[xactly]

My final choice on the motherboard has been settled to a GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P and an INTEL E6700 processor. For my birthday I will get a High – end graphics card; this is my main area of knowledge but after looking at many contradicting benchmark results and opinions I am just as confused as when I started.

I had narrowed it down to the HIS 4850 512mb IceQ 4 and then realised for an extra £30 ($44 for the Americans) I could purchase an ATI / AMD HD 4870. This brought the final price to £190 ($280).

After reading yet more reviews and benchmark results I realised there was a strong competitor from NVIDIA; the GTX 260 (216 Cores). This made things more confusing so I have done some more research and the cheapest branded GTX 260 I can purchase is an XFX GeForce 260 GTX 896MB.

I then researched the best graphics card for a monitor resolution of 1280x1024. I found that the extra VRAM is helpful at higher resolutions such as 1920x1080 and 2560x1600, (Higher resolution textures thus more memory needed) which are available on monitors such as 24" and upwards which is extremely unlikely (maybe 1680x1050 in a year or two though).

I was intending to get the 512mb version of the 4870 but then considered the 1GB version ( turns out it uses higher latencies though, and more memory is only helpful at really high resolutions) so I am now back to the 512mb version.

Should I purchase the:

XFX GeForce 260 GTX 896MB (216 cores) £207

Or

XFX Radeon HD 4870 512MB £209

Or

Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 512MB £186

[SocialWarfare]

XFX 4870
Double Lifetime warranty ftw

[NeuroDrive]

Well I am currently using the Sapphire HD Radeon 4850 512 MB and it is perfect. Good value for money and gets good benchmarks. Can handle anything out today with a good FPS.

It is just depending on the factor of money being an issue?

[xactly]

I am leaned towards the XFX right now, I personally do not care that much about warranty( so long as it has a minimum of 3 years); by next year i will probably be upgrading again anyway. Also the PCB of the XFX is black which would contrast much better with the PCB of the GA-EP45-UD3P rather than a bright red one wouldn't it?

[Carbon]

There is no reason to buy a 512MB 4870. At any res the 260 or 4870 would be useful 512MB is too little.

However, I would buy a new monitor before you buy either, because 1280x1024 is hardly demanding for even a 4850.

[xactly]

Thanks for all the replies and voting by the way.

As much as I would love to buy a new monitor there is not enough money in my budget.

This is currently shared between Christmas (2008) and my Birthday; soon to come, so the budget is about £370 ($550). I can put £45 ($66) towards it meaning the final price would come to £320 - £330 ($470 - $485). The money left will not come close to buying a monitor of preference, so I will hold out until Christmas ( 2009 ) and get a 22" - 24" (1680x1050 - 1920x1080) which will have a built in HDMI for my 360.

I could get the monitor for my birthday along with the motherboard, processor and memory and then get ...... 2 4870's in Crossfire for Christmas (2009) maybe (Intel chipset only carries Crossfire support).

I am just wondering though is the 8800GT OC fine for my resolution until then?

What do you guys think I should do?