Which card for under $200 ?

mattchapman

mattchapman

Gawd
Joined
Dec 30, 2005
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572
Hey folks
I have $200 to spend on a new video card (currently using 8800GT).
I'll be using it for gaming and video editing.
Prefer a quiet card if possible.

Can someone point me to the right card? There are too many out there for me to choose!

Thanks
 
What resolution do you use for gaming? What type/size PSU do you have?

MSI Cyclone (GTX 460) is supposed to be pretty quiet.
 
I can't recommend the 460gtx. Had one briefly for my sig-rig, and it gave me bad DPC latency (stutters, sound crackling) and possibly not full usage % - its a driver problem with certain old chipsets, one being the P35

This guy, same mobo as you, has similar troubles:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18222230



Im getting a 6850 instead, I've heard nothing about such problems with that card. Cheapest one as they all have good and quiet non-reference coolers - like sapphire for 175$ or asus directCu model for 180$ for a slightly better cooler (edit: they're both 160$ after rebate on Newegg, now that I look closer )
 
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The OP's monitor has 1920 x 1200 native resolution.

Gee, to have a good experience with that monitor I would say a 6870 or overclocked GTX 460. You could pick up a 5870 used from FS, but I can't vouch for it being quiet.

~$200: XFX 6870 $200 after $40 MIR. The warranty on this can't be beat. I would recommend reapplying the thermal paste.
 
Thanks for the suggestions so far.
I have the Corsair 620HX PSU and yes my resolution is 1920x1200.

Sounds like a 6850 or 6870 is the ticket?
 
The 6850 would be the best card under $200.

Just a suggestion but for 1920x1200, I'd consider a 6870 to be a minimum as that's a fairly stout resolution. For the majority of games out there it'll be fine but if you wanna crank up the eye candy on the more intensive games like Metro and Stalker, youll need more GPU muscle. If you could save up another $50 or more and get a 5870 or better, you'll be glad you did.
 
I have an MSI Cyclone and it is great - you should be able to find them after rebate for around $170.
 
I can probably up my budget to about $250 but no more.
For that it seems I can get a 5850 or 6870.
Maybe I should wait to see how the GTX 560 performs...
 
Stay away from any 460 due bad drivers, stutters, white screen, black screen, froze at logon, incompatible motherboard with chipset picky, on and on...

Go any Ati 58xx or Ati 68xx.

New nvidia 560 Ti ??? not sure about that but got to wait and see if driver is new and works with games like bfc2, metro 2033, nfs hp, etc...No point to rush to buy 560 series till they are working driver right out of box, wait for review from somebody write articles, benchmark, run games, etc...
2 cents.
 
is the 5870 better than the 6870 or 6850? that's what it's looking like from the responses
 
Yes. The 5870 is faster than the 6870 and right there with the 6950 and even faster in a couple games.
 
Working like a charm for me. Build quality seems to be solid and I havent seen temps much over 60 yet and while I wouldnt exactly call it quiet, its not any louder than my case fans unless I crank the fan up to 100% which I never do.

Its not much of an overclocker. Its voltage isnt unlocked so I couldnt get it any higher than 875 which only added an extra 2 frames in Metro so I just dropped it back down to stock clocks figuring it wasnt worth it.

Still waiting on the rebate so we'll see how that goes. Theyve got 5,000 different things youve gotta do to apply for your rebate and if you do ONE of them wrong, youre done.

But overall Id recommend it. I can get 30 fps in Metro at max settings with AA and AF also maxed and 45 fps with AA and AF set to low. I get 40+ in Crysis on Very High with AA and about 60 on High with AA.
 
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