The PC (Personal Computer) is a highly configurable and upgradable gaming platform that, among home systems, sports the widest variety of control methods, largest library of games, and cutting edge graphics and sound capabilities.
You don't really need to upgrade from what you have now... the GTX 275 is still an almost-high-end card. I'd wait a year or so until the 5870 goes down in price. Or maybe you'd like to crossfire two GTX 275's? If you want to do all that crazy 3D triple monitor stuff Nvidia has been showing off, it might be worth it to get the 480 and 120 hz monitors, if you want to spend massive dollars.
" You don't really need to upgrade from what you have now. I'd wait a year or so until the 5870 goes down in price. Or maybe you'd like to crossfire two GTX 275's? "
you mean Sli btw, and then I would have to get a new Mobo with 2 PCIE slots.
After a year I'm pretty sure Sli and Crossfire will be gone thanks to Lucid anyway.
@sodiumCyclops: The technology behind Lucid Hydra delivers inherently bad scaling, and on top of that there's very little driver support that comes with it. Lucid will not be replacing anything anytime soon.
The GTX 275 should be fine for most games; as a rule of thumb, you should only upgrade if you can get something at least twice as strong. The GTX 480 is about twice as strong, and is actually pretty good value too with the only downsides being heat and wattage. Alternatively you could get a 5970 but that's not very good value for money, despite being very strong.
" @sodiumCyclops: The technology behind Lucid Hydra delivers inherently bad scaling, and on top of that there's very little driver support that comes with it. Lucid will not be replacing anything anytime soon. The GTX 275 should be fine for most games; as a rule of thumb, you should only upgrade if you can get something at least twice as strong. The GTX 480 is about twice as strong, and is actually pretty good value too with the only downsides being heat and wattage. Alternatively you could get a 5970 but that's not very good value for money, despite being very strong. "
Ok, so even with the 480 being out, I should wait for a price drop and get that later on?
You don't really even have to wait for a price drop, it's simply good value for what it is at $499. It outperforms the HD 5870 by 15-20% on average and costs about 15-20% more. Though if I were you I would get cooled version such as the EVGA FTW ediiton to negate the heat issues as well as getting a small speed boost.
But your current card is mid to high end so I'm not seeing a reason why you should upgrade at this point in time. Only "maxed out" type gamers require anything more, unless that's what you're going for.
" You don't really even have to wait for a price drop, it's simply good value for what it is at $499. It outperforms the HD 5870 by 15-20% on average and costs about 15-20% more. Though if I were you I would get cooled version such as the EVGA FTW ediiton to negate the heat issues as well as getting a small speed boost. But your current card is mid to high end so I'm not seeing a reason why you should upgrade at this point in time. "
Ok, thanks for the tip.
I live in New Zealand btw so $499 does not directly translate to our currency without a jump in over all price ($499 USD should be $700 NZD), so it actually is more like $1050.
Unless of course, I buy it from the US and ship it over here.
I'd recommened getting the 5870 you can get them for around $600 at the moment. As you said the 480 is coming out in the $1000 dollar range and I don't think its worth it. The 480's a faster card but not 400+ dollars faster. Plus the higher power consumption/heat and noise may be a issue for you. I know I had to lower my overclock this summer because it was getting to hot. Plus the room with my computer was getting hella hot.
I think it's better to spend the money on something else like a nice SSD or some Durgers.
I would go with a 5870. To me, Nvidia's new cards aren't really worth the crazy power consumption and heat, not to mention the price. If you're looking at the 480 make sure your PSU is powerful enough. Hardware Canucks said something like 250 Watts under load was drawn from the card. Not to mention it runs at 95 degrees Celcius (!!!) under load. Even with liquid cooling that seems a little high.
No matter what you pick out of the current mid-high end cards you will end up with a card that can run basically anything maxed so it's down to price or brand preference at this point.
no reason to upgrade from a 275. i have the same card and haven't encountered a game that i wasn't able to play at decent, if not the highest, settings. also the 470 and 480 seem a little silly atm and i personally am going to wait till they have a second go at a fermi card.
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