I have a love/hate relationship with ATI/NVidia as I too am looking forward to owning an HD 5850 soon to replace my GeForce 9800GTX. Hopefully I'll have similar results to Willem, as for some reason L4D2 does not seem to run as fast as I thought it would in my new computer. 

Oh right, L4D2 was another game I tried .. max'd out, runs amazingly well! I can't speak for the other models, but the ATI 5870 is a god-like video card. 

With my 8800 GTS 512Mb, but I got a 5850 and I game @ 1080x1920 and everything i maxed out (even crysis), and my editors work and everything.

Also Catalyst Controll Center allows for some overclocking, but you can use third party software to overclock even further than CCC will allow you. And these 58XX cards overclock up to 40%.

The 5850 is a real good value for money buy, and the 5870 is compared to GTX 470/80.

Just buy one, you wont be dissapointed :) 

I have been buying ATI cards for a while now... they're great. I have a 4870 at the moment and I love it. Their newer cards have great performance for a good price, supposedly the power consumption is low and the cards are quiet.

The driver support is good, they release a new set every month with performance improvements and bug fixes. I can't recall ever having any major problems with any games or apps, honestly (I'm sure it happens but I haven't come across anything myself).

In short, the newer cards are great and the driver support is good. Given your comments above I'd say just get one. 

After reading some reviews, I ended up placing an order for the Sapphire HD 5850 TOXIC (see one of the reviews here: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1238/1/.

The fact that it's factory overclocked, averaging a 9% performance increase over the reference card in addition to using a non-reference HSF that simulatenously results in noticably lower load temperatures won me over pretty big. 

I have a geforce 5900, i knew the 50's would eventually come back into fashion! 

Jago that's the one I wanted but it was sold out on newegg :( Maybe by the time I get some money it'll be back in stock and we can be videocard bros :D 

Depending on your PSU you can have fun with AMD GPU Clock Tool, MSI Afterburner and Furmark. And overclock the shIIIIIT out of it!

JF - Get a 5970!!! 

That Nvidia used to have better OpenGL drivers than ATI. Not sure if that is still the case. 

Oh it sure is. 

But Intel has the best!

I have to try a driver roll-back to see if I can get geometry picking to work again. On the plus side the latest drivers actually passed all the tests for OpenGL 2.1 compatibility for the first time. 

Budget: �800 max TOTAL (including updated GFX card).

Primary use: Gaming, goat p0rn.

Important things: Reliability, simplicity, gaming suitability.

Must include: Monitor, good GFX card (even if bought seperately)

Have bought Evesham in the past and been happy with them but they've disappeared now. Considering Dell and HP, subject to factors above. Advice please. Jago you recommended Overclockers, are they GOOD as well as fast?? 

asus p6t mobo, i7 950 (massive price reduction just happened, so its only 230ish) any 6gb ddr3 3way kit. Nvidia 460gtx 1gb. Perhaps a new psu if you need it. Should be around 600-650 for the lot. 

Pre-built stuff please, word. I need everything, literally the only things that are still usable are the keyboard/mouse and sound card. I'm upgrding from '03 shizzle, yo. 

Why don't you just buy your parts and build it yourself? I don't see how that isn't simple. 

aria.co.uk

They are in Manchester, there general prices are unbeatable from my (recent and varied) experience. Be sure to check the Superspecials part.

Something like this:

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/Gladiator+Asgard+Aurora+Intel+i5+760+NVIDIA+GTX+460+Gaming+PC+?productId=40875

But get them to include a copy of Win7 and possibly upgrade the 768MB version of the GTX460 with a 1GB version.


But yeah - Shambler - Build it yourself. Get the i7 950 CPU, and 6Gb of XMS3 PC12800, and a 1TB HDD, get one of those new OCZ PSU's (good VFM), a bloody Coolermaster Elite case, and a GTX460 1GB, a Gigabyte motherboard, and built it yourself. There's not that much to screw up. The CPU's don't even have pins on the bottom anymore :) And the socket 1366 motherboards support SLI and Crossife. 

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/newsletter?productId=40874&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Gladiator+Asgard+Aurora+AMD+X4+635+NVIDIA+GTX+460+Gaming+PC&utm_campaign=newsletter220910 

Jago and Choado bullied me into:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-237-OK
w/ GTX 460 upgrade
+
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-033-BQ&groupid=17&catid=510&subcat=

Winter o' gaming here we come. 

I havent paid any attention to the latest video cards but know that sequential numbering doesnt really mean sequential quality. Which of these is a good card, ie can play most games at a reasonable resolution, and is good value for money?

Nvidia s250
nvidia s450
nvidia gtx 465
nviia gtx 47
ati 5570
ati 5670
ati 5770


And monitors too:

21.5 LG E2240V
21.5 Samsung bx2240
24" samsung bx2440

thanks, any help would be appreciated. 

shows the 24" samsung bx2440 looking reasonable. Thoughts? 

The 5770 is good, the GTX460 is better :)

Dont get any of the other ones.

The GTX460 is quite power efficient. The others GeForces arent 

Haven't really pushed it yet but it seems fine. Jago reccommended it so you can blame him too. Also it has some massive heatsink action on it. 

but just some clarification, the system I was looking at has a gtx 465, not 460. Is that different/better to the 460? 

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/297725-15-tomshardware

TBF it's all in here.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1360/1/

There's power consumption, and performance. Doesn't look like a great difference. But the 460 is basically slightly less power hungry, overclocks better, and just as powerful as the 465. So get a 460 if you can, gbut if not the 465 is prob gonna be just as fine :) 

will check those links out later.