Hey everyone

I've come to the realization that my graphics needs are starting to out pace my current capacity and I feel that the time has come for an upgrade.

Prefer NVIDIA and looking to spend less than $200.

Thoughts?

ATI's 5770 does a good job as does the 270 from nvidia

What are you currently using?

@Dragon Currently running an Nvidia 8600 GT

I'm hoping i can get something that will last at least 15 months or so

I need to upgrade too, I was seriouly looking at the 5770.

I got my Gigabyte 220 GT 1GB for less than $100, came to me overclocked, I overclocked it again, and it runs very steady.

Also comes with an aftermarket fan, keeps it very cool.

Ohh i almost forgot. I'm not sure how my PSU would effect my decision I think I'm currently running some stock like a 450w or something.

I run a 550W, which I always thought was pretty low for gaming. =\

Are you going to be running Win7 on the box you're installing into? If so I'd steer you towards the ATI product line so you can get DX11 support... but nonetheless just in case that's not going to happen, go for the GeForce GTX 260 core 216 version. They absolutely SIP power compared to any other nVidia 2XX product line, but still significantly more than a 9800GTX.

Otherwise and in general, I really would recommend an ATI 5770. Although the 5770 is usually beat in many benchmarks by 5-10% by the GeForce 260 (not always the case), the 5770 consumes about 60 W less at load so it should work well with your existing PSU. It also has hardware support for DX11 (yeah I know not much out that can use that yet). It's also at least $50 cheaper if you're comparing new parts, so if you factor all that in, in my head it's a much better deal for a midrange video card.

As an owner of a Sapphire 5870 I can tell you I've not once had any problems with the usually crappy Catalyst drivers. I haven't overclocked the GPU at all, so I can't tell you much about that. Definitely not an ATI/AMD fanboy here either, my last 3 video cards: 8800, 6600LE, FX5900...

im with reaper and for the record Im running the 5770 and quad cord on a 300 wat power supply in lunchbox.