$1,200 budget need some recommendation.

[TexasSkywarn1]

Christ i thought building your pc was cheaper apparently not.

[Staren]

It is, believe me. If you bought what is speced out here retail, you'd be looking at a $1,700 to $1,900 system easy. If you could find it. Most places would pair an i5 with a GeForce 560 and leave you a little weaker in the gaming department.

[Extremerc12]

The machines start getting exponentially more expensive when you talk about SLI/Crossfire. Those two terms (as GLC mentioned) include more expensive motherboards (to take advantage of increased bandwidth on the PCI-e), power supplies (570/580/590 are power hungry cards) and of course a second video card.

[birddog_61]

What resolution will you be gaming at? Honestly if your just using a 1080p monitor or tv to game on then the 570 is more than enough card to max out anything current or coming out in the near future. It should run bf3 on ultra in the 60fps range at that resolution. Even after games start coming out that it wont max you can just lower the graphics level a small amount and be fine for a long time. I would say the 570 should be able to game fine for the next 2 years, and then you would need to start looking at upgrading if you want to keep all the eye candy on.

[Staren]

And just to bring up a common question before it's asked, no SLI / Crossfire is not really a viable upgrade path. By the time you would feel the need to upgrade, the next epic video card will be out and one of the new cards almost always out performs two older generation cards.

[David M]

What's the problem with Crossfire? Works for me. Second generation cards are less expensive. For about the same price I have a second generation 6990 that outperforms a first generation 7970.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...6990&x=11&y=18

[glc]

What do you expect when you have a dual GPU card? The 7xxx dual GPU isn't out yet.

[Staren]

I would argue that the 6970 and 570 are still the current mainstream cards. I would still put the 580 and 79xx series in the bleeding edge category. Crossfire is fine if you're budget is in the $2,000+ range or you don't mind a $500 upgrade every six months. For builders who pull together $1,000 - $1,500 every few years, by the time the second generation card is reasonable its too old to be the best upgrade.

[TexasSkywarn1]

Alright Thanks guys btw my tv will be the primary 42inch lg 1080p 120hz.my pc i got now is on the pc chennel non hdmi 1280X960

[birddog_61]

Originally Posted by TexasSkywarn1 Alright Thanks guys btw my tv will be the primary 42inch lg 1080p 120hz.my pc i got now is on the pc chennel non hdmi 1280X960

Go with the 570, and save the extra dough. Save a few bucks a month for the next year and a half and buy the top of the line card when you feel yours isn't cutting it anymore.

[AndonSage]

If the highest resolution you're using is 1920 x 1080, then there is no reason at all for SLI or Crossfire. Even a GTX 570 is more than you need. You could save some money and get the new GTX 560 Ti 448 cores.

You can check out the Tom's Hardware Best Graphics Cards For The Money, or read this very good article at Rock, Paper, Shotgun in easy to understand language: Hard Choices: Graphics Cards

The i5-2500k CPU is the sweet spot at the current time. No need for a more expensive i7 for gaming.

Stick with a 750W PSU (I prefer Corsair, but there are other good brands as noted), and don't worry about SLI.

Use the money you save from getting a GTX 560 Ti 448 over a GTX 570 to buy a good aftermarket CPU cooler, so you can overclock that i5-2500k (which is what it's for ).

[TexasSkywarn1]

just when i was about to buy the gtx 570 i saw this


GeForce GTX 480 vs GeForce GTX 570 – Performance Comparison Benchmarks @ Hardware Compare

By that it says the gtx 480 is better than the gtx 570.How is this possible?

[glc]

It's not.

comparing gtx 480 with gtx 570

[AndonSage]

Originally Posted by TexasSkywarn1 just when i was about to buy the gtx 570 i saw this GeForce GTX 480 vs GeForce GTX 570 – Performance Comparison Benchmarks @ Hardware Compare By that it says the gtx 480 is better than the gtx 570.How is this possible?

As glc said, it's not. The issue with that Hardware Compare site is in the fine print:

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

When you try to compare different generations of video cards simply based on certain numbers, it doesn't work well, because the newer generations have improvements the prior generations lack.

My computer was built in 2008, and has an overclocked Core 2 quad-core Q9450 @ 3.2GHz. The only update I've done to it is to replace the original GTX 280 video card with a GTX 560 Ti (which isn't as good as the 448 core version), and I have yet to find a game I can't play with High/Ultra graphics at 1920 x 1080, which includes Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. If you get an i5-2500k CPU and a GTX 560 Ti 448 cores video card, you'll be set for two to three years, at the minimum.

Now, if there's a chance you might get a higher resolution monitor, e.g. 2560 x 1600, then you'd want to get at least a GTX 570 or HD 6970 for best graphics options.

[TexasSkywarn1]

Ok thanks for the help every one.I am going with the evga gtx 570 standard because i will be using hdmi on 1080p.Also starting on Monday i will start ordering parts.