Okay, time for a new graphics card. Need suggestions.

I feel it's time to upgrade my graphics cards. I currently have a GTS250 and well it won't be enough to do Ultra mode in my estimation. Plus I'd like to get a bit more power out of my machine.

So yeah, I'd like suggestions for some high end (but not super high end, y'know, the overly expensive ones that aren't really that practical).

So basically, I want a card that will ace Ultra Mode as well as an upcoming graphically intensive games, like say, Crysis 2.

Oh, and one final thing. Noise is quite important, I'd like a relatively quiet card if at all possible.
Bonus points if I can find the card on http://www.overclockers.co.uk/

Cheers.

(For reference, I have a Intel Core 2 Duo 3ghz and 6GB of ram and Window 7 64bit)

what's your budget?

Take a look here (also, pay attention to the last page). SLI/Crossfire doesn't net any real gains for CoX, so you may not want to go that route.

Hope that helps.

N.B.: The GTS250 is in the 6th tier in the hierarchy chart, it is quite capable of running Ultra-mode at decent FPS (30+) if you don't insist on maxing everything out, you don't really need a new card.

if your starting point is the GTS 250, there's not a whole lot of room to move without breaking out your wallet. First, a GTS 250 will do Ultra Mode, it will just do UltraMode with low settings.

Now, I'm not entirely familiar with the UK pricing strategy, so while in the US market all Nvidia cards other than the GTS 250 are bad buys, that might not be entirely true in the UK market.

In terms of image quality / detail settings with CoH's Ultra Mode, against a good processor, the RadeonHD 5770 can deliver ~25fps+ with all Ultra-Mode settings maxed / sans Ambient Occlusion @ 1920*1200.

Your preferred site lists a few of these cards: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produc...ortby=priceAsc

Now, the cheapest one there is £124.98, which at the current exchange rate is around $190 (US), so you are paying a premium. The problem is, depending on what games you ultimately play, the 5770 may or may not give you a visible clearly better than your GTS 250 experience... which is pretty much the problem with all of the sub £150 cards I see on the site.

The first card that will make you go "Wow, this is much faster!" would be the RadeonHD 5830. You can get a Gigabyte for around £190 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produc...=56&subid=1711

From there on up is the RadeonHD 5850 which you can get for around £225 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produc...ortby=priceAsc

Then the RadeonHD 5870 which costs around £320: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produc...ortby=priceAsc

As in the US, the Nvidia Geforce GTX 465 and 470's really are not options from the prices I see on your preferred site. The GTX 465 has a starting price around £240. That is a large chunk over the RadeonHD 5850... and a significant problem when you consider that the Nvidia Geforce GTX 470, itself selling for near £300, can't outrun a RadeonHD 5850.

So basically, with the GTX 265, at least from that site, you'd be paying a £15 premium for less performance, and on the GTX 470, a £75 premium for no more performance.

If you have over £400 to spend, the GTX 480 does offer ultimate performance, ignoring things like power draw or heat output: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produc...ortby=priceAsc

There's no real consistency in pricing in the site you prefer, just a constantly steadily increase in cost from around £430. I wouldn't buy that that £390 version, mostly because it's an off-brand. Given the quality that on-brand vendors such as Zotac, Galaxy, and Sparkle have had to drop to in order to be profitable selling Nvidia kit, I'd be really hesitant of something that was built with even less quality controls.

As with the threads on US prices, I consider this to be a rip-off. Yes, the GTX 480 is more powerful than the RadeonHD 5870. It, however, is not, by any means, worth £80 more, much less the near £110 premium the UK vendors seem to be asking for.

actually a gtx 470 can out run a 5870 and really shines in sli (not applicable to coh apparently though)

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/32...nt/index6.html


and as you can see tweaking it will get you 480 levels...

but...

the ati offerings are so much more effcient in power usage and run much cooler. as stated it all depeneds on how much you want to spend...if you can afford it - I would go 5870 just for sheer bang for the buck - if you game at higher than 1920x1080 then you start to get in the sli crossfire area...

What do you want je_saist. It's an extreme overclocked, overvolted GTX 470 that somehow magically use less power than a stock GTX 470, runs cooler than a stock GTX 470 (well it's at 100% fan so it's likely but it's now loud enough to damage your hearing) vs a stock HD 5870. Sounds like a fair comparison to me.

Next, a Phenom II X4 965 beats an i7-920, if the Phenom is overclocked to 5GHz in liquid nitrogen.

OK, back on topic, only possible drawback of the HD 5870 is it's long, a touch over 11" IIRC. Single GPU nVidia cards top out at 10.5" and people think they're really long.

I don't know why I was talking like I had no experience with Ultra mode... brain fart!

Anyway. Yeah, with Ultra Mode CoH side I get like, 15fps. CoV side I can only get 10 at best. But that's when nothing is going on. Really, the only setting that really causes any problems is shadows... which happens to be the part I enjoy the most

Basically, I just want to be able to max it out and have nice 25+ frame rates.

I've never really been able to get good FPS out of CoH really.

But if I can't get any real performance boosts without paying lots of money, I guess I'll just have to put it off for now. By the way, my budget was £150-£200. But as I said, unless there'll be a real noticeable difference, that won't be worth it.

Hmmm... I've heard Radeons have compatibility issues with some games.

That is true but ATI is working fast to fix them. Word of advice, before you rush out and get a new card, uninstall the old drivers and upload the new ones off the Nvida site. I had great luck with the new drivers.