Which card should I get? GTX 260 ot 275, Nvidia or ATI? Help!
 

I'm in the market for a new video card. The reasoning is that I'd like to play Modern Warfare 2 when it comes out on max settings, at my highest resolution, full HD. Here are the relavent components of my current system:

Motherboard: NFORCE 680i LT SLI
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz
RAM: 4GB OCZ DDR2 667 (PC2-5300)
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX 768 MBytes

I'm torn on what card to get right now. The GTX 260 looks promising, but the 275 is only slightly more expensive, and should perform better (I think). If I get an NVIDIA card, I can use my 8800 GTX as a dedicated PhysX controller to get a boost in any future games that support it.

However, there's the ATI side of the bridge, which I know less about. Apparently ATI is the leader right now in performance for dollar.

I'm looking to spend MAXIMUM $300 on the graphics card, but the cheaper the better. I'm in Canada, so any links you give would be great if they were from Tigerdirect.ca, NCIX.com, or newegg.ca.

Any advice is a great help, as I've been trying to figure this out for ages.

Thanks,

Mike

Cheapest way to make your PC last longer would be to find another 8800 and SLI them. it'll be cheaper then a GTX260 and you'll be way ahead for performance.

Or get a GTX260 now and a second one later to SLI them if your power supply can do it.

With a little luck you could probably find 2 GTX260 for 300$ used.

I was in the same boat as you and ended up getting a 2nd GTX260 in SLI. When my Q6600@3.2 and my 260GTXs in SLI will be outdated to play games i'll just build a new machine, I dont expect that to be too soon however.

Well, the GTX 275 is a step up from the GTX 260. The HD4890's performance is similar to the GTX 275, but is said to overclock better(I can vouch it overclocks very well), it is also usually cheaper than the GTX 275. There is the HD5870 which came out and is over your budget, but the HD5850 which is supposed to come out very soon is supposed to be 300$.

If I were you, I would probably consider selling your current GPU and just getting an HD4890 (although I'd wait until the 5850 comes out to see how it compares), unless the GTX 260 fits your needs.

I don't agree at all. 8800GTX's are still being sold at rather ridiculous prices and they don't beat a GTX260 by much. Also SLI is a hassle and 1 card is better to have.

What resolution do you run?

As the 8800GTX still to this day isn't THAT slow of a card, and I think it will do fine with MW2 on max settings. Personally I'd say your CPU is holding back the GTX, 2.4GHz is rather slow since games don't use quad-cores effectively, mainly just 1 core.

I'd try and overclock your CPU to 3.2GHz (or higher), along with overclocking your GTX.

My resolution is 1920x1080.

I've never overclocked before, and don't have any 3rd party cooling products. How risky is overclocking, and will the heat be an issue?

Any guides lying around?

I would say get a GTX275 and a CPU cooler (CM 212+ is very cheap). If you really want to run it at max settings at that res then you need at LEAST a 260 and a 275 would be a safer bet. You can't tell till the game comes out but to be safe I would spend the bit more on a 275. Or consider a 4890/4870.

GTX 275 is the card to have if you can spend ~$250, imo.