F1 2011 Moving from playing on PS3 to PC.. Graphics Card Advice Needed

[Superman]

Hi all,

I've played both the 2010 and 2011 game on the PS3 and with the better graphics and the ability to mod things on the PC, I'd like to start playing it on the PC.

Now, when I originally built my PC, it wasn't intending to use the computer to play graphics intensive games (typical I know!) and as such I was donated a graphics card (NVIDIA GeGorce 7900 GT/GTO) from a friend which doesn't look good enough for F1 2011.

As there are a lot of people who play on the PC - I'm turning to you for advice on what would be a suitable graphics card which will deliver better graphics but not uber expensive (budget would be below £200). Plus, I only got a 550W power pack which could do with upgrading too.

I think my processor (AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2GHz) and RAM (4GB DDR3) is sufficient.

Thanks in advance for all replies.

 

[Apex1972]

When buying a card you should think to the future, requirements on games vary massively and increase every year. Bare in mind that multiplatform games that are developed primarily for the console (Battlefield 3, F1 2011, Modern Warfare, Dirt 3 etc) will be really light on processor usage, these games rely heavily on graphics card oomph and processor power means little. Games developed for the PC (example, World of Warcraft, iRacing) rely much more on the processor and will benefit a lot more from it.

An example - I ran an Athlon 64 FX60 (about 5 years ago a £1000 processor), 2gb of DDR1 and a Radeon HD3870. I played decently games like Crysis 2, Battlefield BC2, Dirt 2, Dirt 3, F1 2010 etc (multiplatform), while I had slight issues in the Cataclysm expansion of WoW (heavy effected and busy areas saw massive fps drops) and iRacing (had to dial things down as i got slowdown during races with many cars, along with bluescreen freezes and crashes). I then upgraded to an Intel i7 2600k processor with 16gb Corsair Vengeance ram.... But had to settle with the same graphics card.

The result? The multiplatform game performance pretty much stayed the same, no real improvement at all from the upgrade, where as Cataclysm WoW and iRacing had seen massive improvements, the Jump of 10fps - 60fps in WoW heavy areas and iRacing now running well over 200fps.

Generally console games (because they are developed for the weak console systems) will run on almost anything with the right settings, and other than upgrading your graphics card you won't see a difference, while PC specific developed games require a lot more from your processor, which to an extent can allow you to get away with a much weaker graphics card if you have a meaty processor (my wow/iracing example).


I'm not really sure what the point of my post was, but if you were originally going to spend £200 then do it, the Radeon 6850 might do alright but the reviews are already stating the limitations of the sub £200 cards, how long until you find yourself needing to upgrade again? the 6950 if you can afford it is a much faster card and would last you longer, it is in the same league as my HD3870 was a few years ago, which is still serving me well.


Albiet with that said, I just spent a lot of time researching cards while choosing between the HD6970 and GTX570, I eventually went for the HD6970 and ordered it tonight, mostly choose the Radeon because it was cheaper, the two cards seem roughly equal.

so, why is f1 2011 so cpu hungry then? it is a straight console port from hell. on another note. i was getting pretty bad skipping frames until I swapped my 1333mhz ram of 2x4 gig to 1600mhz of 4x2 gig. i can now overclock my e8500 to a 3.8. its not quite stable yet i think my temps are getting close to 70c under load so I am not gonna play until i get a liquid cooling system. I did a couple laps testing with me starting near the back of the grid at melbourne and wow, its like a new game. this is on a 550ti ocd to 1000mhz core.

 

[Ryan Vickery]

so, why is f1 2011 so cpu hungry then? it is a straight console port from hell. on another note. i was getting pretty bad skipping frames until I swapped my 1333mhz ram of 2x4 gig to 1600mhz of 4x2 gig. i can now overclock my e8500 to a 3.8. its not quite stable yet i think my temps are getting close to 70c under load so I am not gonna play until i get a liquid cooling system. I did a couple laps testing with me starting near the back of the grid at melbourne and wow, its like a new game. this is on a 550ti ocd to 1000mhz core.

F1 2011 isnt CPU hungry, I've run the game on the old Athlon FX60 with 2gbDDR1 and there was very little difference in performance to the I7 2600k that I have currently. F1 2011 isnt the same situation as Battlefield 3 (this game litterally does not care what processor you use) and will vary, but compared to pc developed games, increasing your processor speed won't improve your performance anywhere near as much. Obviously graphics card bottleneck will play some part on my end (with the HD3870), but then you could have been having some conflict issue that caused the problems you had originally. There are such a massive variable of things that can cause these things with a PC, which is why many people shy away from it and play consoles.

With that said, a rule of thumb is that for multiplatform games, processor power is far less important than it is for games specifically designed for the PC.


Crysis 2 compared to the original Crysis is perhaps the best example. Crysis 2 has higher quality graphics but is optimised for the consoles, it will run on a lower spec computer than the original Crysis game and is much less CPU hungry. On my old computer at 1920x1080 resolution on high settings (DX9) I was getting 50-60fps, the same computer at that resolution and quality would struggle to go past 20-30fps on Crysis 1. With that said, when I upgraded my processor, my Crysis one performance increased noticeably, the Crysis 2 remained pretty much the same.

 

[Kristian Nenov]

Your post is very misleading and misinformative. I swapped to ATI for these reasons.

2004 I bought a computer, came with the Geforce 6800GT graphics card (£200+ worth at the time), it died. I got it replaced under warrenty with a new Geforce 6800GT (different brand), I can't remember how long it lasted but it wasnt very long, one of the fans broke and was making a horrific noise. I decided to just buy a new card. So around 2006 as it was I built a full new system with a Geforce 7900GT, this card lasted a year before it started making crazy artifacts in games and overheating, it was screwed. So then I decided after a long history of NVIDIA usage to try an ATI card, it was 2007 and I bought the ATI (AMD?) Radeon HD3870.

The card still works perfect, it still plays all the latest games (albiet on lower settings with some newer ones) and i've not had a single issue with it. The reviews (toms hardware) Rate all of the Radeons as the best cards in every price range up to the £270 mark (Where the GTX570 comes in).

If you're not going to buy the GTX570 or better then there is no reason to really buy an NVIDIA because you get more for your money with AMD. Even in the case of the GTX570/580 it is a close battle between that and the HD6970 with the Nvidia cards performing better while under MSAA effects, but the HD6970 in some titles (especially using hardware forced AA) is outperforming even the more expensive GTX580, where as in other titles (especially physX titles, and those that force MSAA on ultra settings, BF3 currently does this) the GTX570 will outperform the HD6970.

Down in the sub £200 range there is no reason to buy an NVIDIA, and with the HD6950 coming in at under £200 I can't see why you would go with anything else. The HD6950 can no longer be bios flashed with the HD6970 drivers to upgrade the card, the newer boards do not have the bios switch and you would be hard pushed to find a first edition board now, if you do it will be much more expensive anyway.

Well it's obviously down to luck. I have 1 7 years old Nvidia 5200 FX in the other room and it still works without any problems. It actually replaced the ATI that died for no time. You probably have bought Gigabyte cards. They usually die the fastest. I actually haven't killed a Nvidia card in my life. This 5200 FX is the oldest one I have, then I bought one 7300 GT or something like that, worked before few years when I last used it. This 9600 GT is 3 years old (I'm not sure but it should be around 3 years) and still doesn't have a problem. One friend by the way has an ATI card and he says it's dieing. It's not very new, it has a couple of years but I'm sure my 7300 GT is newer.

And when you want performance, the most expensive ATI cards can bring you better performance than some of the Nvidia cards but they can't deliver you the same quality. ATI has neither PhysX nor DX 11 Tesselation. But the ATI actually has manually addable MSAA which I actually don't think I'll use even once. All of the new games have it (as far as I know or probably the games I play..) and the old games look quite the same as bad as with or without it. So it's actually unusable.

And by the way, from where I buy everything, the 560 Ti is cheaper than the 6950 by over 50$. And we recently had a very good offer of GTX 480 for 250$ which is (for me) a great deal. And yes, they've probably been just cleaning their storehouse..

Everyone has an opinion, I don't want to start an argument with anybody here for such things. I'm suggesting him a Nvidia, you're suggesting him an ATI. That's it.

 

[Ryan Vickery]

Well it's obviously down to luck. I have 1 7 years old Nvidia 5200 FX in the other room and it still works without any problems. It actually replaced the ATI that died for no time. You probably have bought Gigabyte cards. They usually die the fastest. I actually haven't killed a Nvidia card in my life. This 5200 FX is the oldest one I have, then I bought one 7300 GT or something like that, worked before few years when I last used it. This 9600 GT is 3 years old (I'm not sure but it should be around 3 years) and still doesn't have a problem. One friend by the way has an ATI card and he says it's dieing. It's not very new, it has a couple of years but I'm sure my 7300 GT is newer.

And when you want performance, the most expensive ATI cards can bring you better performance than some of the Nvidia cards but they can't deliver you the same quality. ATI has neither PhysX nor DX 11 Tesselation. But the ATI actually has manually addable MSAA which I actually don't think I'll use even once. All of the new games have it (as far as I know or probably the games I play..) and the old games look quite the same as bad as with or without it. So it's actually unusable.

And by the way, from where I buy everything, the 560 Ti is cheaper than the 6950 by over 50$. And we recently had a very good offer of GTX 480 for 250$ which is (for me) a great deal. And yes, they've probably been just cleaning their storehouse..

Everyone has an opinion, I don't want to start an argument with anybody here for such things. I'm suggesting him a Nvidia, you're suggesting him an ATI. That's it.

I can go one better.

Currently I have a Geforce2MX, Geforce 2Ti, Geforce 3Ti200 and a Geforce 6600GT that all still work. (from different systems in my household over the years). As for the Tesselation, I received my shiny new HD6970 today and looking at the drivers settings I can see that it DOES appear to have the Tesselation on this new driver set.

Not to mention I found this specifically about the version I bought "The PowerColor Radeon HD 6970 features enhanced DirectX 11 tessellation effects". Which clears that one up.


The GTX560Ti is the same price (or more expensive, depending), but is also slower from the tests. Let us not forget the OP said his budget was £200 and the HD6950 would cost £189.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6950-1gb-vs-geforce-gtx-560-ti-review/8 - Comparison of the two.

 

[Kristian Nenov]

I can go one better.

Currently I have a Geforce2MX, Geforce 2Ti, Geforce 3Ti200 and a Geforce 6600GT that all still work. (from different systems in my household over the years). As for the Tesselation, I received my shiny new HD6970 today and looking at the drivers settings I can see that it DOES appear to have the Tesselation on this new driver set.

Not to mention I found this specifically about the version I bought "The PowerColor Radeon HD 6970 features enhanced DirectX 11 tessellation effects". Which clears that one up.


The GTX560Ti is the same price (or more expensive, depending), but is also slower from the tests. Let us not forget the OP said his budget was £200 and the HD6950 would cost £189.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6950-1gb-vs-geforce-gtx-560-ti-review/8 - Comparison of the two.

As I said, I don't want to make arguments for such things. You think ATI is better, I think Nvidia is better. Everybody has his likings, I don't have the right to say anything to you, the same goes for you too. And it obviously depends on the country you're in as I see because in Bulgaria the 560 Ti is cheaper than the 6950. (I'm from Bulgaria..)

I see you've given me link so I'll give you one too.

http://www.hwcompare.com/8888/geforce-gtx-560-ti-vs-radeon-hd-6950-2gb/

As you can see the difference is just not noticeable. I've just had problems with ATI card(s) and I don't like them. You've had problems with Nvidia cards and you don't like them. We probably both just haven't had luck. Maybe the brands are equal. Nvidia cards are usually more expensive if you check amazon.com or something like that but in Bulgaria, it's just not like that. I didn't really know that ATI cards have Tesselation but obviously they've finally made it. And you said it by yourself, you have 4 old Nvidia cards that still work. They're obviously good quality. You said that you have an old ATI card too. Which means they're quite the same. The only thing that ATI is missing at the moment is PhysX. It's used by a few games for now but actually brings awesome effects! I bet ATI will counterattack with something similar soon and again it will be the same. The problem will be that some of the games will support PhysX effects and some of the games will support the (probably?) future ATI version of the PhysX.


@Superman, I see you have an AMD CPU, now AMD and ATI are 1 brand so you MAY have some advantage if you buy an ATI card. I'm not sure about that, it may be just ATI fanboys trying to make ATI cards look better. Just look for the prices in your country and you can probably tell us for £200 what you can get and we'll give you suggestions.

 

[Ryan Vickery]

I don't dislike Nvidia, I was very close to buying one, I just think that in his price range the Radeon is a better choice. There would not be any advantage to him having an AMD (Ati) card with his AMD processor. Let us not forget that you yourself mentioned that the image quality was worse on the Radeons, but the tests in the link show otherwise. You also said that the Radeon does not have DX11 Tesselation, which was again wrong. So you're pulling things out of an imaginary hat.

Both card companies have a few things that they will do better, different situations where one card company will outdo the other, but generally side by side the cards (HD6970 vs GTX570 for example) are relatively equal, so unless you specifically want to play a game where one card considerably outperforms the other the main factor should be price.

The fact is you can't go wrong with either card company.


As for the PhysX, there are only a very small list of games that use it, and to get the most out of it you really need to have a second card that takes care of the PhysX side of things. I have also heard of people running a Radeon for graphics and having an Nvidia card taking care of the PhysX.. Hell, that sounds hard to believe even on my side, I'd love to learn more about it.

 

[Kristian Nenov]

I don't dislike Nvidia, I was very close to buying one, I just think that in his price range the Radeon is a better choice. There would not be any advantage to him having an AMD (Ati) card with his AMD processor. Let us not forget that you yourself mentioned that the image quality was worse on the Radeons, but the tests in the link show otherwise. You also said that the Radeon does not have DX11 Tesselation, which was again wrong. So you're pulling things out of an imaginary hat.

Both card companies have a few things that they will do better, different situations where one card company will outdo the other, but generally side by side the cards (HD6970 vs GTX570 for example) are relatively equal, so unless you specifically want to play a game where one card considerably outperforms the other the main factor should be price.

The fact is you can't go wrong with either card company.


As for the PhysX, there are only a very small list of games that use it, and to get the most out of it you really need to have a second card that takes care of the PhysX side of things. I have also heard of people running a Radeon for graphics and having an Nvidia card taking care of the PhysX.. Hell, that sounds hard to believe even on my side, I'd love to learn more about it.

I'm telling you what I've heard. I told you, my last ATI card was years ago. I think it wasn't even DX 9. But I'm not sure. As for Tesselation I've searched maybe half an year ago at the ATI site to see if they have it and I didn't found it. The only thing that I'm sure about is that the ATI cards have a bad let's call it "mapping" because I don't know how is it called in English. If you compare 2 cards (ATI & Nvidia of course) you'll see that the ATI has a LOT more than the Nvidia at the hardware side but they're quite equal on their performance. This means that the Nvidia card uses it's "power" in a better way.

As for PhysX, I already told that it's just a few games. Actually the only game that I play and has PhysX is Mafia 2. It's just incredible! But of course the game looks very good without it too. I've heard too that you can put a Nvidia card for PhysX when you have an ATI but I've read a few topics over the past month that with the latest drivers you actually can't. I don't know if it's lies, you have an ATI card and you should try. For PhysX card by the way, you can get a very small card for 50-100$ which will do alright. And the 500 GTX Series I think will do OK without PhysX card and with PhysX on "High".

You by the way said that a GTX 570 and a HD6970 will be equal. But when you're talking about the BEST card out there, Nvidia has it and actually your post kind of proves it. GTX 580/590 are just an era ahead. Which makes them cost as much as 1 used car in a good condition but this proves it that Nvidia can make better cards. The problem is that they put too high prices. It's like Intel vs AMD. Intel are maybe not 1 but 2 eras' ahead of AMD but the price of their processors is just insane. Of course if you want better quality you'll buy an Intel but for a casual user is always better to get an AMD. I'm usually an Intel fan but we were making a computer for my aunt and just because I know she won't have what to do to use the full potential of it, I choose an AMD just because it was cheaper. Of course Integrated video card went there too but I'd probably go with an ATI if I had to buy one again just because it's cheaper. Doesn't matter. I went to her this summer and as for the computer you can really notice the difference between an AMD and Intel. The AMD is 2x2,6 GHz if I remember well and it's just a lot lower in terms of performance from my old PC which was with 2x1,8GHz Intel. There were just lag spikes and s**ts. It's just not good enough. (we're not talking about games here..). So as for the ATI/Nvidia battle, it's quite the same. ATI gives better prices on their High End cards (without counting my country ) and that's what gets most people frustrated and that's why many people hate Nvidia. They ARE overrating theirselves. That's the thing I don't like about Nvidia. As for ATI, they're the newer brand when it comes down to making GPU's. (As far as I know.. Nvidia are from 1993 and ATI makes video cards from 1995). This probably makes them put higher prices. They may be thinking that there's still no one else in the business.


So.. He has £200. Here are his choices:

2GB Cards:

GTX 560 Ti 2GB: Just £14 over what he has which I don't think will be a problem..
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Palit-Nvi...raphics_Video_TV_Cards_TW&hash=item5ae33e4756

ATI Radeon HD 6950: Just £9 over what he has which I think won't be a problem..
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VTX3D-AMD...raphics_Video_TV_Cards_TW&hash=item1e6704f352

1GB Cards:

Firstly from Ebay:
GTX 560 Ti.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Asus-Gefo...raphics_Video_TV_Cards_TW&hash=item20bddec47b

HD6950
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Asus-ATI-...raphics_Video_TV_Cards_TW&hash=item20be172bc6

Amazon:
GTX 560 Ti:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-GeForc...R8DA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1320152144&sr=8-2

HD6950:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/XFX-Radeon-...5AT0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1320152174&sr=8-3


Now you should know that the ATI uses more PSU power. I don't know if your 550W PSU will work with even 1 of them but this is written in the Nvidia site:

Minimum System Power Requirement: 500(W)

I don't know on what kind of system they suggest these 500W.. That's the problem..


The same is written in the ATI site:

500 Watt or greater power supply with two 75W 6-pin PCI Express® power connectors recommended

The ATI card uses 200W, the Nvidia uses 170W. 30W won't probably make a difference but if your PSU will be on the limit, it may prevent some unlikely PC turning offs.

Oh and by the way, each game is made for Nvidia OR ATI. It will run on both but it will always run better on one of them. I don't know about F1 2010/11 but you should check some benchmarks on the games you're planning to play. And by the way, on what resolution you're going to play on?

You should also check this site:
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

Note that 4 cores CPU is still 1 physical CPU!

And as Ryan said.

You can't go wrong with either card companies. You can see 2 cards, same prices, same performance. One has MSAA the other has PhysX. You should maybe choose them by their color! Red vs Green! (That was a joke of course..)

 

[Lenard Schaeffler]

Arguments and misinformation with very little attempting at helping the OP, how can anyone recommend a "good for the money, well performing" card, without even knowing the resolution he is playing at?

OP, first and foremost, what resolution, how many screens?

kristiannn you should be ashamed, you want to participate in the AMD/Intel/Nvidia wars go to overclock, [H] or some other forum full of tech heads willing to have the battle, tell you what, I will see you there. And just as a heads up, to illustrate that you know what you are talking about, should try to get the name right, the ATI brand was dropped, all CPU's and GPU's are branded AMD as of the 30th of Aug '10

 

[Ryan Vickery]

Kristian, you're missing out that AMD has a flagship card the HD6990 which as outperformed the GTX590 on many tests, and is still considered the fastest card on the market. HOWEVER, the GTX590 uses less power and is considerably quieter. As for the GTX580, it is a much more expensive card than the HD6970, I could buy a HD6970 + HD6950 and run them in crossfire for the same price, and even with that said in a few (limited albiet) situations the HD6970 was outperforming the GTX580 on its own in the tests.


I stand by what I said, ebuyer has a 2GB HD6950 for £189, price and performance wise you can't beat that unless you can find me a GTX560ti for £188 .



As for AMD vs Intel - I used to use an AMD Athlon FX60 - I used it because at the time it was the best, but when I came around this time Intel we're the best at the high end, so I bought an I7 2600k. I generally don't care what brand I buy, I swapped to ATI after 3 dying Nvidia cards, but I would buy an NVidia card again, the price and performance just has to fall into the right bracket.


Lastly, but without sounding biased (not possible ^^) in the tests, F1 2010 that was tested favoured the AMD cards.

 

[Superman]

Thanks for all of the comments above and sharing your experiences - it is much appreciated (although it seems like it's opened a can of worms in some ways!)

As people have asked for a few more details...
My screen resolution is 1920 x 1080 on a Samsung SynchMaster P2250
I'll be only playing on this single screen.

 

[Ryan Vickery]

If you get time, check out this guys youtube channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/TimeToLiveCustoms

He builds computers and reviews almost everything that comes on to the market, can help you with your choice perhaps. You can find videos on both the Nvidia GTX560ti and the AMD HD6950.

 

[Kristian Nenov]

Arguments and misinformation with very little attempting at helping the OP, how can anyone recommend a "good for the money, well performing" card, without even knowing the resolution he is playing at?

OP, first and foremost, what resolution, how many screens?

kristiannn you should be ashamed, you want to participate in the AMD/Intel/Nvidia wars go to overclock, [H] or some other forum full of tech heads willing to have the battle, tell you what, I will see you there. And just as a heads up, to illustrate that you know what you are talking about, should try to get the name right, the ATI brand was dropped, all CPU's and GPU's are branded AMD as of the 30th of Aug '10

I KNOW that ATI is not AMD but I'll always call them "ATI" cards. If you had even read my posts you'd see that I've written in almost every post that there's no point of starting arguments for such things in this forum but.. why should you read when you can go ahead and start getting on someone's nerves? That's why I hadn't made a comment for half an year here, there will always be someone who'll try to start an argument. I do NOT want to start such battles for s**ts.



a little upper my post starts with:
As I said, I don't want to make arguments for such things.

my post before this one:
Everyone has an opinion, I don't want to start an argument with anybody here for such things.


Who's starting the argument now? Me or you? As for that we didn't know his resolution.. It's said in the first post that he's looking for a video card around £200 << again, I can't see your problem with me?

 

[Roy Sutton]

I would suggest the GTX 560Ti edition, it will cost around £175 and is well worth its money, bellow is that card compared to mine which is the 550 Ti. The 550Ti cost me £130 i wish i had left it till the following day so i could do research into the cards the store had because i would have purchased the 560 Ti, anyway the 550 Ti lets me play the game with full specs. I'm not sure on your specs but i would suggest at least a 650W power supply which is about £30 to £35 in fact it could be less than that now, mines almost 12 months old so the prices for PSU's could have dropped.

http://www.hwcompare.com/9686/geforce-gtx-550-ti-vs-geforce-gtx-560-ti/

 

[Superman]

i would suggest at least a 650W power supply which is about £30 to £35 in fact it could be less than that now, mines almost 12 months old so the prices for PSU's could have dropped.

Thanks Roy. I think I bought an expensive PSU in the first instance as mine was much more than that - I think I was chasing a "brand" name that I recognised. I doubt there's much difference in brands? As there seems to be a big price difference at dabs and ebuyer.

 

[Superman]

Thanks for all your help. I've just ordered it tonight for it's arrival tomorrow and then F1 2011 is 50% off on steam - it was as if it was meant to be!!

 

[Richard Robson]

The Radeon 6850 1GB is the best budget card at the moment and can be picked up for around £110. Mid range for under 200 is the Geforce GTX 560Ti for around the £185

 

[Superman]

Just got my new card 560ti in the pc but no display. The pc boots up fine as I can hear sound. The graphics card has power as fans spin.

Did I need to do anything before putting the new card in - like installing the drivers?

 

[Superman]

Ignore my earlier post, I've managed to get it working but the screen res is a bit poor. just trying to get that back

 

[Superman]

Can I just take the opportunity to thank everyone who contributed to this thread.

The GTX 560ti works like a treat and the detailed graphics are amazing - I would recommend it.

It took a while to update the drivers etc but the game hasn't slowed down and can be run at full tilt.

Now I'm playing on the PC version, I seem to be able to go a bit quicker and the controls seem much more instantaneous.

I'm having a break over this weekend as I'm waiting for the new patch so that I can so some time trials once the leader boards are wiped.

I might even join in on some online races on this forum - so people keep an eye out for 'thesasgeek'.

Thanks again for wonderful advice on something that was rather alien to me.

 

[Andy_J]

Well it's obviously down to luck. I have 1 7 years old Nvidia 5200 FX in the other room and it still works without any problems.
Everyone has an opinion, I don't want to start an argument with anybody here for such things. I'm suggesting him a Nvidia, you're suggesting him an ATI. That's it.

Considering that In" April 2003, NVIDIA introduced the GeForce FX 5600 and the GeForce FX 5200 to address the other market segments", that makes the 5200 FX about 8-9 years old. Where did you get 17 yrs from?Good choice of card from the OP by the way. I prefer AMD GPU's out of experience.