Upgrading from an 8800 GTS 320MB

[fletchr]

Hi guys, I'm thinking of upgrading from my current card. (Leadtek PX8800GTS 320MB) As i've been having some stability issues with it, seems its started to die on me and I can't for the life of me figure out the problem. Tried running it inside a friends system and it still acts up.

I've been looking at two cards:
Zotac GeForce GTX 260 896MB and
Sapphire HD 4890 1GB

What do you guys think about these cards? Feel free to give me some advice on any other cards you could recommend.

Both cards seem to come in around the £200 mark, so something around that would be great. I'm running on a 17" widescreen display at 1440x900.

Not sure if this matters but my other system specs are:

Proc: Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 @2.4 ghz
RAM: 3GB DDR2 800mhz
PSU: Arctic Power 600W
Motherboard: ASUS P5B Socket 775 P965 chipset

 

[coozie7]

Give it a good clean, and I mean strip the cooler top off so you can clean the fins underneath properly.
But it could just be passing into the recycling shed in the sky.

Two hundred quid! You are not trying my son😉

At that resoloution I'd suggest the 1Gb HD4870 anyway, it's a better match for your CPU and should handle anything you can throw at it WITH AA/AF and at least high, if not maximum settings.
I'm now off to play X3 so take a look here: Overclockers, Scan, CCL, Novatech, Misco, Dabs and Microdirect.

 

[hundredislandsboy]

GTX 260. Anything more is overkill for your resolution. Anything less is hardly an upgrade.
But if you're not going to overclock your CPU to get more out of the GTX 260, then a GTS 250 will do.

 

[fletchr]

Thanks for the help! ;P

Already tried cleaning it thoroughly but to no avail.

Tried looking at OCUK and they were the prices I managed to fish up, I'll take a look at the other sites you mentioned though 😀

Thanks again

 

[fletchr]

If I knew enough about overclocking, I'd do it. Unfortunately I know next to nothing and I wouldnt wanna damage anything. :<

 

[hundredislandsboy]

If you've never overclocked, don't venture into it. You'll get too happy pushing your CPU and being pleased that it's giving you the performance of a CPU worth $200 more.

 

[smithinator101]

i personally like the gtx 285, the gtx 275, the hd 4890 and the hd4870 but that's just me!

 

[hundredislandsboy]

i personally like the gtx 285, the gtx 275, the hd 4890 and the hd4870 but that's just me!

I like those cards too but you have to have the CPU running at least 3.2 GHz to really get their output.

 

[smithinator101]

true!!!