I'm considering replacing my HD4890 with a more recent card, although I am a bit back and forth on whether it's worth it. The card was a bit of a monster back in its day, but now I'm having to make compromises with graphics settings on more recent games.

To be honest, that alone wouldn't cause me to buy a new card for a while - Max Payne 3 still looks absolutely beast on DX10 high settings - and I have a few games that would profit from a faster card, but the sheer amount of fucking noise from the HD4890 fan and coil whine as well as its absurdly high power consumption are driving me bonkers.

I've been eyeing the GeForce GTX 560 Ti and the HD 4870. Is it worth upgrading to either of these two, or should I wait for the GTX 660 Ti to drop below €200? Would Skyrim benefit from a faster card at all? I've not bothered to check if the game is powering out my quad-core processor or individual cores (Phenom X4), so I'm not sure if Skyrim is being dragged down by my processor or graphics card. And how's the backwards compatibility on GeForce cards these days. It used to be horrible with the 8800 series...

I currently have a GeForce 560 (which is basically 7/8 of a 560 Ti), and I can play most modern games maxed out. The fan is also pleasantly low noise, though that may be because I put special consideration into that aspect, and paid a slightly higher price to get a Gainward Phantom card. Every GeForce 560 should be less noisy than your old card though.

I didn't have any problem with backwards compatibility so far.

Skyrim probably wouldn't benefit too much from a new card in your case. Its target platform was the Xbox 360, and its hardware requirements are actually pretty low. I think I've seem an HD patch somewhere though, that (and mods) might change the picture.

In my opinion, if you can live with the higher noise and the inability to use DirectX 11 features, the HD 4870 should be good for another year or two. By that time we may know which specs the new generation of consoles is going to have, and it will be easier to plan ahead (also, we will slowly start to have games that actually use the power of modern graphics cards). If you do want a new card now, the 560 TI is a very good choice, there isn't a reason to buy an even better card unless you're running modern games on a multi-monitor setup. There's a risk though that the card won't be able to max out games that are being developed for the next generation of consoles though.

I am very happy with the card recommended to me by Psyringe last time.

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/i_need_a_new_graphics_card/post20

I've tried the HD texture pack and a few of the enhanced town mods, and it doesn't seem to have all that much of an impact on performance. I'm actually more interested in expanding the view distance though, which my PC does really struggle with. Yeah, that's a thought. I was contemplating getting a 3D monitor as the mid-range ones don't seem to be all that more expensive than a reasonable 2D monitor, which would then turn my PC into a twin-monitor setup. That won't be for a while though.

As I say, the GTX 660 Ti will probably have dropped below the €200 mark by the time the new Xbox and PlayStation comes onto the scene, so I may wait until then unless I see a stonkingly good offer.

Our local gaming hardware store does blitz-style hardware deals, where a piece of hardware is heavily reduced for one day only. Most of it is utter shit that nobody wants (Hello Kitty towers anyone?), but you do get the odd decent deal. Maybe it'll pop up there.

Yep, GTX 660 TI is a good option. The GTX 560 consume more energy,

GTX 660Ti. I think it will be a while until PS4 and Xbox 720 multi-platform games are released anyway.

I'm finding my HD 2GB 7870 OC running Amazing and High/Ultra on most games. I need a recommendation though on a really high end game to try it on to put it through it's paces. I got Crysis 2 now. Would that be good to try to test the cards capability or is Crysis 2 considered pretty average in terms of Graphical performance these days?

Wait for GTX 660Ti. It's the best option right now.

The 4890 was a beast in its day and you'll have to spend quite a lot of money to get the modern equivalent. The 560ti is a great choice based purely on price/performance. The 600 series are great cards, to be sure, but the price/performance ratio is simply not there. You can wait for prices to come down, but in this industry there is always a price drop or a new line of products around the corner. You could be waiting forever. As it stands, the 560ti gives you the best bang for your buck. Also consider the 6850 or 6950 2gb from ATI; they also have fantastic price/performance ratios.

The HD4870 is inferior to the HD4890. Don't buy it no matter what. Like Dzsono I recommend the HD6950 2Gb from Ati (Ati is currently owned by AMD so you might have to ask for "the HD6950 2Gb from AMD" if the salesperson isn't very tech savvy).

I'm not too savvy on newer cards, but the 560 Ti and the 6950 should both be fine for the present and foreseeable future.

Crysis 2 has been severly criticized by fans of the franchise for not taxing computers' capabilities like its predecessor did. The devs put out a HD textures pack after that but I don't know if it simply improves the original so-called mediocre textures or is actually capable of providing a challege. You might have to look it up in the official forums.

Metro 2033 or the Witcher 2 would be better choices. Metro due to being the Crysis 1 equivalent of messy coding (and therefore harder to run on the highest settings) and the Witcher 2 for being designed from the get go to make the most of the best pc hardware available at the time it came out.

Crap, that was a typo. I of course meant the HD 7870.

The HD7870 is a fantastic card indeed. :) If the price is right for you then by all means.

Thanks Ashwald. I will try it on Witcher 2 later at maximum settings. I also think the HD 7870 will be a lot cheaper in Germany than where I am. Everything appears to be more expensive in Australia compared to everywhere else in the world. Paid 285 Australian Dollars for mine.