Time for a new card (9600GT Replacement)

[FarWest]

I'm looking for a good replacement for my three year old Chaintech 9600GT w/1GB RAM.

It does alright at 1680 x 1050, but I just upgraded my monitor to 1920 x 1080 and would like to upgrade the card as well.

I'm cheap. (I've a car payment, two kids, a mortgage and a wife. ) so I'd like to keep it under $150 or so. Right now I'm playing BCBF2 and COD4.

I prefer Nvidia, but would be willing to consider AMD/ATi. I'd consider SLI and another 9600GT, but don't know if that really makes sense for the cost.

Any thoughts?

 

[evilsofa]

The ATi 5770 dominates this pricepoint and Nvidia doesn't really have an answer for it right now. For 1920x1080, get the 1GB version and avoid the cheaper 512MB version. On newegg at the moment, there's a Powercolor 5770 1GB for $145 and free shipping after mail-in rebate, or you could overspend a bit on the XFX 5770 1GB for the much better warranty and customer service for $167 after shipping.

9600GT 1GB SLI would be faster than a 5770, but they cost $85 on newegg which seems a bit high to me. Sell the old 9600GT for cash to reduce the cost of the 5770.

 

[Jeffredo]

Yeah, if you want to save the $50 to $70, get another 9600 GT 1GB and SLI. If you'd rather just have one card, HD 5770. That Gigabyte 9600 GT 1GB evilsofa mentioned on Newegg is about your only option in that card that would still make sense - they are getting hard to find and are much more expensive elsewhere. Being you have a 1GB card at least the VRAM wouldn't be an issue with the higher res of your new monitor on graphically intensive games (makes SLI more of a good option).

 

[FarWest]

Thanks! I'll probably look at the single card solution. To switch to SLI would mean a new mobo, psu and memory

 

[Jeffredo]

Thanks! I'll probably look at the single card solution. To switch to SLI would mean a new mobo, psu and memory

You didn't tell us that! Of course get an HD 5770 if you don't have an SLI mobo.