHMmmm....

majiktripp

Well , got the order changed this morning to a Sapphire 5850 as the Palit's were out of stock. Extra €50 in the end so not too bad! The price of all their 5850's from 3-4 different manufacturers went down by £10 as I was checking the specs on each one. So a Sapphire 5850 card for £199, not bad at all!

Solitaire

That thing should last a good long while! Good overclocker as well!

Lu Tze

Decided to post here instead of starting a new thread...

I have a dell insiron 530 desktop, 2.33ghz core 2 duo, and a ATI 2400 pro graphics card came as standard. Was looking to possibly upgrade the graphics card (played ages of empires 3, and that seemed a bit choppy).

Was looking at the ATI 4670 from Komplett, but the Sapphire Radeon HD 4730 is only a tenner more expensive. Was wondering if there is a big difference? Which i should go for as won't be playing that many games (would like to play Fallout 3) and will only be using 1280x1024 resolutaion on the monitor, switching to a 32" HD ready TV sometimes?

Should i be looking at something else entirely?
Also, i have no idea if the dell power supply is sufficient for these, or has the correct connections. The manual didn't specify what wattage etc it was