StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Hello everyone

I recently got myself a sweet PC for uni. I had a nudget of £1000 and i hit it almost exactly, and I am very pleased with it. But since I started playing really massive SINS and Homeworld 2 games I've noticed that even it is starting to lag slightly

I looked over my spec, and I know it's the graphics card that's bringing it down because I went with a mediocre one in favour of a much better motherboard and CPU. Now that I've got some cash together, I'm looking for a better card

My budget is about £100 - £150 ($150-240 approx) at most. What I'm looking for ies a better card but on that I can run wo or best of all three way SLI

Any suggestions?

EDIT: Realised this might be helpful. I've currently got a Nvidia GTS 240, with a ASUS P6X58D-E motherboard, an Intel i7-930 and 6gb of DDR3 RAM

Radeon 6850?

Get a Nvidia 460 which are cheap as heck now running 120$-180$ US at the moment or get the reason why the 460 price has fallen in the bucket the ATI 6850 or 6870 which are both in your price range.

Pick the right card from the right company with the right bundle for ATI
For Nvidia you will buy EVGA because warranties are awesome.

Thanks guys, quick question though. is the 460 and the Radeon 6850/6870 SLI capable? Because that I think will be the option that decides between the two

EDIT: Also, is there a version of those cards available that is one of these silent ones? as in passive heat sinks not fans, cos i've got a passive graphics card right now and I'm loving the quiet PC

Eternal_Freedom wrote:Thanks guys, quick question though. is the 460 and the Radeon 6850/6870 SLI capable? Because that I think will be the option that decides between the two

Every graphics card released in the past three years has been SLI able. In fact what makes the 460 and 6870 stand out is that two of them kick the shit out of the equivalent high end card for the same price. Only thing holding them back is some games don't do SLI well and the fact you need at least an 800 watt power supply to run SLI.

Eternal_Freedom wrote:Thanks guys, quick question though. is the 460 and the Radeon 6850/6870 SLI capable? Because that I think will be the option that decides between the two

They can do it and it isn't worth it.

EDIT: Also, is there a version of those cards available that is one of these silent ones? as in passive heat sinks not fans, cos i've got a passive graphics card right now and I'm loving the quiet PC

Fast cards generally aren't silent. You can get an aftermarket cooler that will be significantly quieter.

It may be wise to wait a couple days till the 6970 is released and see if it puts any pressure on the GTX460.

No idea how bad of an idea it was, but I personally went with the MSI R5770 HAWK (their take on the 1 GB 5770) for $160 ($140 after mail-in rebate); the 6000-series I see now on Newegg are ranging from $180 (HIS) to $217.55 (PowerColor) for a 1 GB 6850 and $247.55 (HIS) to $282.55 (PowerColor) for a 1 GB 6870. I'm not sure where the 5770 is supposed to rank compared to the nVIDIA GTX's.

Ranks below, a 5850 competes on equal footing with the 460's the 5770 is a step down and to the side.

HankSolo wrote:It may be wise to wait a couple days till the 6970 is released and see if it puts any pressure on the GTX460.

Yes. Do this; give it a week or two after the 6900's come out to see what nVidia does with their cards (or ATI, for that matter).

phongn wrote:They can do it and it isn't worth it.

That depends. For the absolute fastest performance possible at higher resolutions, yes, it is most certainly worth it. For an Eyefinity/NV Surround setup (which I have), it is again most certainly worth it. For Eternal_freedom, well, yeah, probably not.

Thanks guys, I'm certainly going to wait until afer Christmas, not least of which because I'm back with the family for Christmas and my Pc is still in my Uni flat. Bummer

But I'll see what happens to the 460 price, and if it falls a significant amount, I'll probably go for that one

I should say, modern computer equipment isn't all that loud.

Right now my rig is running with four 140mm fans, a 120 and the fans in my GPU (A Radeon 5970) and PSU. All of them are cranked all the way up.

When I first posted the rig's specs here, I was cautioned that it would be akin to a "flamboyantly homosexual Christmas tree strapped to a jet engine on full emergency power," but by far and away the loudest component is the DVD+RW drive, which just startled me after it started to spin up. And even then, it's only about a third as loud as the fans in my old PC were.

When I put my earphones on, I can only barely even tell it's there, and that's without any sound coming over the earphones.

Unless you have very sensitive hearing, I wouldn't worry about the fans on the card.

Backing up ShadowDragon, we're moving into summer here and even an ambient temp in the 30s the fans are hardly noticable - the breeze through the trees outside is louder.

At the moment the two A+ value options are the GTX570 or 2x HD6850s. The latter option gives performance somewhere between the GTX570 and 580 in most games, but there are still occasionally some problems with multi-GPU setups, and the AMD/ATI cards still tend towards lower minimum fps than the nVidia. If you can figure out how much you want to spend, look at what cards are hovering around that price range and then look for some comparitive benchmarks to see how they stack up against each other. The only bit of information you didn't include was your PSU, you'd probably be wanting something over 550W with only 12v and preferably SLI certification if you don't have that already.

The 570 is not the best value anymore. The 6950 takes that cake now, with better performance for $50 less. In any case, Eternal_Freedom can't afford either (nor can he afford two 6850's). For him, the best option is a 1 GB 460, a single 6850, or maybe a single 6870. With his budget, SLI and Crossfire shouldn't even be entering the picture.

Sorry, I misread the budget. The 69xx's pricing is very regional - Down Under we've had retailers complaining that their wholesale purchase price is above AMD's RRP.