Hey All

My folks graphics card died today. they had a HD2900.

anyway im not great with keeping up on the cards so looking for a decent midlevel card AMD or whatever. I was going to get them a Vapor X 5770 cause its what is is my desktop that goes online. Alas that card has been discontinued and the only one that is available "new" is a relativly new person on Ebay.

Id like to keep the cost sub £200 if possible. Was looking at this one, thoughts input advice welcome

5770 has been succeeded by the 7770, which is around 20% faster but runs much cooler and quieter and uses 20% less power. However, it is kind of overpriced, so it's only worth if it's on sale or after price drop. Sapphire just released a Vapor X version of the 7770 a few months ago:

http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1159&lid=1&pid=1523&leg=0

I'm pretty sure most of the mid/high-range Sapphire cards have a Vapor X cooler though, even if it does not explicity say it. All their Toxic and Flex cards have Vapor X for example.

Thankyou will look them up.

What about nvidia cards such as the 5-- series?

Well, for AMD the model numbering system has been consistent since the HD 3xxx series. First number is the generation. Current generation is HD 7xxx. Second number is the level of the card within that generation. You can't really compare between generations too much, though I understand not much changed between the 5xxx and 6xxx, though the 7xxx have improved quite a bit. Anyway, x6xx and x7xx level cards are generally considered mid-range (x5xx are usually considered the high-end of low-range cards). Third number is what features are enabled on the chip. xx30 level cards are always throttled way back in things like stream processors. xx50 are somewhat throttled back, and xx70 is usually the unencumbered model. xx90 cards usually come out afterwards for the x8xx and x9xx high-end cards and are actually more powerful hardware. The fourth number is always 0.

I'm not as familiar with nVidia, but I believe they use a similar numbering system now, except with three numbers instead of four, plus they still use letters to indicate relative power within each level. First number is generation, and they're at 6xx now. 60x to 63x are low-end. 64x to 65x are mid-range, and anything higher is high-end. GT is your standard card, GTX are the powerful cards, and GTS and GS are gimped and extremely gimped. Now, like I said, I don't know nVidia as well as AMD, but that is my understanding of how it works.

ignor this now please, got a phone call that he bought a 6770.

According to Toms Hardware, in July this was best value for money:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html