Windows 7: Your Opinion: Graphics Card

Hey gang,

I've dealt with IGPs for a long time and never gamed much on the PC because of it. To this day I don't have much desire to do so. The only game I really play is World of Warcraft and I might play Half-Life 2 or whatnot.



I'm looking for recommendations on a graphics card that can put out enough to max out (or come close) WoW on a 20" LCD @1600x900.

Ideas?

Thanks!

What is your budget?

That is a laptop according to Google.

Best I can find on the Sony web site it is an Intel on board graphics card and not replaceable.

There is no secondary grahics card listed or a driver for a secondary card.
It appears what you have is all there is.

If the graphics card is for a desktop not in your system specs how about some info on the desktop.
Mike

I forgot to mention I'm building a desktop rig. LOL, sorry!

I'd like to keep it under $150. If I have to sacrifice some quality, I'll survive. I was looking at this one Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GV-R567OC-1GI Rev2.0 Radeon HD 5670 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card to get me started. Basically my laptop is dying and I need to build SOMETHING up to catch it when it fails. I can't have any downtime. Building one will allow me to upgrade down the road (something i couldn't do with my laptop besides the RAM and HDD).

I also ran across this one. Newegg.com - PowerColor AX5770 1GBD5-H Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 CrossFireX Support Video Card

Converse!

I'm a fan of Nvidia - I use the Nvidia GeForce GTS250 1GB RAM (more than a year old) and play BFBC2 at maximum graphics quality at 1900x1080.

Newegg.com - Computer Hardware,Video Cards & Video Devices,Desktop Graphics / Video Cards,NVIDIA,GeForce GTS 400 series

GTS 450 runs $120-140 at Newegg. Supports PhysX

I'm using a Asus 460 the next step up. They get closer to $200.

@ jelyman

My vote goes PowerColor HD 5770 for $120, not only is it faster than the GTS 450 in 90% of games but it also requires less power.

Second would be GTS 450 if you find it for $120 or less. IMO PhysX is useless on a GTS 450 because it does not have enough juice to run both high settings + PhysX, you're better off going for pure power and high settings on the HD 5770. However, the GTS 450 has CuDA for applications and hardware accelerated DivX, Xvid and MPEG-4 which makes it worth $120 if you want these features and don't mind less performance in games. NVIDIA also has 3D which would cost you $200 for the glasses and a new 120hz 3D monitor.

In contrary the HD 5770 has Stream for videos and hardware accelerated MPEG2, H.264 and VC-1. AMD also has hardware accelerated video conversion built into the drivers and Eye of Infinity which is useless on a HD 5770 anyway like PhysX on a GTS 450. On top of all that the HD 5770 has a display-port output which is the future replacement for DVI.

Edit: Only a very small number of games support PhysX and with a GTS 450 @ 1600 x 900 you're not going to get 60 FPS max settings in these games and WoW is not one of them.

The 5670 is not a very good card. I had one and it struggled. I now have HIS IceQ 5 ATi 5770 and it is amazing for its price, comes pre overclocked at 875mhz core and 1250MHz memory.

gtx 260, ive been playing the latests games maxed out

As have I on my ATi 5770