Graphics £200 budget for graphics card

Hi all

I'm looking for a new graphics card. My budget is £200 and I'll be mainly playing the likes of Skyrim and Battlefield 3 at 1920x1080. My current 6870 has a common problem in Skyrim and some other games, where the monitor goes into sleep mode and the card's fan seems to stop spinning. It happened with the first batch of these cards.

Anyway, I'm currently looking at the 560ti 448 and the 7850. Now, I've wanted to try Nvidia again as my last 2 cards have been AMD but the stumbling block seems to be VRAM. I've read that in Battlefield 3, Crysis 2 and Skyrim (with mods e.g Skyrim HD), the VRAM hits upwards of 1.5GB.

I'm leaning towards the 7850, this one in particular MSI R7850 Power Edition

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

The 7850 I'd say - it uses much less power than the 560Ti 448, and should outperform it a little. Plus you'll probably get more OC potential.

 

If you don't mind second hand head to the bit-tech marketplace and pick up a 580 for about £200.

 

Defo the 7850! Can't beat it for the price!

 

I bought a second hand PNY GTX580 on e-bay for £185 two weeks ago. There are a number of people selling one yr old cards to upgrade to the GTX 680 or 690. Also since the GTX 670 was released the new and used price for 580's has fallen significantly. I have even seen new GTX 580's going for c£240. Today there is a refurbished card with 12mths warranty for £205.

A single GTX 580 will play BF3 at 1080p with everything turned up to the max at 50fps and above.

Regards,

 

Thanks for the replies guys. I was wondering if the GTX 570 2.5GB @ Scan for £218 is worth it? I could stretch my budget if need be.

 

This is pretty insane value for money, GTX 570 for £178.36 at time of posting...

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1280...-732mhz-shader-1464mhz-480-cores-dl-dvi-mhdmi

If you don't mind playing dirty the GTX 480 is still knocking around for £179.38...

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1536...r-1401mhz-480-cores-2x-dual-link-dvi-i-mini-h

That's an EVGA card as well, register it for a 3 year warranty that can be transferred because it's linked to the card not the person. Adds to the resale value. Also if you decide you don't like the card you bought fire it back to the retailer with reference to Distance Selling Regulations. Just read my signature thread for full details!

 

You can get 480's for £110
570's for £160
580's for £200
second hand
Even better value for money.

 

I'm just wondering if the 1.5GB of VRAM is enough. I've heard contrasting opinions on VRAM usage in games like Battlefield 3 and Skyrim (w/ texture and ini file mods). If anyone has any first hand experience with a 580 on Skyrim with mods they can share with me, It would make my decision a lot easier.

 

Holy crap Great value, if that's your performance bracket

£175 for a 570 :O. And then MSI's proper cooler on one for £190. Wonder how Palit's dual fan version is for cooling and acoustics?...

 

I wouldn't get a 570 over a 7850 - they're about equivalent speed at stock, but the AMD card should overclock to higher speeds, has more memory and uses less power.

 

2nd hand 580GTX

 

570 is alot faster than the 7850 20% + in certain games 7870 is what your thinking of when saying there equiveland speed.


580 is faster than both and cheaper if your going 2nd hand

for what its worth

both skyrim and bf3 play better on nvidia hardware

570 42min fps ( 1920 x 1080 maximum settings ) bf3
7850 34 min fps ( same settings ) pretty huge difference


skyrim

570 68min fps ( 1920 x 1080 max settings ) bit tech review same as above )
7850 64min fps

skyrim is a old patch in most of these reviews so its not 100% up to date

of the games bit tech test at least

3 of 4 570 win
1 of 4 7850 wins

570 is £175 on scan at the min 7870 £180

not alot of dif between them

 

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/549?vs=518

 

Get something with 2gb vram even if it's a 560Ti. Don't get the 448 version which is vram starved.

 

All the current benchmarks pretty much have the 7850 and 570 at almost the same, some games 1-2 fps either way. e.g. http://i.neoseeker.com/a/PowerColor_HD_7850_PCS/Batman.png - good overclock performance here.

 

I'm leaning, a lot, towards the GTX 580. I'm worried that the 1.5GB VRAM is going to be a problem but I think I'll probably be upgrading early next year. The 560ti 2GB does look interesting but it's not too much cheaper than the cheapest 580 I've come across so it doesn't seem to be worth it.

The 7850's making my decision a hard one because it overclocks so well. I could probably even run them in crossfire with my PSU!

Decisions, decisions . . .

 

Whenever it comes in stock, I am going to get the MSI 7850 Power Edition from Scan. As far as your choice goes, I think it really is a toss up between the 570s and 7850s. Its CUDA and PhysX vs. Eyefinity, Lower Power Usage, More Efficient Fabrication, OC Headroom. I am going to opt for the latter; all that performance (basically twice my 5770 at least) while consuming about 100W is too good for me to pass over.

 

GTX 560 ti 448. Same performance as a GTX 570 but only £150 new.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Palit...raphics_Video_TV_Cards_TW&hash=item3a74ccdf9a

 

The Sapphire OC edition has been getting very good reviews. Here's one:

http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1456&page=1