Which video card - Radeon HD 6770, 6850 or GTX 550 Ti ?

This is for a budget gaming build for my nephew. It will be a general purpose computer but he wants to be able to do some gaming on it as well.

Specs so far are:
Intel i3-2120
8 GB ram (2X4gb) - no brand yet
motherboard - not yet selected
power supply - Thermaltake TR2 W0070RUC 430W ATX12V V2.2

The options are:

ASUS EAH6670/DIS/1GD5 Radeon HD 6670 GDDR5 1 GB [amazon.com] - $83
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 [newegg.com] - $120
Galaxy GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1 GB GDDR5 [amazon.com]- $94

My main concerns are price/value ratio, as well as being able to run a card on the power supply. Based on my proposed specs, all three should (theoretically) be able to run on that power supply (without overclocking) based on the Extreme Power Supply calculator [outervision.com].

Any thoughts on which one would be the best bet? Thanks in advance.

This should help you out http://www.tomshardware.com/revie...,3107.html Nailing down a strict budget for GPU will help you make the decision.


What games is he going to play, he might not even need a GPU? I don't think you will have a problem with the PSU and any of these, assuming you have a quality PSU.

Quote from LiquidRetro : This should help you out http://www.tomshardware.com/revie...,3107.html Nailing down a strict budget for GPU will help you make the decision. What games is he going to play, he might not even need a GPU? I don't think you will have a problem with the PSU and any of these, assuming you have a quality PSU.

Not sure what games he'll be playing, although he likes FPSs - probably the most demanding will be something like BF3 or Skyrim. I had checked the hierarchy chart at Tom's - looks like the GTX 550 Ti and the HD 6770 are on the same tier, but the 6850 was one tier up. I hoping to keep it in the range of $100-125, but the lower the better. I'm thinking the 550 Ti and the 6770 are probably good enough, but if the 6850 was significantly better, then it might be worth the extra $30-$40.

Leaning toward the 6770 at $83 right now.

Oops - just realized he $83 card is a 6670 (not 6770) - which s a couple tiers down.

Quote from Yman : Not sure what games he'll be playing, although he likes FPSs - probably the most demanding will be something like BF3 or Skyrim.

Any of those 3 will let him play those games at medium to high. For BF3 the 6850 will let him run on high, the 550Ti/6770 on medium comfortably. (I have a 6850 and can run it on Ultra, but it drops into the teens and 20s during heavy action). BF3 is one of the more hardware intensive games out there right now. Skyrim is a little less intense so as long as he isn't running a HD texture pack all of them will let him run it at least on high.

You're overpaying on all those cards. Wait for a slickdeal and jump. I recently got the 460v2 GTX w/ 1GB RAM for $85. They just had the 7770 recently for $90.

I don't need it immediately - he wants to start the build within a month or so, so maybe I'll keep my eyes peeled for something slick in this range of cards.

Quote from Yman : I don't need it immediately - he wants to start the build within a month or so, so maybe I'll keep my eyes peeled for something slick in this range of cards.

Ya, you know what you are after now, or at least you have a better idea. Set a deal alert and just watch for a good deal.

Have had my 6850 for more than a year now - definitely worth what I paid for it given its longevity. I only have an Antec EA380 380W PSU running the card and an dual-core AMD BE555 (overclocked to 3.8 and running that way for all this time).