What Graphics Card?

[Baobinga]

So I bought the GTX 220 when the GTX series was first announced. It did me well until recently it pooped out on me. It had serious heat problems even in my cooler master HAF case.

So I'm looking for a replacement. I kind of want a midrange card (price wise) because the specs on those stomp my old GTX 260 and that thing held up most games today with no problems. My budget is around 300 dollars. It can be slightly above or below.

What would you guys recommend? If you could also please give me a link with your post that would be great!

I've always been an Nvidea person but perhaps you ATI guys could bring me to the dark side.

[Lithium]

What are your system specifications? GTX 220 is an old card and runs PCI-E 1.0 I believe. If your system is outdated buying a $300 video card will be wasting money because your other components won't have the bandwidth to feed it.

[Baobinga]

I bought a new motherboard to accomodate the AMD 1090t 6 core. I've got the ASUS M4A89GTD PRO.

It has PCIE 2.0

[Lithium]

You'll be fine then. Now you do some research. Here is the starting point:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/vga-charts-spring-2011/

[Anamodiel]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130591&cm_re=gtx_460_1gb-_-14-130-591-_-Product

Do it. This is what I'm getting, along with a new power supply. It's cheap right now with the rebate, too!

[Avzeke (Khr0n1k)]

Go for a full on 460, not the 460 SE!

[Baobinga]

I think I'm gonna get this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121432

[Ademaro]

I've always been an Nvidea person but perhaps you ATI guys could bring me to the dark side.

It honestly depends on if your running amd/intel imo. I think AMD has streamlined the use of there gpu's to run specifically with ATI along with Intel and Nvidia.

Personally I'm running the ATI 6870 and have an extra just sitting in my case basically right now unplugged not touched... I have yet to touch a game that has been to graphic intensive that I felt that I needed to crossfire them. I would highly recommend them as they have dropped severely in price since when I purchased them back in Fall of 2010

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150506&cm_re=ati_6870-_-14-150-506-_-Product

If you are looking to do an upgrade and have the extra few hundred though consider giving your whole computer a boost ... I know I dropped only 1100-1300 (literally everything from gaming keyboard/mouse to monitors... printer... all internals and case) on a new build back in December and my setup SCREEEAMSSS.. lol

[Ademaro]

btw . when I purchased the GPU(s) they were going for 300-400 >.< derp ... shouldve waited a few months hahaha

Save yourself the money and buy something a few months old and still has plenty of punch..

[Lithium]

Yeah it's a good point that if you have AMD hardware it's not a bad idea to get an ATI (now AMD) graphics.

And, IMO if you are spending over $300 on a card these days it ought to have at least 2GB on-board memory...

[Ragnarok]

Does anyone run a GTX 560 SLI?

[likwidtek]

Just ordered this:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102945

It's not unlockable to a 6970 like the old ones were (sucks but none of the new ones are anymore) but it comes with a free copy of Dirt 3 and the new Deus Ex.  New generations of graphics cards should be coming over over the holiday so I'll probably put this one in Jess's machine and get whatever the newest is.  

She currently has a GTS 450 and I have a Radeon 4850.

[Maglorius]

I am actually looking at building this system in the near future.

1 – EVGA Classified SR-2 270-WS-W555-A2 LGA 1366 Intel 5520 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HPTX Intel Motherboard
2 – Intel Xeon X5650 Westmere 2.66GHz LGA 1366 95W Six-Core Server Processor BX80614X5650
4 – EVGA 03G-P3-1596-AR GeForce GTX 590 (Fermi) 3072MB 768-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
1 – Creative PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series Sound Card
1 – CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX1200 (CMPSU-1200AX) 1200W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92 SLI Certified 80 PLUS GOLD Certified
4 – Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
1 – COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced RC-932-KKN5-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Compucase Case with USB 3.0 and Black Interior
6 – CORSAIR DOMINATOR GT 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240- Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 Desktop Memory Model CMT8GX3M2A1866C9
2 – COOLER MASTER V8 RR-UV8-XBU1-GP 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler Intel Core i7 compatible
1 – Crucial Real SSD C300 CTFDDAC128MAG-1G12.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
1 – LITE-ON Black 12X BluRay Burner with BluRay 3D feature SATA IHBS112-29 – OEM
1 – LITE-ON DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04 – OEM
4 – ASUS VH242H Black 23.6" 5ms HDMI Full 1080P Widescreen LCD Monitor

[Ash]

Any particular reason you're choosing the Xeon over the other Intel Six-Core processors?

[Ketamininja]

Any particular reason you're choosing the Xeon over the other Intel Six-Core processors?

Good question when compared with the i7.
Unless you want a hell of a lot of memory (~96GB), then I would i7 instead. Although if you are considering dual CPU in the future, Xeon might still be the way... I'm sure there are other reasons.