For £100 a DX11 card is a pretty pointless thing to buy. Unless you have more cash to spend on it a DX10 card is what you want. Basically: ~£100; the best you'll get is a 48xx or GTX260 (bear in mind these won't run Crysis maxed out too well and that's DX10) ~£200; 5850 or GTX460. The 460 has the 5850 beaten in most games with AA applied and costs less so I'll let you decide what's best there. There is an issue with price fluctuations with these particular cards though as was mentioned by others.
Are 460 and 5850 on same level? Is 460 as future proof as 5850? If I did get an Nvidia card, which is better 460 or 465? If 460/465 is just as good as 5850, why is it £50 less? There must be a reason for the price difference .... no?
The 460 is better than the 465, confusingly. But price differences are weird. A card can be better and cheaper because the process that creates it is cheaper. The 5850 has been dropping in price because of the 460's presence. ATI have been able to keep prices on their cards high because the Nvidia competition was more expensive and less desirable to the common consumer. With the GF104 chip in the 460, I assume Nvidia have been able to get huge yields from the silicon wafer, and therefore drive the price down. More functional chips leads to lower price per functional chip leads to lower price for the customer. That's the basics of it, anyway.
Nvidia path is starting to look brighter... Few more questions though: - I have an AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE, does it matter if the card is nVIDIA or ATI. I read in a few places that ATI works better with AMD, and nVIDIA with intel.... how much difference does it make or is it bull? - Would I still want 1024Mb, or is 768Mb enough (for gaming)? - Which manufacturer is the best (the XFX of nVIDIA)? - Does it matter that the 460 tends to have lower chip clock and memory clock speeds? Thanks again for the response
-There won't be any performance hit from mixing AMD and Nvidia kit together. Nvidia and Intel aren't affiliated anyway, they're separate companies. -If you have the extra £20 the extra memory is definitely worth it, especially as you have two screens. -I'm going to let someone else answer that, I've no idea -Not really, it comes down to how much work is done per clock cycle. So if you have a high work per clock and low clock speed versus a low work per clock and high clock speed you might have very similar performance. In essence, no.
In order: - I haven't heard that, it sounds like bull to me. - Go for the 1024Mb, it will be more future proof for only an extra £20-"50 more, depending on the model chosen. - Tough call, there are a few good ones to choose from. I have a Sapphire and I hear their customer service is good but I have never had to use it, the warranty from XFX and EVGA looks good, MSI have a reputation for producing quality kit...this is the subjective part of the decision making process. - I don't understand what you mean by this.
example... On the 460: Chip clock- 675 to 715MHz Memory clock- 900 to 950MHz On the 5850: Chip clock- 725Mhz Memory clock- 1000Mhz Clocks are generally higher on the 5850.
They are not directly comparable as they are different architectures. Rely on benchmark results to understand where the cards sit in relation to each other.
I like how this thread started off with the question - "which is the best graphics card under £100" and now we are talking about £200 cards. This is what we do.
Certain e-tailers should be paying us commssion the way we talk up the budgets. Seriously though, after a lot of communication back and forth between the OP and those of us here, by going through the specific requirements of the OP and working out how long he wants the GPU to last, the original £100 may not have been realistic. If the OP had gone for the first suggestion (4850, 4870), he would probably have been disapointed (in my opinion), especially running two screens. We all want to avoid having to upgrade every 6-12 months (well, some of us do) so I think it is a worthwhile exercise. We all might learn something as well. The current price volatility doesn't help.
hmm... i woudln't have been disapointed with a 5770/4850/4870 since im coming from a 4650 D: However I believe I will be a lot happier with a more expensive card... ...and only slightly unhappier with the budget. At least I can give my self a good reason to upgrade my PSU, which has been needing to be done for a while. Then I've just got to get a CPU fan and im sorted
I'm running a 22inch 1080p monitor from a 512mb 4870 at full res and I haven't had any problems running any game. If you stick with dx9 then a 4870 will be enough so long as most games are designed primarily for the current generation of consoles.
Wouldn't we all I've been running a full hd 22 inch monitor from a 512mb 4870 for months now and I've not had a problem running any game at that resolution. admittedly I stick to dx9, but so long as games are designed primarily for the consoles I don't feel the need to upgrade to anything higher.
Haven't read the thread but i just found this, if you can stretch your budget by £10, not sure about delivery, £8.95 if you can't get it free. Considering it myself, how does this compare to the GTX 460?
Wow - that's awesome. There's lots of variation between games etc., but this card is generally on par with the 5830. It's the 1GB version.
Thinking the GTX 460 is the best bet. Just can't deicde which one. Kind of narrowed it down to the two palit ones (both 1Gb versions). The Sonic, or the Sonic Platinum The sonic is only £181 and matches the performance of a 5830. The sonic platinum is $196, but is faftory overclocked and matches the performance of a 470 or 5850. Is it worth the extra £15 for a factory overclocked version when I could do the same thing myself for free. However, i believe that would void the waranty Thanks
I would go for the more expensive one personally. Mainly for the full 1GB of memory - plus the 1GB cards have a wider memory interface.
Given that the GTX460 appears to be a fantastic overclocker out of the box, if it was my choice I would get the normal one and overclock it myself but it depends on how much fiddling you want to do. Just make sure you get the 1GB version of whatever you buy. Also, the GTX460 doesn't match the performace of the 5830, it rips holes in it, chews it up and spits out the pieces. Edit: slightly misread your post, go for the 1GB version you linked to.
Sorry, made a linking mistake! The Sonic and the Sonic Platinum are both 1Gb The sonic is only £181 and matches the performance of a 5830. The sonic platinum is £196, but is faftory overclocked and matches the performance of a 470 or 5850 and sometimes 5870. Is it worth the extra £15 for a factory overclocked version when I could do the same thing myself for free. However, i believe that would void the waranty...? Thanks
