Which top-of-the-line graphics card should I buy?
Q&A
I play Crysis and Half-Life 2-based games on a PC connected to a 50in Pioneer Kuro plasma, but my ATI Radeon 1950 Pro is starting to show it's age. What should I replace it with?
Sapphire's HD 4850 X2
I'm planning a new quad-core system but do I upgrade the graphics to an Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 or an AMD ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 for that little bit extra outlay?
What do Register Hardware readers recommend?
COMMENTS
ATI FTW!
i play alot of high end games as well. i am currently working on: Pure, Far Cry 1 and 2, Bioshock, NFS: Carbon, Most wanted, High Stakes, and Underground 2; Quantum Of Solace, And a few other new just out highly graphical games. i am running the ati 4670 512 gddr3 card, and i have every game on max settings at 2048x1536 on my 22 inch viewsonic. i have YET to hit anything unfer 45 fps. i dont expect anything higher though, whats the point, graphics are smooth @ 30fps. if you went with the 4870 or 4850 series, i think you would be more than adequately covered. if you want to spend the extra bank, def. go for the 4870 x2. great cards. i made the switch from nvidia after the fx 5900 ultra i had on my old agp rig, and i havent looked back since.
Meh
I would go with the 4870 or 4870 x2, if you want to keep it under 200$ US go with the 4850.
Nvidia's product suffers from faulty manufacturing process.
Be aware.
Nvidia geforce 9600 gts
My nvidia 768MB 9600 gts that I bought about a year ago is still going strong. I have to play at 1920x1200 (otherwise my monitor decides it needs to stretch the image, even if I run at 960x600 (exactly half) it assumes I'm at 800x600 and I loose the edges.) and it's still good even at high res.
With most of the GFX settings on high the frame rate is occasionally a bit choppy but if you have a monitor that doesn't need such a high res it'll probably be fine. It's definitely playable.
Not very future proof though because nvidia won't do SLI on GTS cards if I read the SLI site properly.
@Ricky
Some reviews to check out to help you decide:
Bangs-per-buck GPU shoot-out
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/08/12/review_gpu_bangs_for_buck/
Sapphire 4850 Toxic
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/09/13/review_sapphire_4850_toxic/
AMD Radeon 4850 and 4870
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/07/23/review_amd_4850_4870/
GeForce GTX 280
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/07/09/review_geforce_gtx_280/
