New video card...need suggestions

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

Hi everyone - I'm sure there a million vid-card suggestion requests here...my needs are specific, so I'll add my request to the pile

I am looking to make a vid card upgrade. My current card is a Diamond ATI Radeon HD4850 512MB. My primary need is FPS...I do alot of video and machinima editing, but I'm tired of having to sell relatives for extra frames per second (selling grandma got me 12 FPS...I could have held out for 15). While I want the game to look pretty, running smoothly and getting consistent performance is even more important for my videos.

My budget is between $250-$300 USD.

I will be upgrading my RAM, which is currently 2gig running Vista (!!! ya I know) to probably 4. I will not be upgrading my CPU which is a 3.14 dual. Power supply is not an issue (I have overkill). 21" widescreen monitor will remain.

Given my needs, limitations, budget, and current hardware, what would be your recommendations?


Thanks ahead of time everybody!

Nanny

[Welshman25]

I'd recommend a Radeon HD 5850. It runs right around $300.

Something like this...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161330

With that, 4 gigs of RAM and a 3.14 dual you should be fine.

Wait for the other basement guys to comment too, but from what I've heard the 5850 is the most powerful card for the money (5870 and 5970 are just overpriced and don't give much of a performance boost I think).

[mukali]

I agree with 5850 for that price range. Alternative would be to crossfire two 5770, assuming you have a crossfire capable motherboard. 5770 are about $150 each.

[karamazovmm]

I would wait, when there is more availability of the GTX 470 the price on the 5850 would drop as well, or you could just wait for the HD 68XX series, the 4850 is not slow by any means

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

thanks for the advice guys! reppage coming

[Welshman25]

If it gives you a reference point, I have a single 5770 with a Phenom II X3 2.8GHz and my fps usually doesn't drop below 30 in most newer games almost maxed (ETW, Crysis demo, Far Cry 2, Fallout 3).

[♔DARTH LEGO♔]

If it gives you a reference point, I have a single 5770 with a Phenom II X3 2.8GHz and my fps usually doesn't drop below 30 in most newer games almost maxed (ETW, Crysis demo, Far Cry 2, Fallout 3).

hey how does that phenom handle i been looking at getting one of those...

any good welshy??

[Welshman25]

hey how does that phenom handle i been looking at getting one of those...

any good welshy??

I like it, it seems to do fine in most games. It's a black edition so it's supposed to be an overclocking beast, and I haven't even tried OCing it yet.

That and my 5770 give me around 30-50fps in games like ETW and Far Cry 2 on highest settings, minus ssao and vsync.

[mrcrusty]

Come to think of it, you may be able to get the best of both worlds if you're willing to put a little time and effort into overclocking.

Apparently, the Asus DirectCu HD 5850 is a monster overclocker provided you tweak the voltages, and if you're lucky you may get HD 5870 level performance from it.

[Welshman25]

Come to think of it, you may be able to get the best of both worlds if you're willing to put a little time and effort into overclocking.

Was that to me or OP?

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

couple things...my motherboard can't x-fire, so that isn't an option I have an extra 4850, so if my mb could have handled that I would have just done that.

I know the devil is in the details, but in general, would spending a few extra bucks (looks like about $80?) on a 5870 1GB be worth it over a 5850 1GB? Is the difference significant enough to warrant that?

thanks everyone for help so far!!!


@ Welsh...my target for all this is 40FPS, nearly full blown graphics on NTW, 1780x1000 res (1 step below native for my monitor), with FRAPS recording (which will give about a 15-17 FPS hit itself). I don't know if that is a realistic target given my plan, but that's what I'm trying to figure out.

[mrcrusty]

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...irect-x-9.html

They're the only site I know who runs Total War games as part of the review benchmarks.

The HD 5870 runs ~20% than the 5850.

Anyways, it's not going to be 100% accurate due to the difference in setups and settings, but with fraps recording, I doubt that the HD 5850 is going to cut it at near 1080p without some serious overclocking. Could be wrong though.

It's a shame you can't crossfire on your board, a pair of HD 5770's would work wonders, they probably would be a bit faster than the HD 4870 CF results. Btw, a 4850 CF configuration would be similar to the HD 4890 result, sometimes up to ~10% better or ~10% worse.

hey how does that phenom handle i been looking at getting one of those...

any good welshy??

Phenom II's are good. Currently using an unlocked x4 555, as good in gaming as the Intel Core i3/5/7 processors. Or close enough.

[Jaketh]

GTX 470 is almost as fast a 5870 and is 350 dollars

[mrcrusty]

In DX 11 games with tessellation. As a rule, it's noticably better than the HD 5850 and noticably worse than the HD 5870. Plus they run hot or loud depending on what your fan profile is.

My personal vote is for the DirectCu. At worst you get a cooler, quieter HD 5850 with a mild performance boost over the stock HD 5850 for $30 more than the cheapest HD 5850, at best you get a cooler, quieter HD 5850 that matches the performance of an HD 5870 for $70 less than the cheapest HD 5870.

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

I have fallen victim to the worst kind of scope creep! hehe My wife is bugging me about how she wants a better computer so she can play Sim3 or some silly thing like that (I don't complain though! hehe), so she's going to inherit my computer. She told me to just go a build whatever I want! haha she has no idea that in TW land that is a DOUBLE OH, a freaking license to kill !!! So, I'm going to derail my own thread a bit, and post my planned setup...however, you kind folk have been a plethora of knowledge so far, so if you feel like throwing eggs or tomatoes at my plan because you see major problems with it, go right ahead!

Current setup:
Intel 3.2 dual core
ATI 4850 512mb vid
Vista, 2 gig RAM
Acer Aspire 1640 motherb
external USB soundcard

Planned Setup:
Intel Core i7-960 Bloomfield 3.2GHz (quad core)
MSI Radeon HD 5970 2GB
Windows7 64-bit, 12 Gig RAM
ASUS P6TD Deluxe LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
same external USB soundcard (for studio music recording)

I'm hoping this rig will take me to the promised land Any major alarm bells I should be aware of?

cheers everyone!

[HansDuet]

^ This man speaks the truth. (except the GFX has MW2 bundle, choose another one) It's only marginally slower than that overkill build and still single handedly deals with anything you can throw at it in near future. Just add an SSD drive and you're good to go.

Mucho epic case too. They're an important part of a good build.

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

excellent thanks very much! Very helpful...I've already got a mega case, I occasionally park my car in it

[irish437]

I would get an i7 920 instead. I have mine OC'd to 3.9 and its stable as a rock. It could even be pushed higher with the v8 liquid cooling I have but I don't see a need. Anyway, I wouldn't spend the xtra on the 960 when the 920 can easily be pushed past the stock 960 speed.

[HansDuet]

IMO i7 930 is even better solution, not that much more expensive and naturally, faster.

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

I put together my new rig...thanks everyone for the suggestions, because they really did effect my decision making and saved me some money! New rig includes:

Sapphire HD5970 vid card
i7 930 2.8 cpu
6 gig RAM (ocz 1600)

It is working great with win7 64-bit...quite zippy! The reason I grabbed the 5970 was because I found a new one for $600 CDN...too good a deal to pass up...thanks for the suggestions on my cpu and ram overkill...I scaled back a bit, and found that the 930 has alot of OC potential.

cheers and thanks everyone!