Best Video Card as Replacement

[MonkeyMan806]

Hi Everyone... I want to replace my current Video Card with the best one my system can handle (no desire to bottleneck). Any feedback or advise would be great. Here is my Current System:

• Asus P5N32 SLI SE Deluxe Motherboard
• Intel Core2 6400 @2.13Ghz
• Windows XP 32-bit
• 4 GB of DDR2-SDRAM PC6400 (seeing less because of 32-bit OS but it's there)
• SilverStone 650w Power Supply
• Video Card is currently nVidia GeForce 7950 GX2

I am really sick of this card as there was an update released at the end of 2010 - that if installed will give you Black Screen of Death (system works but no display). This seems to be a common issue with this card and something I just don't want to deal with any longer. I do a ton of photography editing and also play a ton of games like Call of Duty (MW2) Crysis and Left 4 Dead 2 but what I really want is Crysis 2 (which the demo would not run on this card). Well it ran but the display and lag was so bad I couldn't do anything.

I was hoping to look at (go back to ATI) the Radeon 5870 or something around that to take advantage of the new-ish Eyefinitiy (currently have 1 monitor and would a reason to get two more)

Hope some advise comes in so I can trash this P.O.S.

 

[obsidian86]

budget ?

 

[MonkeyMan806]

around the price of the ATI 5870... so 220.00 - 260.00... or less is always a plus

 

[obsidian86]

i'd say 6870 or 6950

6870 average 10% slower then 5870 but uses less power or 6950 on par with a 5870 but much more refined and optimised

but either card will be severely bottle necked by your cpu,any card over a 5770/gts250/450 would be extremely bottle necked by your cpu tbh

 

[MonkeyMan806]

ok... so the ATI 5770 is what I should look at then (don't want to bottleneck). That's fine:

• it is cheaper 130.00 - 160.00
• Still Directx 11
• Still 1 GB
• Still Eyefinity

My concern is now this:

• All the cards say PCI Express 2.1 x16 but my MoB is PCI Express X16 - Is this ok?
• Will these cards work out of the box or do I need to worry about BIOS updates and what not?

 

[obsidian86]

pci-e 2.1,2.0 is backward compatible to pci-e 1.0

card will work out the box all you need to do is use driver sweeper and clear all the nividia drivers and install ati drivers

 

[MonkeyMan806]

Perfect. Thank you obsidian86. Much thanks for advise. Sounds like the ATI Radeon 5770 is the ticket

I just hope I see a difference in quality over what my current card gives