Apologies if this has been covered over and over again, I've had a look in here as well as in the Bit reviews and what not and have come to some conclusions but wanted some of your opinions. I've been out the game for a while but since picking up BF3 I've started to enjoy PCs again and I'm looking at dropping some money into my rig. I mainly want a bigger monitor and a GPU to keep up with it. I'm looking for a 1920*1080 monitor (any recommendations would be smashing, sub £150 if possible) and the graphics cards in my price range that should do the job would be something like the ATi HD6850 or HD6870 or the nVidia GTX460 or GTX560. Ideally I'd like to spend as little as possible to increase my performance but willing to spend a touch more if it is worth it. The rest of my rig is an E8400 (3GHz C2D) with 4GB of DDR2 800MHz RAM and a five hundred and something watt CoolerMaster PSU. I am looking to upgrade the motherboard, CPU and memory at some point but pretty sure I know what direction I'll be going with those (quad core Phenom II, 8GB of DDR3 and a decent board). Any links would be helpful as I'm not sure where the best place is to buy these days either. TIA, Dave.
the 6870 is the best price for performance card for a monitor suggestion the highly regarded: http://www.box.co.uk/LG_IPS231P_23_LED_LCD_Widescreen_IPS_Mo_1068496.html or the same model just a glossy version: http://www.box.co.uk/LG_IPS236V-PN_23_LED_LCD_Widescreen_Mon_1052168.html Theres also 22" models which are about £125 and the site has free UK delivery.
The 6870 or 560 would also be my recommendation unless you could stretch to a 560ti which are about £180.
Might be worth seeing if the current 560 TI's come down in price when they release the new 448 shader versions, it's a significant increase over the 560.
I'd've said 550Ti/560/460 on the Nvidia side. Sadly I don't know enough about ATI cards to be able to reccomend any AMD cards. I will say: Some of the 550Ti's are bloody fast. The most expensive of the bunch, the KFA2 Ltd Oc White Edition is brutally, mindbogglingly fast for a 550. That said; it's not a brilliant card when you compare it to, say, a 570, so you may have better luck saving a little longer, picking up a 560Ti, then Overclocking it till you're sitting around GTX 570 performance levels.
@ 1920 x 1080 ultra settings and minimal aa and af a 480GTX just about keeps around mid 30's when it gets busy. I would go for as powerful gpu as you can, BF3 will eat a mid range card alive maxed out.
Scan are doing the 560Ti with free Arkham City (a game I'm looking at getting anyway) which I guess make the £180~ price tag more appealing (Linky- £172.27). Also, the 560Ti looks like a brilliant card for the money! Will probably be ordering the monitor tomorrow depending on my bank account and the GPU at a later date (although I doubt my current GPU will be able to run BF3 at 1920*1080). Decisions. Edited for link: the one I've linked to is the cheapest one on Scan (any other decent places to buy? Suggestions appreciated) and looks pretty much like what I'm after.
Wow, the one I linked to has gone up by over three quid and sold out in the space of a day. Are these things like petrol or something?
So, I've ordered a new monitor (the one linked above) and am looking for a fair priced 560Ti at the moment. Found a few but just wondering what sort of difference I'll see between the few different models. Some have a 4000MHz memory clock and others have a 4200MHz. There are also a few different core clock speeds out there I was if there would be a real world difference between them. My guess is probably not and I may just go for the cheapest one I can find.