Gaming desktop...

johng_uk

Thanks very much all - Your time and advice is much appreciated.

I agree with everything in that post, especially the PSU. Do not skimp!

I shall not skimp!!

GPU (Graphics card) ignore all 256meg cards, a good value 512mb card is the ATI HD4850 @ around £100

I was actually looked at that card Tonay, and then moved onto the ATI HD4870...Then the 4870 x 2....Then Back to the HD4870 when I clocked the prices!! I read a review that pitted the NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX260 896mb, SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON HD4850 512mb, SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON HD4870 512mb and the ZOTAK GEFORCE GTX 280 1gb against each other.

They priced the cards at the following:

GTX 1gb - £389
GTX 896mb - £220
HD4870 512mb - £180
HD4850 512mb - £123

I know you could probably source each of these cheaper.

All the cards got 8/10 for design and 9/10 for features. The cards were then rateed for value:

GTX 1gb - 5/10
GTX 896mb - 4/10
HD4870 512mb - 9/10
HD4850 512mb - 9/10

The GTX 896mb card was marginally faster than the HD4850, but the HD4870 was faster than both. The GTX 1gb was marginally faster than HD4870, but in 'bang for your buck' terms, the HD4870 was reckoned to be the card to go for.

Overall scores were:

GTX 1gb - 7/10
GTX 896mb - 6/10
HD4870 512mb - 9/10
HD4850 512mb - 9/10

How good are the NVIDIA 8800 GT + GTS and 9800 series cards? I noticed that they're a bit cheaper and the report says that the HD4850 was "intended to go up against the 8800 GT and GTS cards".?