As one of my old 9600GTs failed recently and I got a full refund back from it, I've decided to upgrade a little. I'm going for a GTX 460 768MB, however there are a huge range on offer and comparisons are a little difficult to come by. My absolute budget limit is £160 (excluding postage). I have a couple of questions about the various cards on offer:
First, which ones come with the longest warranty period? I'm fairly sure ASUS offers a 3 year warranty and a longer warranty is definitely a plus (my failed 9600GT was 2.5 years old). Do any other manufacturers offer a 3 year warranty? 2 years would also be fine but I wouldn't want less than this.
Second, is it worth getting a factory OC'd card, given that I'm probably capable of doing it myself? I guess a factory OC'd card is 'guaranteed' to get better performance, but do non-factory-OC'd cards overclock poorly/not at all?
Third (and probably most relevantly) do the performance characteristics of cards from different manufacturers vary greatly? I.e., if I buy a PNY card is it going to be majorly different from an MSI or even Palit card?
For those about to say 'get a 1GB card', I'm pretty much totally broke and even £160 is pushing it. I'm hoping to be able to find a job pretty soon, at which point I'll probably sell on the 768MB card and upgrade to a 1GB 460 or even something more, but I figure I have to draw the line somewhere and £160 is where I've drawn it.
Thanks!
First, which ones come with the longest warranty period? I'm fairly sure ASUS offers a 3 year warranty and a longer warranty is definitely a plus (my failed 9600GT was 2.5 years old). Do any other manufacturers offer a 3 year warranty? 2 years would also be fine but I wouldn't want less than this.
Second, is it worth getting a factory OC'd card, given that I'm probably capable of doing it myself? I guess a factory OC'd card is 'guaranteed' to get better performance, but do non-factory-OC'd cards overclock poorly/not at all?
Third (and probably most relevantly) do the performance characteristics of cards from different manufacturers vary greatly? I.e., if I buy a PNY card is it going to be majorly different from an MSI or even Palit card?
For those about to say 'get a 1GB card', I'm pretty much totally broke and even £160 is pushing it. I'm hoping to be able to find a job pretty soon, at which point I'll probably sell on the 768MB card and upgrade to a 1GB 460 or even something more, but I figure I have to draw the line somewhere and £160 is where I've drawn it.
Thanks!