I can go with the HD Radeon 6850 or the R7 260 X.

I'd say the 260X should provide you with a little more juice. I'm trying to remember, the R7/9 series are basically rebranded high clocked 7000 cards, so I would expect the 260x to be at least equal to a 6800 series. if you're not overly partial to AMD, the nvidia 750Ti is getting a lot of positive press for it's ability as $150 card.

This quick review using Battlefield 4 shows the 260x beating up the 6850 pretty handily

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7754/the-amd-radeon-r7-265-r7-260-review-feat-sapphire-asus/8

This review matches up the 260x and the 750Ti. Depending on which test you pick either card beats the other, 260X might be a tad better.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7764/the-nvidia-geforce-gtx-750-ti-and-gtx-750-review-maxwell/14

The thing is the HD 6850 I have is actually this,

I mean it says it's a HD 6850 but when I google the above information I can't find that card.

Think both of the cards could run TESO on Max Settings??

Thanks!!!

http://www.overclock.net/t/502403/graphics-card-ranking-5th-time-and-last-updated-daily I use when trying to figure out where the various cards rank. Sure, there's other variations (like specific manufacturer models, etc), but it's still good for a basic first-pass "which is better" thing.

(And yeah - the 260X is rated a bit higher. Also, 2GB of vram compared to the 1GB in the 6850 will likely be useful in the future.)

edit: oh, for TESO? Well, a quick look at the system requirements shows that they recommend a GPU higher than the 6850, as well as 2GB vram. The 260X is close to the recommendation.

edit2: holy crap, 60GB hard drive space?!?!?

Thanks! I did run TESO on the 6850 on max settings with no issues at all but have yet to test it out in PvP with a good chunk of players. I just tested Skyrim with the 260 x and it runs just as smooth at the 6850 on max settings.

If the game is running smooth on all settings maxed out on both cards I guess it does not matter or do some cards show more detail, etc, then others if both maxed out?

First of all, it's not only a little more juice, it's a lot of more umpf !!!!! (as you can see at the below link. !!!!)

See here: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1044?vs=1077

So there is no question about what GPU you buy - you buy the R7 260X !!!!

Secondly the recommended requirements are GPU (NVIDIA? GeForce 560 Ti / ATI Radeon 6950 or better).

That means if you get the R7 260X you will be on pair with the GTX 560 Ti (more or less). (Consider your CPU as well, as the requirements are: Quad Core 2.3GHz or equivalent processor).

So then, If you have an decent CPU, together with the R7 260X you will be able to play at max settings (more or less).

That means that you can't play TESO on ultra settings and all goodies enabled. !!!! (as those are only recommended settings, and not Max settings.)

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If a judge from skyrim, you should have at least a good i5 processor, and at least a GTX 760 GPU. !!!!!

But that's just it. I did play it on the HD 6850 on Max Settings and it ran smooth, very smooth. So since the R7 260 x is even a better card I should have no issues then. Maybe all my other parts are really good and that's why I can run the game on Max Settings?

Obviously, lol...

Enjoy. !!!!!

Yeah, when I said a little more juice I was thinking more in terms of the grand scheme of cards. I tend to think it ranges of AMD 5770 to R9-290X. So yes, the 260X handily beats the 6850 but compared to a 290/ n780 the performance jump is smaller. I should have wrote that better I reckon.

Obviously a person can only do what their wallet allows, the 260x offers a nice boost over the 6850, but I personally don't consider it enough. When I buy a card I try to buy for todays games and hopefully get a little into tomorrow's games. So I mainly look at the BF4 benchmarks. Getting a new card and not really being able to run on Ultra just doesn't feel sixy to me. The 270X is $100 more, so then it becomes a debate of whether you get $100 worth of upgrade. Since I also play BF4 the answer would be yes, for a game like Elder Scrolls Online, maybe not so much.

Obviously it's all a little subjective on what one considers very smooth.

As a point of reference, the son's PC is a i5-3570K, R9-270X, 8GB running at 1920x1080. Using FRAPs to record min\max\average settings and using a diversred area to benchmark in (I found a pretty good spot in Firsthold)

The 270X was able to get 54fps average (with some low 40 dips near the water) in most areas using the Ultra Preset. Personally I'd drop some of settings to Med to keep a more constant 60, but that's preference.

This was using the 14.2 beta drivers, I'm wonder if the latest 14.3 drivers will up the performance, guess we won't find out until release.

Ok thanks for all the suggestions!