SHimmer45 Posted July 18, 2012 Posted July 18, 2012 having spent a while trawling through the nividia site looking for an replacement for a GTX260. some of the specs for a GTX460 / 550 TI look better apart from the memory interface is a lower bitrate. im assuming that improvements in the architecture mean this doesnt make a huge different and the newer cards are better in terms of performance Noise etc. as the GTX260 is/was a sweetspot for gaming for alot of people.
Pete10141748 Posted July 18, 2012 Posted July 18, 2012 Don't know about the 550, but I run the GTX560ti and it's sweet. Runs everything I play (eg: ArmA II/DayZ, Skyrim) at high setting without an issue. The card itself is really quiet (though i do have a noisy fan lol), it does heat up a bit but nothing too drastic.
JJonas Posted July 18, 2012 Posted July 18, 2012 (edited) In a recent review PC Format said that the GTX 570 was better value for money over the 550Ti also http://www.pcpro.co.uk/alist/enthusiast-graphics-card GTX 570 with GTX 560Ti as runner up Edited July 18, 2012 by JJonas
OB1 Posted July 18, 2012 Posted July 18, 2012 Ah the quagmire of buying a new graphics card. How much do you want to spend? How big is your monitor? What's the rest of your system like? If you're thinking about a GTX550 I'd say try and squeeze up to a GTX560. Be aware though, the GTX560 and GTX560Ti are very different cards. The latter is faster and more expensive. The GTX660Ti is due out in a month, which will mean cheaper but dwindling stocks of 550s/560s and another card to choose from.
SHimmer45 Posted July 18, 2012 Author Posted July 18, 2012 monitor is only a 19" at present tho iam looking to get something around the 22-24" shortly. rest of the PC is a typical pc used for games that is a couple of years old (Phenom X2 550 4GB RAM (soon to be 8GB) GTX 260 64GB SSD) max budget would be around 100-120 ish i guess
sonofsanta Posted July 18, 2012 Posted July 18, 2012 (edited) If you're set on nVidia the 460 might be a better bet than the 550, although it'll run hotter/louder: EVGA GTX 460 Superclocked 1024MB GDDR5 Dual DVI Mini.. | Ebuyer.com If you're open to AMD, though, there's 6850s at £100 and 6870s at £120 which should let you run everything at max on a 19" and get you mighty fine framerates with a few settings dialled down at 1920x1080 (22"). Oh, and memory bandwidth: still very important. It can be a limiting factor for quite a few cards, notably the recent 640 that nVidia released with DDR3 which ruined it entirely... Edited July 18, 2012 by sonofsanta
SHimmer45 Posted July 18, 2012 Author Posted July 18, 2012 yeah DDR on a gfx card is just plain wrong if you are going to do anything serious with it..
OB1 Posted July 18, 2012 Posted July 18, 2012 Looks like a choice between a AMD 6870 and a GTX550 then. You can find both for around £120 and both are fairly happy gaming at 1920x1080, so will be fine at 1280x1024. You may find your CPU starts to hold it up with some newer games though, so I'd think about upgrading that next. Slightly jealous of the SSD... EDIT: Beaten to it by @sonofsanta
SHimmer45 Posted July 18, 2012 Author Posted July 18, 2012 it does make a difference, the SSD even tho its a budget one id be slightly put off by the 460's reputation of being a loud noisy thing (the 260 isnt too bad).
DMcGuigan Posted July 18, 2012 Posted July 18, 2012 I'm running a pair of 6870s in my system and it's still pushing 60+ fps, with one disabled I hit maybe 45-60. This is at 1920 x 1080.
SHimmer45 Posted July 18, 2012 Author Posted July 18, 2012 plumping for a HD6870 better in the things that i play, have to put up with some extra noise lol
sonofsanta Posted July 18, 2012 Posted July 18, 2012 Slightly jealous of the SSD... SSD prices have plummeted recently, grab a 128Gb Samsung 830 and you'll be like a kid at Christmas. Makes a massive difference.
Pete10141748 Posted July 18, 2012 Posted July 18, 2012 SSD prices arn't too bad at the moment, and the speed difference is amazing!
SHimmer45 Posted July 18, 2012 Author Posted July 18, 2012 +1 on the above iirc i have an OCZ Oynx which was/is the bottom spec ssd they did at the time and i noticed a difference compared to the 150GB raptor i was using as a boot drive (now for fast storage for games)
Arthur Posted July 19, 2012 Posted July 19, 2012 If you can wait under the 16th August, the GeForce GTX 660 will be out by then and should cost less than £150... www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/jules/gtx660-launch-date-confirmed-16th-august/
SHimmer45 Posted August 22, 2012 Author Posted August 22, 2012 well the XFX 6870 lasted 2 evenings before the fan packed up... looking at the reviews on amazon the version i brought has a worse rep than the reference design they do. prices have gone up as well
sonofsanta Posted August 22, 2012 Posted August 22, 2012 well the XFX 6870 lasted 2 evenings before the fan packed up... looking at the reviews on amazon the version i brought has a worse rep than the reference design they do. prices have gone up as well Return it to Amazon (straightforward) for a refund/replacement or complain loudly at XFX (who will probably just tell you to talk to the retailer IME); if it only lasted two evenings it'll definitely be sorted under warranty.
SHimmer45 Posted August 22, 2012 Author Posted August 22, 2012 was given a full refund so no worries there, bit odd they couldnt source stock ( it was a reseller through amazon)
SHimmer45 Posted November 7, 2016 Author Posted November 7, 2016 well its lasted 4 years but i think its given up the ghost, playing D3 on and off all day and the screen will either go black / judder in one spot but i can still hear and control the game it appears to recover after a couple of minutes so all i play is blizzard games on a 20" panel 1600x1200 and need a replacement what sort of options do i have, having looked over a few lists something a 7000 series or an R5 series be from the same price point as the 6870?
NB9457 Posted November 7, 2016 Posted November 7, 2016 well its lasted 4 years but i think its given up the ghost, playing D3 on and off all day and the screen will either go black / judder in one spot but i can still hear and control the game it appears to recover after a couple of minutes so all i play is blizzard games on a 20" panel 1600x1200 and need a replacement what sort of options do i have, having looked over a few lists something a 7000 series or an R5 series be from the same price point as the 6870? Get a GTX1060! One of the best bang for buck cards out at the moment.
3s-gtech Posted November 7, 2016 Posted November 7, 2016 That's what the GTX 1050 and Radeon RX460 were made for. Low power, fairly cheap. The 2GB versions may be an option, but I'd generally recommend spending a few more quid on the 4GB ones - some games are requiring 3-4GB minimum VRAM now so it's just good sense.
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