Radeon 6850, Geforce GTX 460 or something else for Q6600 based system.

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theGieche

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I recently picked up Just Cause 2 and Metro 2033 in Steam sales and my current Geforce 8600GT video card really isn't cutting it.

I have been considering a GTX 460 for a while now but just started looking at 6850s and now I'm not so sure.

My system specs:
CPU: Intel Q6600
Motherboard: Gigabyte EP35-DS3P
RAM: 4G
PSU: Seasonic M12 550W
HDDs: 4 SATA hard drives of various sizes and ages.

I'm looking for something that runs very quiet, doesn't use a crazy amount of power and isn't complete overkill for my system. I'm not interested in running dual GPUs so differences in support for this don't bother me. I do run dual monitors and may add a third at some point but that's probably pretty unlikely.

So what should I go for? How much of a step up are these cards over say a 5770 and would I see the difference given my CPU? I've looked at a whole bunch of benchmarks but because I only research this stuff for a few weeks every few years when I'm in the market for a new card it's hard to relate the numbers to anything in the real world.

Thanks for your help.
 
What resolution are you planning on using with this card and how long do you want this to last before you would have to upgrade?
 
Good questions. 1920x1080 and if I can get a couple of years out of it I'll be happy. Only just sort of returned to PC gaming after last year's Steam holiday sale after a break of about 5 years.
 
Ahem only two monitors. If you want to use EyeFinity, I'd wait at least a month since the new ATI just dropped and should be pushing the prices of some of the older cards lower in the next couple of weeks.
 
I'm actually wondering this as well. Also have a Q6600, 4GB RAM, Asus P5W-Deluxe Motherboard and am currently sporting a 8800GTS 512MB. It can run everything, but it's starting to show it's age. Run a native res of 1920x1080 on my main monitor and my 2nd monitor is at 1680x1050.

Was considering the GTX460, but they keep coming out with new cards and now I'm torn between that or one of the newer ATI (now AMD) cards. But not the 6xxx series.
 
[quote name='DukeEdwardI']Thanks for that info!

After consulting tomshardware this benchmark of the GTX460 and GTX470 done by Tom's Hardware, I think I might be leaning towards the 5850. Better performance for the most part than the 460 and 6850 and not that much more expensive (about $30 more).[/QUOTE]

I've got a 5850 in one of my machines and its a beast.
 
Okay so I've gone off the idea of a 6850. The price on the 5850 is slightly higher than the GTX 460 1gb and slightly more than I'm prepared to pay at the moment. The 6870 looks great but is a bit more expensive again.

I'm looking at going for the 460 1gb because it's the cheapest option, as long as it'll handle current games at a decent quality setting. I'm pretty tight with my gaming spending these days so I tend to just pick up games on sale on Steam which are almost always a little bit older anyway.

If we're already at the point where a 460 can't do high settings on most new games then I might need to bite the bullet and shell out the extra cash. What do you guys think?
 
I worry about the latest Vid hardware, I got a GTX 460 jumping from a GTS250 and yeah Direct X 11 games run well at high settings with all the extra graphical "wowness" effect like tessellation and water, but I feel like the jump just wasn't that big. I got a good deal so I can't complain to much but if I had it all over again I would go with the newer ATI stuff or holding off, knowing what I know now. GTX 4xx series has what is called "micro-stuter" in single card configuration sometimes (google it, seems to be driver based, IMO), I get micro-stutter in dirt 2, (some people get it in black ops, while others have it in starcraft 2 and unigine benchmark, so it's all over the place seems to be driver + surrounding hardware config and others have nothing but perfection performance). This micro-stutter seems to be less widespread in ATIs latest cards and/or something with Direct X 11, don't see much about it with Direct X 10 or lower with single card config. Unless Drivers come out and fix the micro-stutter I plan to sell my GTX 460 and graduate to something better when Nvidia or ATI come out with their better re-badged revisions.

One option I would suggest is get
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130538
for $64 dollars after rebate it should hold you satisfactory for another 2 years then see what Nvidia and ATI have done. This might also put you closer to vid hardware the next consoles will be using (since we pc gamers do get alot of ports lately). With the GTS 250, I played BFBC2 all the way through on single and did some single, also Crysis,Civ5, starcraft 2, Grid, dirt 2, Aliens vs Predator (2010).

GTX 460 is a good card, running games at full speed with most if not all games I play at High+ settings, but just not as good as I thought it could be with the microstutter issue always in the back of my mine when playing something new. I play in 1680*1050 with win 7 64bit, 8gig ram, asus am3a78 pro, corsair 650tx, and the gtx 460
stutters on Dirt 2 but so far runs GRID, Black Ops, Bad Company 2, Civ 5 just gorgeous but haven't played much with starcraft 2 for a performance review.
 
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