Immortality

I'm looking to buy a new video card and I want to be able to run WoW at high settings. My system specs are:
AMD Dual Core 5400+
3 GB RAM
1TB HD

For reasons I don't want to get into I can't buy an nVidia card so it has to be ATI. I want to say under $150. I am considering these 4:

Radeon HD 4670 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102820

Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102824

Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102802

Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814131140

I am leaning towards the 4850 512MB one because I doubt WoW would require 1GB of video memory and it seems to be a good value. My second choice was the 4870 512MB because supposedly the GDDR5 memory is supposed to be bad ass and the price is pretty much the same after rebates as the 4850 1GB card. The only game I really play on my computer is WoW so I don't really need to go above and beyond what WoW requires for near max settings. Does anyone have an informed opinion on what I would need to get that?

What motherboard model / brand do you have?


BTW dont buy offbrand videocards

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102802

Go with that one its far better than the offbran 4870

The Asus 4870 is only 5 dollars more, that just happened to be the first one I clicked on.

My mobo is a MSI K9N SLI Platinum.

Evens, what res do you game at? I'd personally go with the card with more memory vs speed.

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From what I know, both the 4850 and 4870 are really solid cards, and should both run WoW a hundred percent smooth in max graphics.
When that's said, 4870 is quite a significant increase in performance, so if you can choose freely, I'd go with the 4870. If you're ever going to see the light and run a bit heavier games, you're gonna be happy you spent that extra buck.
Benchmarks compared to each other here: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gami ... .html?prod[2114]=on&prod[2116]=on
As to the brand, I'd definitely not see Asus as my only choice, there are som very good 4870'es out there from other manufactorers. I couldn't dig out the article, but the Sapphire Toxic Edition is no bad choice:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/rad ... 096-3.html
It's silent, it's cool, it delivers what it's supposed to, and it's fairly priced. Just don't go with the Club 3D overclocked-edition, my friend is having stability issues with that one.

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"Take from the rich, give to the family." - http://thepiratebay.org/

My wife said I could so I was bad... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102815. I justify it by saying it will last a few years.

4870 - 512Mb User here and it's really smooth. I have had only 1 problem playing WoW at Ultra settings: game crashed while entering the zone to craft ebonweave.

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"Take from the rich, give to the family." - http://thepiratebay.org/