Deciding which Graphics Card...

**Roman Clone** · May 03, 2011, 08:56 PM

Within the last few months, I have been debating about what graphics card I should upgrade to. I prefer to only spend around 160 dollars for something that will give me a significant boost over my decent GTX 260 Core 216.

I've been doing my research and basically it boils down to these two choices: The Radeon 6850 and the GTX 460. I've heard that the Radeon 6850 is better but supposedly the Radeon 5850 is an even better choice. To truly find a GTX 460 1 GB (Not the SE edition, which is a lesser version) in that price range is hard, which makes me want to take the Radeon route.

Currently I am playing Napoleon, Metro 2033, ARMA II, and Bad Company II, which are pretty "heavy" games. I also want to be able to play upcoming games such as Battlefield 3 and I doubt my GTX 260 will cut it at that point.

So which card should I get?

**Crazyeyesreaper** · May 04, 2011, 02:18 AM

go up 1 more tier

6850 isnt quite a large enough jump and the 460 is slower then a 6850, bet bets performance wise if you truly want to play heavy games is a 560Ti, or 6870 / 6950 1gb,

Battlefield 3 you see in trailers is being run off a GTX 580 to give you a rough idea of the performance the game will have.

if niether the 560 nor 6870 / 6950 1gb are in your price range,

id suggest the Sapphire 5850 Xtreme it tends to be cheaper then the 6850 and offers a bit more performance, it will also overclock somewhat decently and get you close to 6870 performance, and there only $140 usd Id grab that over a 6850 any day as its far cheaper slightly better performance, and nvidia has nothing to touch it price wise.

**GasMask** · May 04, 2011, 04:36 AM

Get the 560TI its an amazing card !

Look at the reviews and the cooling !

**Freddie** · May 04, 2011, 07:30 AM

If your looking to upgrade for BF3 why not wait until BF3 comes out and see what kind of hardware you need to run it at whatever res your monitor displays at? This gives you more time to save up for a better card as although the GTX460/HD6850 are very good cards as its not a massive boost in performance over your current card to be honest. By the time BF3 comes out hopefully video card prices will have come down a bit as well.

**GasMask** · May 04, 2011, 07:55 AM

The expert has silenced us all best advice any could give i would stick with what geek said above

and just wait it out.

**Totalheadache** · May 04, 2011, 03:51 PM

Need to know your resolution and cpu to give you a better answer. I.E not much real point going for something like a 580 if your cpu is going to be a massive bottleneck or you are playing at a res less than 1920x1200.

**Roman Clone** · May 08, 2011, 07:58 PM

I run at a resolution of 1680x1050 with an E8400 @ 3.0 Ghz stock.

But most people are saying to wait it out. So I hope y'all don't mind I hijack the topic of this thread to CPU's.

If I were to get a new CPU and Motherboard, which ones should I get? I've been doing some reading and supposedly there's hardly a performance difference between the i5 700's and the i7 900's when it comes to gaming.

**Top-Tier-Tech** · May 08, 2011, 09:24 PM

I'd go with an i5-2500 CPU (3.7Ghz. quad core @ stock turbo boost). It's the best CPU for the money right now and runs nice and cool. Also I'd recommend either the 6870 or GTX550ti for your resolution at the moment or better yet wait till BF3 is released and see if you can get an AMD 7000 series card.

**Erax** · May 09, 2011, 01:16 AM

Originally Posted by ChaobSiroc

I'd go with an i5-2500 CPU (3.7Ghz. quad core @ stock turbo boost). It's the best CPU for the money right now and runs nice and cool. Also I'd recommend either the 6870 or GTX550ti for your resolution at the moment or better yet wait till BF3 is released and see if you can get an AMD 7000 series card.

Whaat? 550ti competes with 5770. 550 and 6870 are in a way different league.

As for now, 5850 extreme is the best bang per buck avaible on the market.