I've got about €300 - what do you recommend?

Shiminay

Hello all.

My 8800 GTX which I was hoping to replace in the next month or two has packed it in it seems. So I'm looking for best recommendations in or around the €300 range. I have this mother board and this case, so that rules out a huge card and PCIe 2.1 (I think). I've got a 700W Seasonic PSU in it too, so I should be OK from that side of things (currently 3 HDDs and a DVD as well as 3 X 120mm fans running off it)

I was thinking GTX 470 or 5850. I mostly use the machine for gaming and "meeja". I will want 3 monitor support (2 monitors + HDMI into my telly which it sits beside).

Any pros or cons either way? I'm leaning towards the 470 as it seems to have better results in comparisons.

Icyseanfitz

have you looked at the gtx 460's they are meant to be very good was going to get one myself but im going a bit crazy with a 5970 :rolleyes:

Solitaire

I'm seeing HD5850s from €259 and some very heavily reduced GTX470s from €279. The latter is the better card but needs almost twice as much juice. Also, it does seem to get bottlenecked slightly at very high resolutions, and from what I've seen its exceptional sub-1080p performance may make some reviews misleading as it loses a bit of its oomph when you start throwing Full HD at it. It can OC well, but the HD5850 OCs even better.

Shiminay

I'll be running at 1080p when I get the new monitors I want too (so that'll be up to 3 1080p display devices hanging off it), which doesn't bode well for the choice of 470 if that's the case. Currently I have a 1680 X 1050 and 720p device plugged in, but planning on 2 of these bad boys and a new 40" telly before the end of the year.

I've never overclocked a video card, have seen the results people are getting for both cards though and it seems like a sensible enough idea. However, I'd be concerned about heat too as it's a small and well packed case. There are 3 120mm fans as I said and option to add 2 more without causing huge stress. With the layout of the Rogue case, I don't see myself having any room to add an after-market cooler to it - the PSU sits over the gfx card.

Chaos Marine

Kharn wrote: »

Hello all.

My 8800 GTX which I was hoping to replace in the next month or two has packed it in it seems. So I'm looking for best recommendations in or around the €300 range. I have this mother board and this case, so that rules out a huge card and PCIe 2.1 (I think). I've got a 700W Seasonic PSU in it too, so I should be OK from that side of things (currently 3 HDDs and a DVD as well as 3 X 120mm fans running off it)

I was thinking GTX 470 or 5850. I mostly use the machine for gaming and "meeja". I will want 3 monitor support (2 monitors + HDMI into my telly which it sits beside).

Any pros or cons either way? I'm leaning towards the 470 as it seems to have better results in comparisons.

I replaced my 8800GTX with a 260 about a year and a half ago. You could get a 460 or 465 for pretty cheap. Though I'd hold out and save another 55 euros and buy a 470 or two 460s if your board can handle two cards. Two of them consistently beat a 480 by 25% according to Tom's Hardware.

Overheal

i notice that board of yours doesnt even have PCI-e 2.0, nevermind 2.1

Rsaeire

I'd recommend going with a 5850 over the 470 since it runs cooler, quieter and, as Solitaire mentioned, requires less power. Also, since you mentioned heat is an issue in your case, some of ATI's partners, e.g. PowerColor, Sapphire, Asus, sell 5850s with non-reference coolers that keep the card running cooler and quieter than the reference 5850, so it might be worth considering one of them.

Overheal

The Sapphire's Vapor-X cooler isn't silent but its a heck of a lot quiter than the GTX 2xx's for instance and peaks a lot lower, I think I got it up to 69C Burning it in on Crysis.

Shiminay

Feck, just looked at that PCIe thing too and you're right. How big a problem is this? Will I be missing out on a lot on a new card if I don't have PCIe 2.x?

marco_polo

Kharn wrote: »

Feck, just looked at that PCIe thing too and you're right. How big a problem is this? Will I be missing out on a lot on a new card if I don't have PCIe 2.x?

Not quite as bad as as you might think, however it will signifigantly hurt the latest top end cards that you are looking at and Crossfire / SLI configurations, but the article below suggests that up to about the 4870 range for single cards it is not that big a hinderance (Article is about two years old).

(Warning Long PCIe 1.0 vs 2.0 benchmark article )
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=2249

lmimmfn

How do you want to run the screens? because Eyefinity setup requires that one of the screens is a DisplayPort screen( you cannot use 3 screens with eyefinity otherwise ), if you dont have a display port screen then you have to use an adapter, im using the Sapphire one but its damn expensive( about 120euro delivered on pixmania ), others have used cheapo adapters for 20euro like the apple mini display port adapter but its with mixed success, at least the sapphire one is nigh on guaranteed to work

Overheal

i havent had time to reconfigure this and im away from the pc until thursday but last night i realised my 5770 is only running in PCI 2.0 x8 mode. Running it at x16 requires me to slot a VGA bypass card into the x16 slot one and but the card in slot 2 (gross - motherboard loses 1 of its 5 stars!) Im just wondering myself, if thats going to affect my performance much.

You can see from my chassis image that putting it in slot 2 presents an airflow concern with the PSU - but then again if i find a duplicate card later and crossfire i have to ask if running them in x8 x8 is going to affect performance a bunch.

The Omen 666

Overheal wrote: »

i havent had time to reconfigure this and im away from the pc until thursday but last night i realised my 5770 is only running in PCI 2.0 x8 mode. Running it at x16 requires me to slot a VGA bypass card into the x16 slot one and but the card in slot 2 (gross - motherboard loses 1 of its 5 stars!) Im just wondering myself, if thats going to affect my performance much.

You can see from my chassis image that putting it in slot 2 presents an airflow concern with the PSU - but then again if i find a duplicate card later and crossfire i have to ask if running them in x8 x8 is going to affect performance a bunch.

I noticed that recently in a vid review on youtube, linus tech tips... Not sure where the need for having a bypass card comes from, seems like a cheap reverse engineering solution to me, surely they would have seen this in the design or testing stage!!!:eek:

As for 8x 8x, from what i ahev read or seenm running at 8x does not have an distinguisable impact on performance so i doubt u'll see an improvement when its back up to 16x after installing the bypass card. I have no actual experience of the issue, just what i have read

Overheal

it also makes getting to the CMOS reset a major pain - requiring a screwdriver and removing the graphics card.

Some strange little oversights alright.

Shiminay

Well I managed to salvage my 8800GTX - the fan was blocked with dust etc (I know, I should hoover more) and so I've got another lease of life on it, so I'm not as rushed on a purchase. Also, I've been too busy with StarCraft 2 since I recovered the card

Hadn't realised about the Display Port thing lmimmfn mentioned above. I was planning on using 2 DVI and a HDMI for two monitors and the TV respectively. I'll look into an adaptor now and see what I can see. It's not an immediate problem though, I just have 1 monitor at the moment.

5850's looking a more attractive prospect as they've dropped a bit in price and running cooler is preferred given I almost never switch my PC off and would be gaming for extended periods. Pay day in 10 days, I will hopefully have an order ready to go then

lmimmfn

Kharn wrote: »

Hadn't realised about the Display Port thing lmimmfn mentioned above. I was planning on using 2 DVI and a HDMI for two monitors and the TV respectively. I'll look into an adaptor now and see what I can see. It's not an immediate problem though, I just have 1 monitor at the moment.

Just so youre aware, i spotted this over the weekend, Sapphire has a 5770 that allows 3 displays to work with eyefinity without an adapter( and 4 screens if you use displayport ) and they may have a 5850 version( i cant check, at work ) - http://www.techpowerup.com/128506/Sapphire_Announces_HD_5770_FleX_Edition_Connect_Four_Displays_in_Eyefinity.html

Shiminay

Nice find, thanks for that. I might just hold out and see if there's any sign of a flex 5850 cause this move just reeks of "ok, we've got a load of unsold product in the 57XX range. Lets apply that 4 screen patch we've had all this time and put a new sticker on it to get them out the door"