MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
The graphics card on my PC has packed in. I have up to 100 quid to spend on a new one. I'm an occasional gamer, I'll be picking up Mass Effect 3 soon. I'm out of the loop as far as PC specs go these days so what's recommended in that price range?
My PC says it is a Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz with 4GB of RAM.
[url= http://www.ebuyer.com/322129-sapphire-hd-6770-1gb-dvi-vga-hdmi-pci-e-graphics-card-11189-10-20g ]Does[/url] me well. Runs bf3 on high with my system, plus swotor etc (despite the sh!te engine!)
Thanks for the recommendation. Has anyone on the Sunday afternoon STW forum shift got supporting/dissenting opinions on this?
No idea but a while back I was also looking at new graphic card.
Stretches your budget slightly but GTX560 should be doable at £110...
<Singletrack member recommends what he owns shocker>
<Singletrack member recommends what he owns shocker>
Bucking this trend, I have an AMD 6870 which is a similar speed to the GTX560 but I'd recommend this over the AMD one if you can stretch your budget.
Buying a card based on NVidia GPUs gives you access to PhysX and CUDA hardware support which more and more developers are making use of over the similar features available for ATI based cards.
My PC is similar spec to yours and an upgrade to an AMD 6850 which made a massive difference over the older Nvidia 8800gt card.
The reason I went with an AMD card was I knew my PSU was very weedy (Dell 350 watt) and the Nvidia 460 which I was looking at definitely needed a 450 watt+ PSU.
I have a Ati 6850 as well. It runs everything on max settings I throw at it.
I installed the latest Nvidia GFX drivers on the old PC the other day and the splash screen proudly proclaimed that it was now "optimized for Mass Effect 3" or something similar, if that makes any difference to you.
Probably Marketing guff, I'm sure as hell that this PC won't run it, it struggles with Notepad.
Limiting factor is going to be your power supply in how many Watts it can supply and if it has any PCIe 6 or 8 pin power connectors. Also what length card will fit in your case.
There is an article on Toms Hardware on will Mass Effect 3 run on my PC here >>
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/mass-effect-3-performance-benchmark,3143.html
Also Tom's runs a regular what's the best graphics card for £/$ here's the March edition.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html
At the end of the whats best there's a graphics card Hierarchy chart for a v/rough comparison, for example by choosing X card are you jumping up a few levels in performance.
I think the AMD 77xx series look a tasty option at the moment the 7770 is at 6850 performance and draws less power, the 7750 doesn't even need an extra power connector on it.
More gaming nerds than I expected on here 
Awesome
If you're geeky about one thing, bwaarp, you're going to be geeky about many things and there are a lot of bike/tyre/suspension/etc. geeks on here. 🙂
I believe that my PSU is 550W. Currently my PC has a borrowed GeForce 8800, which seems to be a fairly large card and also requires a PCIe 6 pin power connector (or something like that), so I know my PC can provide space and additional power to a reasonable extent.
The Radeon 7770 seems a little beyond my budget (as is the GeForce 560), but the 6850 hits the £100 price point. Tom's Hardware seems to be ranking the Radeon 6850 and the GeForce 460 as equivalent but it looks like overclockers.co.uk at least is charging 20 quid more for the nVidia card than the AMD one.
Could you not sell of one of your bikes? They'd fetch a decent price; it's not like they're well used 😉
P.S. I say this but I've been out biking 4 times since September 🙁
8800 was a reasonably thirsty card, you're spot on... Certainly you should be fine with a 560, not sure about the other modern equivalents.
Could you not sell of one of your bikes?
My budget here is fairly arbitrary, based on the fact that I don't value PC gaming capability that much, in the grand scheme of things. Not as much as I value having nice bikes, by a long shot. 🙂
P.S. I say this but I've been out biking 4 times since September 🙁
But for good reason, from what I have heard. I hope things get better for you.
Could you buy an Xbox360 for under £100?
And thanks Chris, fingers crossed too...
Could you buy an Xbox360 for under £100?
I could sell mine to myself for a very reasonable price. 🙂
Heh 😉
I went outside once. The graphics were amazing.