NZFF

Hiya,

I want to know out of the following cards, Which one is the best as I can get some graphics cards for some good deals but don't know which one to go for so I thought I would ask you guys as the main use for this card would be FSX.

Grapics Cards:

ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB graphics card $330
ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB graphics card $490
ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB graphics card $570
Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 896MB $570
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 1024MB DDR3 $860
ATI Radeon HD 4870X2 2GB DUAL GPU PCI Express card $995

Commnets would be appreciated

My price budget at this stage is under $600 and I am trying to find the best card for the buck as my current 9600GT is awful

What's your CPU?

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.00GHZ
3GB 800MHZ Ram

So everything in my PC is great for me at the moment. My CPU is going to be overclocked to 3.66GHZ soon so it's just my graphics card that is slowing me down at the moment. Power Supply is fine.

Just trying to find out whats the best graphics card

Edit: My Graphics card is a Nvidia Geforce 9600GT 512 MB

You say you have a 9600, this being the Radeon 9600 of quite afew years ago? If so, this is an AGP card, so you need to replace it with another AGP card. Not sure whether the ones you've listed are or not.

Provided you have a quality MB and nice fast RAM, any of those cards would make a good match. The order you've listed them is close to how I'd list their performance, although I'd prefer the 1GB 4870 over the GTX260.

However I'm always a bit wary of statements like 'my current 9600GT is awful'. Are you sure it is the GPU which is giving you awful performance? It's no good replacing the GPU only to find that you still need to tweak your system to make it run full-speed.

The GTX 280/260 has a lot going for it.....quite future proof as well.

I'm not sure I would recommend the ATI's as their drivers aren't very good for the 4800 series ATM

think u need motherboard that support PCI 2.0 if you get the new Geforce cards

There is a 260+, which compares very well with the 1GB 4870. I'd assume that the card you are looking at for that price doesn't have the '+' designation, which is why I prefer the 4870.

Thanks foryour suggestions guys,

That's what I was thinking. I am not really keen on ATI but the 4870 1GB card is cheaper than the GTX 280 and I bet that will have great performance nearly as good as the GTX 280 and the price is cheaper. I am still confused on what brand ATI or Nvidia??

But the 4870 1Gb is alot cheaper and I think I would get great performance out of it

ive used both ATI and nvidia, and as long as you get a good ATI card they are ok

4870HD 1gb would be best for waht your looking for and willing to pay etc

Meh, I will still think about it.
4870 1 GB looks the best fro the price and is a powerful card

Have a look over at Tom's Hardware and see what he thinks of the 4870.he gave it a good write up,and he has checked out some of those others that you mentioned as well

Just recaping regarding ATI drivers. Guys who have them on here. You have no isues wuth your graphics??
Everything is running ncie?? or are there some issues with ATI cards and FSX??