Buying a new Graphics Card

[Hip Hop]

Hey guys, at the end of the month I would like to buy a new Graphics Card. I'll have around £600 that I can put aside for one, though if possible, I would like to keep below £550 as it'll leave me more money to last the month. I'm tempted to buy a GTX 680 4GB, though I have a few questions.

 

Is a 4GB version any better than a 2GB version? Would the difference in performance really warrant buying a 4GB version?

 

I'd love to get my hands on a GTX 690, but I simply can't afford it. Is it worth buying a 680, or should I save for a 690? If a 680's enough, then that'll suffice.

 

Is an i5 2550k @ 4.0GHz a suitable option in conjunction with a 680?

 

I'm one of these FPS fanatics. I hate it when my FPS goes below 60. Would a 680 & i5 2550k @ 4.0GHz be enough to run Battlefield 3 at a consistent 60fps? I'm happy to disable Anti Aliasing and maybe lower some other settings somewhat.

 

Are any brands better than others? E.g. are EVGA better than Gigabyte? If you guys could link me to some cards from websites in the UK, I'd much appreciate it.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

[sivispacem]

The 680 is 90% of the performance of the 690 under real world conditions for half the price. Unless you are outputting to multiple 4K monitors you don't need 4GB VRAM. My 680/overclocked Phenom II combination has no trouble running absolutely everything I throw at it at 60+ FPS with everything turned up to the absolute maximum. In my view the best brand are ASUS but that's a subjective thing. Their GTX680 DCU-II TOP was (or is) the most powerful single-card GPU on the market for quite a while.

[yoječ]

Personally I'd advise you against buying GTX680 - not a good value. GTX670/HD7970 aren't much slower and cost far less.

[sivispacem]

Personally I'd advise you against buying GTX680 - not a good value. GTX670/HD7970 aren't much slower and cost far less.

Quite true. The factory OC 670s and HD7970s are about as powerful as the reference spec 680.