39 replies to this topic

[mad kat]

Its looking like theses are my two best options as i can pick them up from stores nearby and are both in stock. While not the most competitive on price i know it does wave delivery charges for our pretty useless royal fail, i mean mail.

Judging by the consensus on this forum which i very much appreciate the cheaper option r7 260x while not being amazing should hopefully get me by on medium settings with a decent FPS. The card only has to run MWO anyway as that's pretty much the entire use of the desktop bar a bit of browsing or watching iplayer.

http://www.pcworld.c...010488-pdt.html
(shock horror pcworld being reasonably price competitive)

This one is over stretching the budget a bit but has been recommended by the acquaintance who built the computer. But then in his own words he's an nvidia fan.

http://www.maplin.co...hics-card-a87nj

Edited by mad kat, 18 November 2014 - 01:49 AM.

[mad kat]

Is this of any use?

http://www.futuremar...+R7+260X/review

[Flapdrol]

Well, all those cards are at least 3 times as fast as your 8800GT.

easy way to compare, higher up means faster.
http://www.tomshardw...iew,3107-7.html

[Egomane]

mad kat, on 18 November 2014 - 01:42 AM, said:

This one is over stretching the budget a bit but has been recommended by the acquaintance who built the computer. But then in his own words he's an nvidia fan.

http://www.maplin.co...hics-card-a87nj

It's the comparison I made in a previous post. Your AMD alternative is the better long term choice.

[Mr D One]

Well if you can wait, I am upgrading my old "Titan" to a GTX980 next week (better investment than a gold skin, IMO) but I am not sure if the UK uses the same power as Oz.

[Catamount]

Internal components are powered by DC power from the power supply, which is universal everywhere on Earth.

In fact back when 7970s first came out and two of my Aussie friends just had to have them, I bought a pair in the US and shipped to them. It cost damn near $200 in packing and shipping and still saved them money, though the point is the cards worked fine.

Edited by Catamount, 18 November 2014 - 09:30 AM.

[Flapdrol]

Even most powersupplies are universal these days, fortunate side effect of active pfc becoming popular (or mandatory, cant buy a pos non universal psu here).

[poohead]

I find this is the best tool to compare, pick a game and away you go

http://www.anandtech...bench/GPU14/816 <== link set to crysis 3 at medium 1920x1080

You can compare almost all cards FPS here. By the looks of it you want a 260X minimum.

And Maplins and PCWorld, my God I think those are the two most expensive places to buy PC stuff in the UK!!! But if you don't like mail delivery you are out of luck. But most places like Overclockers, Scan, Ebuyer, Dabs, Novatech, use DHL or couriers. It's worth comparing all prices including delivery as sometimes there is a bargain or two....

[mad kat]

poohead, on 18 November 2014 - 01:01 PM, said:

I find this is the best tool to compare, pick a game and away you go

http://www.anandtech...bench/GPU14/816 &lt;== link set to crysis 3 at medium 1920x1080

You can compare almost all cards FPS here. By the looks of it you want a 260X minimum.

And Maplins and PCWorld, my God I think those are the two most expensive places to buy PC stuff in the UK!!! But if you don't like mail delivery you are out of luck. But most places like Overclockers, Scan, Ebuyer, Dabs, Novatech, use DHL or couriers. It's worth comparing all prices including delivery as sometimes there is a bargain or two....

That's exactly what i thought but i'm not finding many 260x online for a great deal cheaper than £90. Will have another look in the morning. Dabs, Ebuyer and Overclockers and even Scan all come in around a tenner cheaper but by the time you factor in delivery its about the same price with the only difference being a 2gb card instead of 1gb. In the mean time i reserved a 260x for pick up tomorrow but i'm borrowing a graphics card just to be sure that's the fault before going to pick it up.

edited for spelling.

Edited by mad kat, 19 November 2014 - 01:48 AM.

[mad kat]

Having a quick read on video memory it looks like a 1gb is going to be plenty for 1024*768 resolution. And after going through the online sites for the 260x the delivery price negates any cost savings BUT with the exception of video memory size so in other words i could get a 2gb card for the price of the 1gb at pc world but seeing as 1gb is plenty that's mostly a moot point against the convenience.

http://www.tomshardw...ths,3694-5.html

[Flapdrol]

that is a ridiculously low res.

anyway, resolution increases the memory used, but not by that much, it's mostly textures these days, I'd go for 2GB if possible.

[mad kat]

Flapdrol, on 19 November 2014 - 03:43 AM, said:

that is a ridiculously low res.

anyway, resolution increases the memory used, but not by that much, it's mostly textures these days, I'd go for 2GB if possible.

Only play it on a 13.6" screen lying on the floor in the sitting room while the wife reads a book or watches tv on the sofa next to me. The tower hides behind the tv in the corner and the monitor is stored next to it when not in use. Done me fine for ages now.

May get a bigger monitor at some point.

Edited by mad kat, 19 November 2014 - 07:36 AM.

[Catamount]

I agree with Flapdrol about memory. Texture size is a huge determinant of usage. So is anti-aliasing. Yes, yes, lots of people including me use post now because it's cheap, but good old fashioned MSAA still looks better and is going to stick around for a good while yet.

Resolution is also getting to be cheap (even 4K TNs are what, like $500?), which not only directly increases VRAM use, but will make turning down textures to save performance a decreasingly attractive option.

TLDR: go for 2GB

[mad kat]

Well 2Gb would be good but i'm not really that fussed by the extra with my titchy monitor. I've never been that arsed about amazing HD graphics favouring FPS every time. Judging by the spec comparisons it will happily be twice as fast as my current card (RIP) which in all honesty did just fine for me. Twice the memory, twice the memory bandwidth, twice the onboard memory and many more cores if im reading it correctly.

Judging by some video's of the 260x online i think it'll be grand.

http://www.geforce.c.../specifications

http://www.amd.com/e...hics/desktop/r7

Edited by mad kat, 19 November 2014 - 08:50 AM.

[poohead]

2Gb just means a bit more longevity, as minimum specs for games are always creeping up.

However, if you get 1Gb now maybe you get to have another excuse to upgrade in 18 months when it's not enough

[mad kat]

Lol,

But in all honesty MWO is flat out the Only computer game i play, well not true actually i have been known to play Mario Kart on the Wii with the wife.

Anyway i picked up the 260x 1gb from PC world last night. Funny story after the muppets there had gone to fetch it for me one of them a spotty teen asked me what is that thing?.............I looked at him blankly for a minute wondering if he was winding me up and then realising he was waiting for an answer my jaw dropped and i told him. My next question was although why i asked i'll never know was where the CD drives where. Two employees didn't know what i mean the second only figuring it out after i had to say internal cd drive, DVD drive writer.

Cannot say i'm surprised but anyway at least they had a 21 day no quibble return policy which is good.

Back on topic i tested the computer last night with an old borrowed 9600 gs card. Not expecting much of it, but to my surprise played on medium settings with a FPS consistently over 32. Considering i could probably buy it off the guy who leant it to me for a pint it would probably get me by. But going give the new card the benefit of the doubt tonight.

Edited by mad kat, 20 November 2014 - 01:11 AM.

[poohead]

Hope it works well for you mate!

[YUyahoo]

mad kat, on 17 November 2014 - 02:05 AM, said:

So on saturday night i think my pretty decent (for me anyway) and a bit old Geforce 8800 gt decided it would start shuffling off its mortal coil. Long story short my display started giving up and after some fun with safe mode and two system restore's i have my desktop partially working in that it will display low stress programs like google earth and Mechwarrior 4 but MWO buggers up royaly. Tried the repair tool to no avail.

So when i finally got MWO to launch and get as far as the testing grounds the display went all physcadelic and then knocked my display out forcing a hard reboot.

So think perhaps its time to retire my Geforce 8800 Gt and find a replacement, I'm on a budget don't really want to spend more than £100 ish. AMD looks to be better VFM than Nvidia but could do with something at least within a shot of the old card if possible.

These any good?
http://www.overclock...id=701&catid=56

http://www.dabs.com/...9YCQ.html?src=3

I know not very much so am looking for some suggestions please?

Thanks.

Honestly it all depends on that the rest of your computer has for hardware. The R7 260s and such may fit into your price range but many of the newer mid to upper cards require quite a hefty power supply and often also an axillary 6 pin power plug in (sometimes 2) from your power supply to operate. If you only have 100 pounds or so to spend and only want to upgrade your vid card I think the GTX 750 TI (109 pounds for a 2gb GTX 750ti on one of the sites you list, dabs.com) is about the best you can get away with without the need for a huge power supply (or aux 6pin power plug ins). Even that card may be more potent than your system and as a result be bottle necked by your CPU/MB/ect. As painful as it is to say, but without know what the rest of your system build is you might even be better off with a slightly older card like a 1 or 2 gb 6670 or GT 640 (yes these are a few years old and are mid range cards but they are better than a GT 8800 and will fit in almost any computer that had a GT 8800 without requiring additional upgrades). I'm no expert, many people here know a lot more about Vid cards than I do but I remember what happened to me a few years back when I tried to upgrade my HD 4670 to a GTX 280 and ran into this very issue.
Best of Luck

[mad kat]

I can report now that having installed the 260x im very happy with it. I can run over 100 fps at high graphics settings and ive never had the game look so lush!

As for the rig the guy who kindly built it for me did a great job knowing it was to be used for gaming. He used a b85m-g mb and an i3-4130 @3.4ghz cpu with 4gb of ram.

Needless to say the new card is miles better than the old 8800gt. I can even push the graphics up to very high and still have good fps.

Not the best of screen grabs but heres one anyway from viridian bog.

Edited by mad kat, 20 November 2014 - 03:14 PM.

[Lord Letto]

is that in testing grounds or in a match? if testing grounds then there's no surprise you get 100+FPS, in a Match though is a totally different ballgame, Half that if not Less than Half, I'd say Peek at 40-50FPS if that and dips into the teens-20's during heavy action/Brawling/LRMpocalypse. That's at Very High though, if you Lower to Medium, maybe Medium-High it would be better, but than again you have a Small Screen, not 1080P so that might Help.