Graphics card advice

[Sixpackpert]

Hi all,

I have an nVidia 8800 GTX card currently and it's been fine up until I bought Need For Speed Shift. I am now getting some severe lag on one or two of the circuits when in the thick of things.

What would be the best card to upgrade to? Budget is around £200.

Edited by Sixpackpert on Monday 19th October 16:21

[Mr_Yogi]

Best "bang for buck" card at the moment around £200 is the Radeon HD5850, but I've read NFS: Shift currently has some performance issues with ATi cards, not sure if it includes the new 58xx series though. There is supposed to be a patch in the pipline though, maybe out already?

[Sixpackpert]

Thanks for the reply, have heard of a few other problems with ATi drivers.

I'm running Vista, will upgrade soon to 7.

Anyone else had any issues with ATi cards?

ETA: Mods, please move to Computers, Gadgets etc forum, ta!

Edited by Sixpackpert on Monday 19th October 16:36

[Altrezia]

Sixpackpert said:

Thanks for the reply, have heard of a few other problems with ATi drivers.

I'm running Vista, will upgrade soon to 7.

Anyone else had any issues with ATi cards?

Yep, Shift runs like poop on my 4870 X2.

[Sixpackpert]

How about this?

http://www.dabs.com/products/xfx-geforce-gtx-260-6...

[Mr_Yogi]

Sixpackpert said:

How about this?

http://www.dabs.com/products/xfx-geforce-gtx-260-6...

How much for a 260? bad deal dude!

[Mr_Yogi]

ATI drivers are fine, only slight problem is the time it takes them to roll out Crossfire profiles for some of the more obsure games, which isn't a problem on single card, non-X2 setups.

The GTX275 (from £160ish) is a good card but make sure your PSU is up to the task (500W+), although I assume you must have a half decent one to power the 8800GTX. I'd still go for the 5850 as it'll beat the GTX285 is all but the most obsure circumstances

[ChunkyloverSV]

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductId=28890 £130 for a 260

[Mr_Yogi]

ChunkyloverSV said:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductId=28890 £130 for a 260

That's a good price and quite a bit faster than the reference cards

[Sixpackpert]

Cheers for the advice guys.

[Zod]

I'm still running two 8800GTXs. The only game I've had any issues with was Crysis, but that was problematic for any card. I'm waiting for the early 2010 cards.

[TheLemming]

Hmmmm I've always owned Nvidia cards but at the moment the only shiney toys Im excited about are the 5 series ATI cards.

The 5870 is a beast, pretty much matches the older twin GPU 4870. (£300)
The 5850 falls nicely in the middle, offering about 15-20% less performance (£200)

The latest shocking news is the 5770 outperforming the old 4890 (which was the card to buy recently).(£125!)

I cant seriously see anyone buying an Nvidia card at the moment at any price range, especialy considering that the new eyefinity feature allows up to 3 monitors on any of the above cards (and 6 monitor per card versions will be hitting soon!)