RIFT Hiatus: Death of a Graphics Card

So, my 9800 GT died the other day. It sucks! Not only I won't be able to play RIFT but I won't be able to play The Witcher 2 that comes out next week.

On the other hand, I got my wish. I was asking for some discipline the other day to pull myself away from playing RIFT and work on my back logs (10 graphic novels, 3 books, 4 PS3 Games). So, I'm gonna work on those while I save up some money for a newer card.

While I'm here. What's a good replacement for a 9800 GT that is within the price range of $150-200?

I highly recommend Tomshardware for comparisons and price range. The May review appears to be the most up-to-date. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card-game-performance-radeon-hd-6670,2935.html

To be perhaps more helpful in retrospect, if that article evokes a "TLDR": In the $110-200 price range they recommend either the Radeon HD 5770 or AMD's Radeon HD 6850 -- the 5770 would be about on par with your card based on their heirarchy, the 6850 would be a four-tier upgrade (a somewhat arbitrary measure, but they say three tiers represents a noticable improvement). A price spot-check on newegg shows the 5770 is around $125, the 6850 is approximately $180.

We are using the nVidia GTX470. I have 99% of the settings on max in Rift and everything looks great.

The GTX470 looks like a good one, ostensibly better than the 6850, but I wasn't able to immediately find it for sale under $200 with a well-reviewed manufacturer. Where did you get it?

Nooo...time for a new Graphics Card Contest!!! Where's Ryndrow? LOL

I got our GTX470's from Newegg.com I want to say there was a deal going on when we got them for like $260 each and shipping was free. Hmm now that I went to find the link it looks like they're discontinued or something >:| http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130550 I put them into the new gaming rigs I built, not sure if it's the 6 cores or the 16 GB of RAM but those video cards are so good it makes my geek heart weep.