So my 8800 GT is really showing it's age, upgraded to a 24 inch monitor that does 1920 x 1200 at christmas, and recently the cards been getting choppier and choppier, and today it actually overheated, forcing me to crank the fan up... needless to say, its way too loud, and still slightly sluggish for gaming... I'm wonder what would be a suitable upgrade for my monitor, I don't play anything too crazy, just some counterstrike, tf2, world of warcraft, call of duty, need for speed... Nothing amazing, but the card is just sluggish on max settings... prior to the new monitor i was runnin 1280 x 768 on a 19 inch... What would be better? A 260 GTX (216 core) or a 4870 1GB model... or are there better performing cards for the same ballpark amount... looking to spend max 325-350ish... birthday is coming up so I've got the cash Once I figure out which to go for, i'll look into specific brands with aftermarket coolers and warranties and such. Thanks!
I would say find the cheapest GTX 260 you can find, strap a Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo to it and then use Rivatuner to clock it up to the speeds the more expensive cards are going for and beyond. The reason I say get the Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo is because I had one on my old rig and i was amazed by how quite it was compared to the stock cooler.
I would go for the 1GB 4870, I'm using it with the same res, works perfectly. GTX 260 is about the same though, just depends which you prefer. Power consumption wise, they're also about the same. Idle the 260 is better, load the 4870 is better. Maybe a 4890?
Really, either the 4870 1GB or GTX 260-216 will be fine, as will anything above that level (4890/GTX 275). Although I will say that you can get some nice aftermarket coolers if you spring for the 4870 route, if silence is important to you. - Diosjenin -
Noise really doesnt matter as long as its not like my 8800 GT, until yesterday temps were fine but then yesterday after about an hour of wow and music, it just came to a crawl and i was getting honestly 9-10 fps, so cranked from from auto to max and it was fine, tried turnin it down to about 60 perfect which i used to have it set at and it still was getting to hot, i tried cleaning the case and stuff, no luck... instead of bothering to fix it, i'll just upgrade because it is struggling.... I think i'll go the 260 route just because I've had a ton of luck with EVGA, its a bit cheaper probably, and theres that whole cuda thing, is that worth buying into? I could also get a nice aftermarket cooler with evga cards, because it wouldn't void their warranty, any suggestions? Edit: Just did a quick read and the 260 has a very good stock cooler, noise isn't an issue so I think'll i'll just crank the fun up to around 50% instead of the stock 30% and leave it be
if your thinking of fitting a GTX2xx card in your shuttle, be prepaired for a fight, not only will the power draw be a problem, but the power connectors and it casing which will totally block your 4pin 12v socket on the motherboard. huge problems really!
i have the 4870 1GB and notice no difference from my 8800GTX that died after a long time. i would say any high end ATI or nVIDIA will be more than enough and you would struggle to tell the difference.
I'll be getting a EVGA 260 GTX, getting the prices of different clocked models Monday... I know they're easy to overclock, but I have yet to become adventurous enough to push any of my hardware in the few years I've been gaming and building...
