Yup, it is one of those threads again.

I would like to get a new graphics card and I need some recommendations by somebody who actually knows something about them.

It doesn't need to be SOTA,I don't want to pay more than 150€ and it has to be quiet. My current one sounds like a frikkin turbine going of.

Gainward nVidia GTX 560 Phantom. It's probably about 15 € above your budget, but worth it imho. The 560 is a good choice for a current gaming rig (the 560 Ti would be slightly better, but is also more expensive and eats slightly more power). Gainward's cooling solution makes the card a bit more expensive than a standard 560, but if you care about noise, it's worth it. While not really "silent", it does make less noise than other cards. I own one of those and I think it's the best solution for gamers who want high performance with little noise for a good price.

Sure. (sadly I no longer have a receipt for the parts, so some is guesswork)

It is an AMD Phentom 9950 Quad-Core 2.60 GHz

4 GB Ram ddr2 (Can't really upgrade this without a new board, sadly)

The current card is a ATI Radeon HD 4800 series (4870 iirc)

Not sure about the mainboard, it is an ASUS.

and thanks! A quick check on this showed me that all reviews praise its silence. Definitely strong contester.

I have an AMD HD 6870 and it has been great and nearly all games at high or sometimes ultra. It's a very stable card and not bad on the noise either. It's also fairly cheap. In Australia it's about $150 I would think it would be a lot cheaper than that in Germany.
The HD 6870 is comparable to the Nvidia 560 or better as well

I'm not really a graphics card expert, but for it's price, GTX 560 ti has pleasantly surprised me by it's performance. I'd definitely recommend it.

I agree with this. I currently have a GTX 560 and its done the job perfectly with my new computer.

Information about the PSU would be good. Currently the PSU is probably the most common bottleneck for GPU upgrades (since most mainboards bought in the last couple of years should be able to take all modern cards). The PSU needs to be able to supply enough wattage, and also (especially) enough voltage on the 12V rail. It's probably the best fit for your criteria in the nVidia realm. It also only needs about 30W more than your current card (assuming you do have an HD 4870 now), so there are good chances that your current PSU can handle it. I don't know much about the ATI realm though (my only experiment with an ATI card was an endless string of GPU crashes and driver problems, so I switched back to nVidia quickly).

You should be able to find Radeons 6850 and 6870 with special fans designed to produce less noice in that price range. The 6850 might be a modest performance upgrade over the 4870 though, while the 6870 would offer more. Bot cards should consume less or about the same amount of PSU power than the current one you have.

A GTX 560-based card is an alternative option, like Psyringe said.

My only advice is for heaven's sake go nVidia. Better drivers, better compatibility due to their majority market share and work with developers.

Also, I think nVidia is a must if you plan to play old games with a gilde-wrapper, since by my experience AMD cards really doesn't like glide much at all. In fact, having just switched from an AMD to an nVidia card, I find it appears to be much more backward-compatible across the board. There are far fewer problems, far more features in both hardware and software; quieter, more efficient.

There is also the new cloud-based compatability service launching 6th of June for all nVidia users, which does all the .ini and driver tweaking for you; so you get some of your games tailor-made to look and play their very best for your specific PC, without having to waste any time on tweakguides and such. Another reason not to get an AMD card at this point in time. Green team gets my thumbs up this year!

I think I went the extra mile back then with the PSU (I assume it is the Power Support Unit?). It is 550 W, iirc.


And thanks everybody for all you input! Damn, all this nVidia vs ATI really makes socialism more attracitve. No choices, no problems. (kidding, of course).

With a Nvidia Gtx 560 Ti you can play every game on the planet in 1080p. I suggest the MSI Twin Frozer III card.

And things would never be obsolete anymore ( counter-revolutionnaries and ennemies of the people would of course label this as a lack of technological progress )

Yes, PSU = Power Supply Unit. 550 W is plenty. There still could be a problem if the power goes to the wrong rail (modern graphics cards use the 12V rail, very old PSUs might not put so much power on that rail, and the wattage doesn't tell where the power goes to since it's just the sum of all rails), but I think the chance for that is rather small, judging from the rest of your system.

Edit: Also, since I'm seeing the 560 Ti card mentioned several times: The 560 Ti does offer better performance than the 560, but I think it's at least 60€ outside your budget ...