New graphics card

Jam Warrior

My old graphics card (Nvidia Geforce 7900) has crapped out. At least I'm fairly sure it has. A full screen display with any 3D causes the monitor display to become a garbled mess after exactly 30 seconds. Screen refresh (i.e. Alt tab out and back again) will fix it, for the next 30 seconds.

Anyway, the breadth of the market is making my headspin. What can you guys recommend for me to replace it with? I'm looking for something as good or a bit better if the budget allows, but trying not to go over a couple of hundred quid. If I can say under £100 that would be golden.

What's the good solid cheap-ish mid-range go to card of the moment?

BlindZenDriver

For this generation of graphics cards ATI(AMD) is the best choice and a good pick. As opposed to Nivdia they have not renamed old generation cards to fit in the line up so it is really all about picking which 5nnn-card in their line up fits your budget.

If you're using XP then all the new DX11 tech in current cards won't really bring much so then you could go bargain hunting or perhaps pick a 2nd hand buy. I have a 4890 which was all the rage not long a go and today you can be lucky and find one for very little money.

Bartholamue

I think if you're on a budget, the Radeon 5770 is a fine card that will play pretty much anything you throw at it.

Elimination

I have a 4870, its faster on average than the 5770, and costs $100 less on average pricing. It runs everything i've ever tossed at it at max and at good speeds.

Scosglen

The 4870 is not even remotely $100 cheaper. Maybe more like $10-30 with sale discount and rebate deal.

Raekreu

Bartholamue wrote: »

I think if you're on a budget, the Radeon 5770 is a fine card that will play pretty much anything you throw at it.

2nding this, it's a newer card than the ATI 4870 and it's pretty robust.

EDIT: edited for wrong manufacturer name

Elimination

Scosglen wrote: »

The 4870 is not even remotely $100 cheaper. Maybe more like $10-30 with sale discount and rebate deal.

Really? I got mine for $139 new, and the 5770 was $230. Thats pretty close to $100 difference for a weaker card.

The problem with the 5770 is its a 128-bit card, which makes it inherently worse than the 4870, and perform worse in most games right now on average. 4870 is a 256, so double the bandwidth. The 5770 just flat out is not worth the asking price right now unless you fancy paying more money for a lesser card.

The only thing 5770 has going for it is DX11 and really who cares about that right now, most games use DX9 still so the having that tech is a little redundant at this particular time, and by the time DX11 becomes widely used there will be another generation of cards out that are even better.

Dehumanized

From just a quick glance at Newegg, $119 is the lowest price for a 4870, $149 for a 5770.

Course, that doesn't take manufacturer into account. It's not a bad idea to look at options above the bare lowest price for a better warranty. All the cards will probably perform around the same because they usually don't deviate much from reference specs, but there's a big difference between having a 1-year warranty and an unlimited warranty.

Elimination

Dehumanized wrote: »

From just a quick glance at Newegg, $119 is the lowest price for a 4870, $149 for a 5770.

Course, that doesn't take manufacturer into account. It's not a bad idea to look at options above the bare lowest price for a better warranty. All the cards will probably perform around the same because they usually don't deviate much from reference specs, but there's a big difference between having a 1-year warranty and an unlimited warranty.

Ah see here in Canada, Newegg doesnt work. I guess i am also going off prices of quite a while back. Regardless i still say the 4870 is a better bang for your buck than the 5770 for all the reasons i said, and is still cheaper at any rate.

Dehumanized

I'd tend to agree with that, unless he's planning on moving up to Windows 7 -- in which case, the DX11 features might be worth it.

DekuStick

Elimination wrote: »

Dehumanized wrote: »

From just a quick glance at Newegg, $119 is the lowest price for a 4870, $149 for a 5770.

Course, that doesn't take manufacturer into account. It's not a bad idea to look at options above the bare lowest price for a better warranty. All the cards will probably perform around the same because they usually don't deviate much from reference specs, but there's a big difference between having a 1-year warranty and an unlimited warranty.

Ah see here in Canada, Newegg doesnt work. I guess i am also going off prices of quite a while back. Regardless i still say the 4870 is a better bang for your buck than the 5770 for all the reasons i said, and is still cheaper at any rate.

Canada has newegg.ca

4870 > 5770.

Dunadan019

honestly, It doesn't matter going with one or the other. since you seem to keep your graphics cards for a while and don't seem to be playing the most graphic intensive games (or play them on low settings) either card is going to be an upgrade, both are likely to last the same amount of time.

That being said, you should probably check and see if your motherboard and PSU can even support either card first. you may be better off getting an older Nvidia card if you have to upgrade everything in order to get a 5770 to work.

Synthetic Orange

Have you checked your card? Look for the fan and heatsink working or being clogged up by dust.

Rohan

A 4870 or a 4890 will play anything at 1920*1080/1200 at the highest settings. So much performance for so little seeing as the new 5xxx generation is here. I built a pc for a friend just a few days ago and we chose a 4890 for the price to performance ratio, and it runs everything we throw at it without seeming to break a sweat. These cards will last a good few years, too.

Dunadan019

Rohan wrote: »

A 4870 or a 4890 will play anything at 1920*1080/1200 at the highest settings. So much performance for so little seeing as the new 5xxx generation is here. I built a pc for a friend just a few days ago and we chose a 4890 for the price to performance ratio, and it runs everything we throw at it without seeming to break a sweat. These cards will last a good few years, too.

that's not quite true.

of the games that I have played the ones that cannot be maxed out are:

GTA IV - because you need about 4gb of video memory to do so.
Just Cause 2 - AA and AI filtering can be too strenuous with the large environment
Assassins Creed 2/ Splinter Cell Convictions/ probably any new ubisoft game - AA and Vsinc need to be turned off/down or quick panning shots can crash the video card.

Many of the newer games from here on out will probably be too much to run all settings maxed on the 4870.

it will still be a few years before any game really looks bad on the 4870 though.

Rohan

Ah yes, there are the few special cases. With GTA, my friends and I each have a copy of Episodes from Liberty City, and despite the differing specifications across each pc (all six of them), the settings remain pretty similar. View distance in the 20/30's seems perfectly fine, we play multiplayer often and have never needed anything more. The pc I built for a friend recently (the most powerful of the bunch with a Core i7 860, 6GB DDR3, Radeon 4890 etc.) can go up to a view distance of about 55 before the game starts bitching, but it doesn't seem to make any difference whatsoever in the game.

I don't have any of the other games, though my flat-mate does have Splinter Cell Conviction, and on his system (Core 2 Duo E6420, 4GB DDR2, GeForce 9600) it's a freaking slideshow. As for my 4870, most games today run at the highest settings on my 24" monitor, but I'll assume that by year's end the performance drop-off will start becoming noticeable.

So yeah, I agree. I would still recommend buying the card considering the price/performance ratio, but if one has the opportunity, certainly go for the newer cards.

Dunadan019

for me, I'm just gonna buy another 4870 to crossfire when my games start being really effected.

having to turn down AA and AI a bit isn't too bad IMO.

Rohan

Is Crossfire really worth it? I've been wary of dual-card systems for years, in fact the only video cards to use the system effectively without any cons that I can recall are the ancient Voodoo2 cards (with 12MB ram!). I know the ATi solution has been getting a lot of coverage and good press for the past year or two, but I always happen to see an addendum about issues with compatibility, or the performance not worth the cost of another card, etc.

Dunadan019

the big problem with crossfire is that many games used to not utilize both cards to their full potential (same problem with quad cores and x2 cards). from what I hear that problem is reduced if not eliminated in the newer games.

still, its not a straight up doubling of performance, its more like a 35% gain which is still a nice increase for another 100 bucks as opposed to getting the 35% better card which will probably cost about $300.

Rohan

That's a good point, I may pick one up for myself early next year or something.

Dehumanized

A lot of the benefit of multi-GPU setups is pushing things to run at ridiculous resolutions.

Elimination

Dehumanized wrote: »

A lot of the benefit of multi-GPU setups is pushing things to run at ridiculous resolutions.

This is also a key point with the OP, is what res is he running his games at? It makes a fairly big difference.

Dehumanized

That is quite true. With my old monitor resolution of 1200x1024, the 8800GT I bought to go with it was an endlessly powerful bit of hardware that would probably still be pushing most current games at full detail. With the 2148x1152 monitor I replaced it with, I'm definitely having to scale back more and more on detail as the months go by and newer games come out.

Assuming he's got a relatively standard 1680x1050 or similar/smaller monitor resolution, though, the already posted ideas ought to suit just fine.

Donovan Puppyfucker

I had a 7300GT, upgraded to an Nvidia 9600GT with 1 GB RAM.

Seeing as I'm using XP and only running 1280x1024 on a 19 inch 4:3 screen, it does an awesome job. Trackmania and Portal both look amazing and run silky smooth.

Elimination

Yeah i run things at 1440x900 and do just peachy with the 4870 on everything.

WiseManTobes

Newegg getting a .ca caused much rejoicing up in the Canadas