Graphic cards.

[Dark_Metamorphosis]

It's time for me to replace my graphic card again..

Anyone that can recommend a priceworthy and good, mid to high-end card?

I prefer Nvidia on graph cards (Even though I use Phenom x4 965 BE processor).

Would love to get some recommendations from people with more knowledge revolving around GPUs

Thanks!

 

[EtphTheElephant]

What's le budget?

 

[Dark_Metamorphosis]

I guess between 1500-2000 SEK range (would be around 250-300 US dollars I think, and 170 - 220 Euro.) Not sure how much the graphic cards costs in dollars or euro though

 

[Milkdud]

(would be around 250-300 US dollars I think, and 170 - 220 Euro.)

I'm not an nVidia fan, I prefer AMD Radeon, but this my *best guess* on the good nVidia cards within your budget: 

MSI GTX670 and Asus GTX670 - To be completely honest though, I have no clue how well these cards are, I'm really just basing them off the price and the reviews.

However, there's also the Radeon 7870 cards that also fit within your budget, a little bit cheaper though, and doesn't have PhysX support (not like you're really losing anything there), but they're just as good:

Sapphire 7870 and XFX 7870 - however it seems like there's a sale going on at Newegg for Sapphire Radeon cards, and you can get a Sapphire 7970 for a little bit more than your budget if you're not strapped for cash.

 

[Dark_Metamorphosis]

I'm not an nVidia fan, I prefer AMD Radeon, but this my *best guess* on the good nVidia cards within your budget: 

MSI GTX670 and Asus GTX670 - To be completely honest though, I have no clue how well these cards are, I'm really just basing them off the price and the reviews.

However, there's also the Radeon 7870 cards that also fit within your budget, a little bit cheaper though, and doesn't have PhysX support (not like you're really losing anything there), but they're just as good:

Sapphire 7870 and XFX 7870 - however it seems like there's a sale going on at Newegg for Sapphire Radeon cards, and you can get a Sapphire 7970 for a little bit more than your budget if you're not strapped for cash.

I prefer AMD mostly as well, I'm using a Phenom II x4 965 BE processor and a Radeon HD 5670 at the moment. However my graphic card is overheating like crazy (100+ celsius) and the fans are so insanely loud when not in Idle. My 2 recent cards have been AMDs and they have gone to **** pretty fast, that's why I'm thinking about trying out Nvidia again (since I have liked them before).. but I don't know, I'm not really familiar with graphic cards as it is. The drivers have been a bit messy for me as well (when using AMD cards), lots of bugs and stuff. That Sapphire 7870 seems like a really nice card for the money though! (By reading the performance at least).

I'm sure as heck gonna replace all my fans, and my PSU before I put in my new card though, but that 7870 seems like something I certainly could buy!

Edit: Do you know if you can order from Sweden on Newegg?

Edit again: Seems like they don't That's sad! Seems like a really nice site!

 

[Andar]

if the question is between ATI/AMD or nVidia, then you should always consider their original basics.

ATI was (and is) the graphic card of choice for anything in the area of video processing - if you knew how to do the settings, you could watch a DVD on a 166MHz Pentium 1 (that was CPU speed, not Bus speed fifteen years ago) computer with an ATI-Rage-II (a graphics chip from when 3D-functions were completely unknown as a graphic chip add-on)

nVidia always optimised for 3D-Graphics, up to the point that the overlay functions needed for video display were slowed down to make DVD watching impossible while the 3D-Games were at highest speed (I know of a Pentium IV 1 GHz Computer that was unable to display a DVD without lag on it's nVidia card)...

 

[Milkdud]

I prefer AMD mostly as well, I'm using a Phenom II x4 965 BE processor and a Radeon HD 5670 at the moment. However my graphic card is overheating like crazy (100+ celsius) and the fans are so insanely loud when not in Idle. My 2 recent cards have been AMDs and they have gone to **** pretty fast, that's why I'm thinking about trying out Nvidia again (since I have liked them before).. but I don't know, I'm not really familiar with graphic cards as it is. The drivers have been a bit messy for me as well (when using AMD cards), lots of bugs and stuff.

The reason why is that the 5670 is actually a low-end card. The way to read a graphics card is by the 2nd number (x9xx). 4 is very basic; 5-6 are entry level cards; 7 is mid-end; 8 is high end (best bang for your buck usually as well); and 9 is top end. The third number (xx7x) determines how powerful that card is compared to other cards in the same performance level. For example, the Radeon 7970 is faster than the 7950, but it's not faster than the 7990. That being said though, make sure you read specifications and user-reviews as well before making a purchase.

Do you remember what your previous two cards were before the 5670?

 

[Dark_Metamorphosis]

The reason why is that the 5670 is actually a low-end card. The way to read a graphics card is by the 2nd number (x9xx). 4 is very basic; 5-6 are entry level cards; 7 is mid-end; 8 is high end (best bang for your buck usually as well); and 9 is top end. The third number (xx7x) determines how powerful that card is compared to other cards in the same performance level. For example, the Radeon 7970 is faster than the 7950, but it's not faster than the 7990. That being said though, make sure you read specifications and user-reviews as well before making a purchase.

Do you remember what your previous two cards were before the 5670?

That's really nice to know! (How to read the cards properly etc).

Yeah, I usually end up reading the reviews since I'm not really into what's good and what's bad when it comes to GPUs. I'm not really sure what my other 2 cards were, but I got the Radeon 5670 like 2 years ago I think, when building my current computer. So I guess it wasn't as recent as it might have sound. It was a computer in pieces, so I had to build it myself but it was really cheap and so far I have been satisfied with the performance on the games I have been playing.

But a while back the GPU fans started to sound insanely loud and the card is almost overheating now. Even if it might be some other issues, I think It's time to replace my card with something a bit better any way. I replaced my CPU with the Phenom II x4 965 a while back, a long with 2x corsiar XMS3 4gig  @ 1600Mhz. Around christmass I'm planning to replace my graphics card and buy 4x new fans for the case, I'm not sure how to make the best airflow but I do know that my fans are pretty messed up as well