Graphic Cards GPU From US - GTX460 or HD6870??

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vpraveenis

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I am looking to upgrade my so so old nvidia 7600GS (running for 4 yrs now) and I will be sourcing it from US.

Budget: 200 US $

Narrowed down to: nVidia GTX460 (Overclocked Talon Attack version??) or HD6870 (current best price around 230$.. hoping for some sale/offer). Please suggest if any other model is worth considering.

Overclocking: Never tried. Will not overclock now. But may try in the future when it starts struggling

Games I Play - Call of Duty (all series), Medal of Honour, Prince of persia and other Action games like Just Cause 2. Will also start playing Assassins creed, Battle field and Tom Clancy series

Resolution - With the new card I will play at 1280x1024(My current 17" monitors max resolution). After a monitor upgrade after 6 months, would like to retain the existing card and play @ Full HD resolution and Max settings of all games released by 2010 at least.

Other Usage: HD Movie playback and General browsing. Not going to do any 3D work

Expected Lifetime - Next 3 years at least before next upgrade
Please share your views on following things
1.To get it now on Thanksgiving sale or during Christma/New year sale. The person will be coming to India around mid Jan. So the latest I can wait is till 3rd week of december.
2.Nvidia or ATI. I read in some forums about the over-heating on 6870. I cannot afford additional cooling solutions. Also considering 3D gaming in the near future, I Would like to have a 3D supporting card and get additional upgrades later.
3. Any new releases planned by these two companies or any price cuts expected in the near future?

Please pour in your suggestions :):)
 
The HD6870 is gonna cost you more than 200. Might as well get one of those HD5870s with local warranty from TE market.
 
Cards at that price point aren't worth the hassle of importing. You save about 2000 rupees on the net price but if u experience trouble and need to RMA it you could end up spending a lot more in the bargain.

Also if you are selling off the card in some time then the resale value also drops due to the lack of local warranty (assuming you sell it in a year or two)

Unless you are saving over 5k by buying it from the US or if the product is good but you dont get it or a similar kind here, then importing is worthwhile.
 
Thank you all for the suggestions. I am leaning towards GTX460 factory overclocked (Talon Attack) and saw a few benchmarks where it beat the stock GTX470. My primary requirement is gaming at HD settings with max settings of games that are available till date at least.

From a lot of reviews and benchmarks, I am still not understanding if GTX460 Talon Attack can play at HD resolution with max settings. It would be great if this is clarified.

On second thoughts, how easy/difficult is it to get a normal GTX460 1GB at 180$ and overclock it?? Are all 460's (EVGA/XFX/Sapphire etc..) equally good at overclocking or I should look at specific variant?
 
the talon attack can play almost all games @ full HD without much issue. Games like metro will struggle. Since you planning to keep the card for ~3 years, its hard to say if it can manage future games smoothly.
 
nitant said:
M ordering a Asus GTX460 768MB from newegg. Coming to 115$ after rebate/coupon.
Click to expand...
Wow! any chance someone else could get the same deal? (haven't got stuff from there so far but at these price am willing to try :)).
 
@OP

Check Tom's Best Graphics Cards For The Money article for a summarized account of what gfx card to buy.

I'd think you'd atleast a GTX470 for Full HD at max settings, esp considering future titles. Or you could go with the 460 and add a 2nd card in SLI when newer, more demanding titles are out.

Also, most US stores deliver in about a week, so if your contact is returning mid-jan you can easily order 1st week and still get it. First time i got something i was pretty worried about it reaching the person in time but it arrived with plenty to spare.
 
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Hi, Thanks for the link.

I understand that the stock gtx460 will not suffice for gaming @HD resolution for the next year or so. That is why I thought the factory overclocked talon attack would be better (and its around 214$ after rebates). There are very few information about the Talon attack card. Infact i could not find it in the msi website itself. But from the few previews, this seems to run as good as the gtx470 stock version. I felt that this would be a better VFM

Ofcourse, if the stock 460 is enough for HD gaming of currently released games, and if it is easy to overclock the stock gtx460 then I will get that for a cheaper cost. Kindly suggest if any revision of GTX460 can be easily overclocked or only specific variants from xfx/msi/gigabyte etc only can be overclocked.

As for my rest of the setup I have a C2D E7500 @ 2.93 GHz / Asus P5KPL-AM/PS Motherboard / 2GB Kingstond DDR2 / 17" BenQ LCD monitor (1280x1024) and my current nvidia 7600GS. Also I plan to upgrade the PSU along with the new card. Rest of the setup I am planning to upgrade stage by stage.
 
^^ Your RAM is gonna be an obvious bottleneck. And its highly recommended to get a PSU of the likes of a Corsair VX 550 or better.

I doubt PC games are gonna evolve as quickly as past thanks to the under powered consoles. I have a 3 year old mid end rig, and its handling almost all games at full HD at med-high resolutions..
 
Oh.. thanks for pointing out the MSI link. I missed it because it was listed under the HAWK branding. I will be getting a PSU (Corsair/Cooler Master) to go with the card. My current PSU stands no chance of running the card.

So at the 210$ price point, the 460 Talon Attack is a good buy?? I will go ahead and get it if there are no better options at that price :D
 
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