Best video card for around $150?

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alphaqforever247

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friend is looking to upgrade his 4850 but his limit is 150 havnt been in the video card game for a while i still have my 4870. so i am not to familiar with all the new cards out. any suggestions, his Full system specs are e8400, 4 gigs of ram, 27 inch asus monitor, his power supply is what may hinder him he has i believe a 500 watt 34 amp thermaltake tough power.
 
The 5850 above would be great. Otherwise, GTX 460, 6850 new, or even a 5770, or 5830 would be a big upgrade.
 
At a hard ceiling of $150 the HD6850 or GTX460 are the best value(new) or a used 5850 would be great as well. Since you mentioned a 500W power supply limit the 6850 has the advantage because it only requires 1x 6-pin PCI-E power connector, which IIRC is the same as the HD4850 and is less than the 2 the GTX460 requires meaning it uses less power at idle and load than both the 4850 and 460.

Here's this deal at newegg:

Sapphire HD6850 $174.99 - $16.50 from 10% coupon code VG3TENOFF - $15 Rebate - $10 dollar newegg gift card + $4.99 Shipping = $137.48

This particular deal expires tomorrow but I'm sure there are other comparable ones if you look around hard enough. If you can get a used 5850 or GTX460 for around that same price or lower it would be a good deal as well. Whatever you do, stay away from the GTX460 768MB. I'd only consider the 1GB models as adequate, the 768MB ones have too little memory for a 27inch monitor.
 
I recommend the GTX 460 768MB card. It is a solid card that can be found at a discount right now because it is being replaced by the GTX 550 Ti, but the new card is slower. The 768MB version of the GTX 460 is only slightly slower than the 1GB version, but costs substantially less. See the slight performance difference in this article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-460-gf104-fermi,2684.html

Note that on the THG Best Card for the Money article linked below, the GTX 460 1 GB is one of the cards recommended at the $200 price level. This card is almost as fast and as shown in the review above, and costs quite a bit less..

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews...card-geforce-gtx-590-radeon-hd-6990,2879.html

For a specific card, I recommend the MSI Twin Frozr because of its effective but quiet heatsink/fan, factory overclock, and good price – only $130 after rebate.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...19&cm_re=gtx_460_768mb-_-14-127-519-_-Product

You can find information about and links to more video card reviews at:

http://www.upgradevideocards.com/reviews.html
 
rockyjohn said:
I recommend the GTX 460 768MB card. It is a solid card that can be found at a discount right now because it is being replaced by the GTX 550 Ti, but the new card is slower. The 768MB version of the GTX 460 is only slightly slower than the 1GB version, but costs substantially less. See the slight performance difference in this article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-460-gf104-fermi,2684.html

Note that on the THG Best Card for the Money article linked below, the GTX 460 1 GB is one of the cards recommended at the $200 price level. This card is almost as fast and as shown in the review above, and costs quite a bit less..
Click to expand...

This is badly researched advice. The GTX460 768MB is slower than the HD6850 and worse the one he's recommending you will cost about the same as the1GB HD6850 deal I linked and worse yet even with teh reduced memory that card still requires 2x 6-pin PCI-E power connectors. Paying the same cash for less memory and performance does not make sense.

Let's see what [H] had to say when they compared them head to head.
http://hardocp.com/article/2010/10/21/amd_radeon_hd_6870_6850_video_card_review/9
The Radeon HD 6850 is the best sub-$200 performance we’ve ever seen, and the lowest power envelope we’ve ever seen it at...
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Untitledone said:
The 5850 above would be great. Otherwise, GTX 460, 6850 new, or even a 5770, or 5830 would be a big upgrade.
Click to expand...
a 5770 would be a miniscule upgrade as its only about 20-25% faster than a 4850.

at 1920 a gtx460 1gb or 6850 is the way to go with his budget and cpu.
 
cannondale06 said:
a 5770 would be a miniscule upgrade as its only about 20-25% faster than a 4850.

at 1920 a gtx460 1gb or 6850 is the way to go with his budget and cpu.
Click to expand...

Depends on what 4850 he has, if I remeber correctly the 5770 was about the same as the 4890, and better in some ways.

Not arguing, but it is an upgrade, and 5770's are around $130 before rebate. They can be had for around $100 new.

However the 6850, and 1gb GTX 460's are a better choice.
 
That was my budget.. did the 6850 sapphire listed above.. wouldn't have done it any other way.

If he gets more dough later, he can crossfire 6850's, and they run very well.. Comparable to 6900 series cards.

Josh
 
Untitledone said:
Depends on what 4850 he has, if I remeber correctly the 5770 was about the same as the 4890, and better in some ways.

Not arguing, but it is an upgrade, and 5770's are around $130 before rebate. They can be had for around $100 new.

However the 6850, and 1gb GTX 460's are a better choice.
Click to expand...
all 4850 cards were the same. and overall the 5770 was slower than the 4870 never mind the 4890. why would someone spend 100 bucks for just a 20-25% increase in gpu performance?
 
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