Best bang for my buck ($500 -$700 graphics card options)

[plasticslug]

I am looking to have the best gaming laptop I can afford on a 1500 dollar budget, and as you can see I am willing to spend up to $700 dollars alone on my graphics card.

I dont need a monitor, or speakers.

Goals:
Run BF3, witcher 2 high/highest settings

Lastly: Is there a timeframe when the latest cards will be released?

[glc]

Laptops don't lend themselves to *adding* video cards. You need to buy the laptop configured the way you want it to begin with.

Here is a site that has excellent data on laptop graphics:

Mobile Graphics Cards - Benchmark List - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Looking through the Asus line of laptops, it looks like the best graphics $1500 will get you is a GTX 560M.

[plasticslug]

OK... im an idiot I meant desktop....

I have built in the past and was shopping newegg and I see these $500-$700 cards with just 3 out of 5 eggs (review)...

Then you have the gfx cards with 3GB GDDR5 (in the $700+ cards) and was wondering if that is the way to go.

[David M]

Newegg is a great place to purchase from but the ratings for the products they sell don't have any merit. Their ratings come from one time purchasers, some of which are newbies who don't know what they are doing, not from people who build systems professionally.

Here are PCMech's ratings for the different cards...from a professional system builder.
Video Card Rating

Will you be running graphics intensive games or will you be doing CAD? What software will you be running?

How many monitors and what resolution do you have or plan on having?

What power supply do you have now? What are your current system specs? Dual GPU cards require more power than single GPU cards. Which do you prefer?

[birddog_61]

The big question is what resolution will you be gaming at? If you are going to be gaming at 1920x1080 or lower than a 6990 will crush any game out there and is actually a little overkill. Honestly if I had $500 to spend on a card alone and was going to game at 1920x1080 or lower then I would go with this.
Newegg.com - EVGA 02G-P3-1569-KR GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2Win (Fermi) 2GB 512-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
Its right there with the top of the line cards as long as you don't go past 1920x1200 and its cheaper, as well as made by what I consider to be the best manufacture of graphics cards out there. Now if your going to be gaming beyond 1920x1200 then I would recommend the 6990 no questions asked. Honestly with the 560 2win card out there the gtx 580 is really worthless unless you plan on going SLI and gaming at extreme resolutions, then you will need the extra ram that it brings. However if that was your plan I would still recommend going with the 6990 because I think it is a better card than the 580.

EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2Win review

[glc]

Thread closed, new thread started.