Ok, money almost in my account and ordering a new system imminent. Going to go with the following, it's got £100 off until Wednesday too:

Case Antec 902
Graphics Card SEE BELOW...
Hard Drive Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB
Memory Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel
Motherboard Gigabyte EX58-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
Optical Drive LG GH22NS30 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter
Power Supply Corsair TX 650W ATX2.2 SLI Compliant PSU
Processor Intel Core i7 920 2.66Ghz D0 Overclocked to 3.40GHz!
Processor Cooler Akasa AK-967 Nero Direct Contact Heatpipe CPU Cooler
Sound Card 7.1 High Definition OnBoard Sound Card
Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

The only decision now is which graphics card. I am torn between the 4890 and the 5770. People say the 4890 is faster but i have heard talk of the forthcoming 9.12 ATI drivers due in December will be 5XXX drivers and could give the 5770 a performance boost. From what I have seen on performance figures the 5770 is not that much slower than the 4890. http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gamin...od%5B2866%5D=on It's making my head hurt.

I know someone mentioned that there are no DX11 games out but the new Stalker does and maybe more games will pick up on this DX version and start using it. I personally think the smaller speed marging the 4890 has does not outweigh the future proofing of the 5770 as i do not get new cards until the stop working.

Any comments?

The question for me would be if the 5770 can do DX11 games at speed, or will it be like the early DX10 able medium budget cards (9600GT for me) which did not have the power?

I can tell you that the 4890 in Stalker takes a severe performance penalty for running in 10.1.

If prices are similar (as they seem to be) I would look at shader performance, DX10 performance and noise/heat level to find a decision. In reality by the time DX11 games hit the market in some strength (Summer next year maybe?) you'll be able to afford a 5870 which would be almost twice as fast.

So "future-proofing" a GFX card beyond a year seems quite pointless given the rapid price drop.

Can't you just re-use the card from your old system for now and wait for 5850 availability? That would be a definite better pick than either of your choices.

It comes as a complete system and has to come with a base minimum of a 4850 and as I really don't know what part of my old system was bad I don't want to put my old 9800 in and have it damage my new PC. And I want an all new one .

I really want the Sapphire Vapor-X 4890 but they only have 2 left in stock (had 10+ yesterday until I made the mental decision that I wanted one!) so it has to be in stock when I order my system in the next day or so.

What I meant by future proofing is that I do not buy hardware when something new comes out only when it is broken or very, very old so I wondered whether the 5770 would enable me to play DX11 games throughout next year. But as you stated the 5770 is a mid-range card and may struggle with DX11.

As I am spending a grand on this system I want to get something that I am going to see a big difference over my old one (C2D 6400, 2Gb RAM, 9800GTX+ 512Mb).

The problem for me when giving advise here is that I have no clue if DX11 is expected to perform equal, faster or worser than DX10.

Fact is that the HD4890 - and likely the 5570 - are the lower end of DX10 cards you can actually "use". Well, depending on resolution - I'm talking 1920x1200 here, lower will be easier.

If DX11 is an equal performance hop as from DX9 to DX10, then forget enjoying it on the 5770. If it's supposed to make things faster, the situation could be reversed.

I think I saw a Stalker Prypjat DX10.1/DX11 comparison somewhere. See if you can find that, or more info on DX11 in general.

EDIT: Here it is: http://www.driverheaven.net/articles.php?articleid=140&pageid=5

It doesn't necessarily compare same settings but shows a performance hit for DX11.

But as drivers mature, that may change - it's really much to early to tell if a 5770 can actually run DX11 at reasonable framerate, and that is the key question here. What resolution are you using?

Is whatever company you are purchasing from guaranteeing this overclock and/or warrantying the system and the CPU when clocked at this speed? This is a big overclock (although certainly not out of the question for feasibility). In addition to the above concerns, if this were my system I would question the stability and validity of this overclock until the system was adequately stress-tested. Do you know the procedure this company is using to validate this overclock?

@ Joe: The company is www.overclockers.co.uk and it's this one http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-030-OE . The whole system is guaranteed for 1 year and has won an award from Overclockers3D.net and that's all I know.

I will check with them though, thanks for bringing that up.

@ RSC: Max res of my monitor is 1680x1050.


And the 4890 Vapor-X has just gone out of stock... ah well, guess I'll have to look at the stock one.

I would skip the Seagate drive. The 11 series is the particular bunch that had so many issues with data loss and just going south in general. If you can't get the new 12 series, get a different brand drive.

I'm going to cry...

How about the Western Digital Caviar Green 1.5TB SATA-II 32MB Cache? http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduc...amp;subcat=1279

Tom's has some good articles about HD models.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/1.5tb-hdd-caviar,2331.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-ecogreen-hdd,2317.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Seagate-Barracuda-1.5-TB,2032.html

Tom's has some good articles about HD models.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/1.5tb-hdd-caviar,2331.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-ecogreen-hdd,2317.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Seagate-Barracuda-1.5-TB,2032.html

More info on the 11 series.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1050374/seagate-barracudas-7200-11-failing

http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=540