Silky smooth with a 1.5 gb GTX 580 here, but it may be outside your budget range.

I personally have a GTX 460 which will play the game around 25-35 FPS (I don't know the exact but that's my estimation) on all Medium Settings, a couple on High, and nothing turned off. It only lags if there is a big fireball nearby or the wind dust effect behind you as well as the crashes in water from External view. It runs much smoother at something lower than my native resolution: 1920 by 1200. Hope this helps and sorry for the wall of text.

Get either a Nvidia 560ti or a Ati 6950 . Both are about the same speed wise , COD doesnt use either to their full potential do go with whatever's the best price for you.

The 560it seems to be improved by a new version: http://vr-zone.com/articles/nvidia-p...-ti/13805.html

Toms Hardware (referenced earlier) is a good site. Here's the October GPU hierarchy listing
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ce,3042-7.html

I'm running the EVGA GTX570 suprclocked with 1.28Gb memory (nearly a year old now). It runs well at High settings, 40-60fps (I turn Grass off) but the more memory you can afford on the GPU the better.

I was looking at the new 6xxx ATI series back then but I went in favour of Nvidia as I've been with them for some years and never a problem. I believe there are some issues with the ATIs (SLi??) but others can tell you what or you can search the forums.

interesting: bought my graphic card I'd say two years ago and it is still in the top 5 in tomshardware ranking ... do we reach a point where there will be no or only minor performance increase due to being close to what is possible with today's technology?

I think "today's technology" is probably the point.

I've no doubt that one day people will be running 160,000 x 100,000 resolution at 100fps giving almost Mk1 eyeball imagery. In fact "new technology" may not even use the concept of 'resolution'. Who'd have believed in the 1980s when Bill Gates came up with DOS that we'd end up where we are now.

From the same GFX card comparison link

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ce,3042-7.html

"You can use this hierarchy to compare the pricing between two cards, to see which one is a better deal,
and also to determine if an upgrade is worthwhile.
I don’t recommend upgrading your graphics card unless the replacement card is at least three tiers higher.
Otherwise, the upgrade is somewhat parallel and you may not notice a worthwhile difference in performance."

The technology does reach a point but manufacturers still need to keep selling, so GFX cards are always being made to make sales,
the point is for the consumer the above statements 3 tier recommendation, but there's always people with money to burn so new
CPU GPU Ram Mobo every year is normal for them.
I use a 3 year cycle of replacement/upgrade then after 4-5 years a complete new high end system.




.

The only point I would make is if, for example, you are considering a GTX570 be aware that they come with more memory now than my 1.28Gb. My card hits 1.2Gb usage in CoD and would probably use more if I had it. I think more memory is worth the stretch.

Thanks for all the help guys. I've upped my budget a bit (will be eating baked beans and pasta for the rest of the month) and have gone for Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB GDDR5. Hopefully it will run COD at fairly high settings with a good FPS