Help me upgrade my compy!

[Gregness]

So, last year I bought myself a pretty kickass computer with the sole exception of the graphics card which was a hand-me-down from my brother's old system.

I'd always intended to get around to replacing the graphics card eventually, but "eventually" has turned into a year and I'd like to not make it two.

The thing is, I'm not actually that good at comparing graphics cards (part of the reason I took the hand-me-down in the first place) so I'd like some suggestions on cards/features to be on the lookout for as I shop.

I've got a Radeon x1300 in right now, so there's probably quite a few options for an upgrade without going over my ~$200 limit. I've got a 550W power supply at the moment, so I'm aware I may have to upgrade that as well for certain newer cards but that has to fit into the $200 limit as well. Thanks for the advice guys!

[akaSM]

Have a look at this (http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU12/372), this page has some benchmarks with actual numbers from games.

At the top of that price range, I remember the Geforce GTX 560 and the Radeon HD 6870 so, you might want to look at those 2 models.

Also, post your PSU model, you don't want to end up with a GPU that your PSU won't be able to handle :P

[Nikose Tyris]

as a fantastic example of the PCI-e 2.0 that we just bought for the gaming desktop:

Radeon HD 5570. Great price point for a nice card.

[akaSM]

Oh, I forgot, which resolution will you play at?

[Aldurin]

Spread peanut butter inside your power supply. It works for me.

[Azisien]

Tom's Hardware February Graphics Card Chart. (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html)

They update it every month, though not that much new stuff rolls out enough to really scramble the table. Buying stuff at the top isn't good value, but it is the best. Each column down is less power, but less money.

[Japan]

a sinlge nvidia 560ti will do the job. A 550watt power supply will be plenty. That's pretty much the bare minimum if you plan on doing anything other than trolling youtube.

I'd suggest dual EVGA GTX 580 Classifieds though. Because fuck money amirite?

[akaSM]

Dual GTX 580s? what, are you trying to save money or what? Get a triple sli configuration and a 4th one for Physx and you're done. Get 590s instead of 580s for a bit more of overkill.

EDIT: forget that, go GTX 590 QUAD SLI

EDIT EDIT: don't forget your 590 for physx!

[Japan]

Can you even get 590s yet?

I bet somebody can.

You're going to need to put that shit in your freezer though once you overclock it to

OVER 9000!

[Aldurin]

The loading will be so fast in skyrim that your character goes back in time when he fast travels. Do eet.

[akaSM]

Greg, you know you want to. And you only have to go a bit over your current budget!

[Japan]

Actually to reduce load times you'd need a faster processor and faster hard drive read times so you should probably get like a 6gb/s SSD.

And skyrim is totally a console port so it loves the shit out of one stupidly fast processor core. So hook it up with like one of the second gen I7s under water and crank that beast to 5ghz.

But none of this has any bearing on anything in this thread.

(And since you'll be using the newer chipset to run that spiffy new processor you might as well get 32gigs of DDR3 2400 ram, don't be a fucking square man)

[Gregness]

*snip*

Also, post your PSU model, you don't want to end up with a GPU that your PSU won't be able to handle :P

This is my current PSU. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371016&Tpk=antec%20bp550%20plus)

Oh, I forgot, which resolution will you play at?

My monitor is also fairly old (gotta economize when you're in college, man) so probably something in the 1024x768 range.

Actually to reduce load times you'd need a faster processor and faster hard drive read times so you should probably get like a 6gb/s SSD.

And skyrim is totally a console port so it loves the shit out of one stupidly fast processor core. So hook it up with like one of the second gen I7s under water and crank that beast to 5ghz.

But none of this has any bearing on anything in this thread.

(And since you'll be using the newer chipset to run that spiffy new processor you might as well get 32gigs of DDR3 2400 ram, don't be a fucking square man)

Pfft, I've already got a quad core i7 and 12gb of RAM and a top of the line (a year ago at least) motherboard. The only hardware in my tower that needs replacing is the graphics card. Also, SSD's tend to wear out faster than their magnetic counterparts. I'll make the switch once the technology is more mature. About the overclocking though, I was led to believe that overclocking will void your warranty?

Edit: Oh, and regarding the Crossfire, my motherboard can actually support either crossfire or SLI so I'm open to that if it turns out to be a better option for my budget.

[Japan]

I was talking about the new 2011 slot processors.

And of course SSDs wear out faster and overclocking voids your warranty! Psh, there ain't no such thing as balling on a budget.

(But in all seriousness you should go for a GTX 560 in my opinion. It will do the job well enough, especially if you're not running at full 1080p)

[akaSM]

I'll leave the PSU think to Synk since I don't know a lot about PSUs. But, IIRC the GTX 560 ti can run on a good 550w PSU

Well, the 560 has a great value/power ratio so, I would recommend that if you want an Nvidia GPU, or a 6870 if you're going the AMD way BUT

1024*768

Both GPUs WILL be overkill for that resolution. My Radeon HD 5670 can handle stuff on high settings at 1920*1080 and, my GTX 460 can handle the highest (somtimes even the highest antialiasing!) settings on all my Steam games at that resolution. The GTX 560 is more powerful than my 460 so yeah :P. I got 2 suggestions:


Use all your money on the best card you can afford, get a new monitor later
Use some money on a good enough card, get a better monitor


Also, have in mind which games will you play. Even my 5670 can max out Source games (Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, Portal) but, there are some games that have higher requirements (Battlefield 3 comes to mind) which would need something better.

[Gregness]

Hell, my X1300 can handle starcraft II's minimum requirements, but it can't run ME1 (odd, since SCII came out later. A compliment to blizzard I guess.). Anyways, yeah, I'm mostly looking forward to being able to run the ME series and the like. I don't need bleeding edge graphics and I don't plan on trying to run Crysis any time soon. ;)

[Japan]

Judging by what you've posted here your system is good to go as is for a more powerful video card. You could easily drop a gtx 570 into there with zero supply issues, you could even overclock it. Hell I'm almost certain you could put a stock frequency 580 in.

I'm running dual 570s overclocked to 850mhz core clock on a 750 watt power supply, and antec is a pretty decent brand. You won't have any issues with a 560, so I'd suggest dropping all the cash you have into the video card.

[Gregness]

Is this the one? (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125383)

I don't see anywhere on the page that mentions the power draw or which power connectors it needs. You're sure it'll be okay?

[akaSM]

Yes it is the card we were talking about. You'll need a couple 6-pin PCI express cables, which your PSU has (according to Newegg, it has 1 6-pin and 1 that has 6+2 pins i.e., you can remove 2 pins). If those 6-pin cables are already used by something else, you can also use an adapter (that card comes with 2 of them) that uses 2 molex cables and makes a 6-pin cable.

The images below are from left to right:

6-pin PCI Express cable
Molex connector
6+2 pin PCI Express cable