Best GPU for my budget of around $200

Hey guys, my build is finally complete, well, minus the GPU. Here is the important parts of my build.

AMD Phenom ii x4 965 BE 3.4GHz (O.C 3.8 Stable)
GSkill Ripjaws X Series DDR3 1333 (O.C 14XX Stable)
ASUS M4A88T-V EVO (16X, 4X) (Xfire only)
Themaltake TR2 500W

I'm looking to spend as little as possible on a decent mid range GPU. Yes i am cheap I believe the best choice is AMD due to chipset-GPU compatibility performance and if i ever decide to run xfire. Anyone have any good advice on best choice/max fps per $$$? This is what i almost bought today, yes because its pretty, meaning the deal of course http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161405 Would like to get this figured out by thursday, deciding between all these cards alone is driving me crazy Thanks!

I was going to recommend that exact card.

I love when people recommend my choices haha. Is there anything better? I feel this card may be one of the best deals at the moment for the price. I've read the bad reviews and some seem to be due to other problems, old/slow cpu, old drivers etc. Also anyone have experience with HIS or the iceq series?

7850 would be the way to go. Only other thing I can think of would be the extra $15 to grab the ASUS DirectCu or MSI Twin Frozr versions. The HIS IceQ isn't a bad cooler in its own right though.

I was actually considering the MSI Twin Frozr, two fans with a very similar heatsink/tubing. But im not sure any of these cards can be OC'd to a point where cooling will be an issue =/

If you are tight on budget, why not looking for a 6 months old used GPU, under warranty? That would shave 15 to 30% off, and you could get a better card (7870?).

That might not be a bad idea... Only thing i do not like is not knowing if its been pushed to hard and the fact of not having an extended warranty.

Made my mind up. Going with the 7850. However i am stuck between the HIS ICE Q and the MSI TWIN FROZR. Can anyone help me out with what would be a better choice? For both OC and reliability/performace/cooling. Thanks!
Links for both cards;

MSI http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127663

HIS http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161405

If you have to choose between the two, then I would get the MSI. I have heard good things about the Twin Frozr cooler. If you can get it, the ASUS card is a beast though. It wasn't available when I purchased so I went with the Sapphire card and I love it. My card has a sweet cooler. Can barely hear the fans. Max temps playing BF3 are around 63 degrees. See my signature for my overclock. I don't bother with the memory since it doesn't have any benefit that I have seen. I was able to get the core to 1110 without bumping the voltage at all.

I will warn you though. The drivers on these things are a pain in the ***. I have been getting random crashes in WoW, but they stopped after 12.8 drivers released, so hopefully that is fixed. I have still gotten the infamous monitor falling asleep and display crash bug that 12.8 hasn't seemed to fix though. I have not had any issues in Battlefield 3 though.

WoW is one of the games i play alot of... Is there a more recommended card? If theres a better brand im also open to them, the iceq seems solid though, the msi is overclocked already i believe as its 900mhz instead of 850mhz will that limit its OC abilities?

I'm sure the WoW issues will get worked out, but it's a pretty well known issue if you google it. Basically the game hard locks your system and you have to cut the power. It happens more often for some and less often for others. For me, I'd have it happen a few times in the same day, and then there were spans of time where I wouldn't have the problem happen for a couple of weeks. The problem seemed to go away for the short amount of time I played WoW on the new 12.8 drivers, but Cata is collecting dust for me right now as I'm waiting for MoP. You are not limited by the MSI overclock. These cards can easily go over 900 on the core. I would buy Sapphire, ASUS, or MSI because they have the twin fan coolers. Personally though, I have heard good things about ASUS. I don't think you can go wrong with either of those three though.

Aldebaran said:

WoW is one of the games i play alot of... Is there a more recommended card? If theres a better brand im also open to them, the iceq seems solid though, the msi is overclocked already i believe as its 900mhz instead of 850mhz will that limit its OC abilities?

Click to expand...

[disclaimer] no card is a guarantee for overclocking [/disclaimer] more than 900Mhz for either card, 1000Mhz, more if you want to get adventures.