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Video card advice... hoping Quizzical see's this
Its about time for me to upgrade my video card for the games coming out within the next 6-12 months and I need some advice. Here is my system specs as of today:
AMD Phenom 965 3.4, 8GB ram, Gigabyte GA785GM-US2H,Galaxy Geforce GT520 1GB, and Coolermaster RS500 PS.
I am going to upgrade my power supply to the corsair enthusiast 850TX to run whatever new video card I get. My problem is I dont know which one. I want to stick with Nvidia and I was looking at the EVGA GTX460 but should I be looking at a 5 series? I want to spend no more then $200 on the card becuase I might be getting another one for SLI if the 1st card turns out it cannot handle games further on in the future. Any help would be appreciated.
PS - Quizzical is a guru of knowledge so I figured he would have some good insight on the matter
Thanks
Goo
Comments
The 560 and the like would be the better ideal here. the 5 series has better cooling in general than the 4 series and that tends to end up helping quite alot.
To note i build my own computers and do quite a bit of research. While the GTX 560 Ti costs a little bit more (70 mor at most) it is a better card than the 460 is overall and it has a nicer overall cooling system in general vs the 400 series. I would reccomend it.
I have a GTX 470 myself however the 560 Ti would be somewhere in between the 460 and 470 performance wise but you do get the added cooling. Now if your budget doesnt fit into the price range the 460 is still a very good buy.
Note you can get the 460 for about 160 and the 560 Ti for about 230 or so (i'd reccomend 240 as the price point for them to get a good brand...)
I say the EVGA 460 GTX is going to be the best bang for $200. I am going to get one today as well to upgrade from my 9800gt
560 beats the 460 hands down.
Every possible way.
Oh under 200..
umm 460 GTX then easily.
I can really spend more then $200 on the card and if the 5 series is that much better I dont mind throwing in another $100 or so to get a decent card, so that being said if my budget were $300 for a card, then my question is do I want a GTX 560, 550Ti, 570? I plan on playing SWTOR, GW2, The Secret World and a few others, I dont have to have to been playing at max settings at 1080, but it would be nice. If you guys have any of these cards tell me what you think any pro's/cons
another crush on Quizzical, i see, welcome to the club. that poster kicks @ss! their posts are not only technically literate but it never ceases to amaze me how much i've learned by the end of the post.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2011-gaming-graphics-charts/Enthusiast-Index,2674.html
For around 300, either two 550 in SLI or a 570 would be your best bet.
The performance increase over the sub 200 460 GTX?
About 30-40 FPS.
Honestly... as long as you can run a game at 60 FPS you are fine.
560 over 460 is like... 5-10 FPS for 30-40 bucks more, totally not worth it IMO.
Only real differnce is power supply.
The 500 series draw a lot LESS power then the 400's.
A Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus is one of their cheap junk lines. I'd replace the power supply just on general principle even if you weren't going to upgrade the rest of the computer.
Here's a pretty good deal on a pretty good power supply that should work very nicely for you:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151094
"I am going to upgrade my power supply to the corsair enthusiast 850TX to run whatever new video card I get. "
No, don't. Corsair's TX series is rather dated and overpriced, and not that good by modern standards. It's hardly bad, but you can get something better for cheaper. Such as Corsair's own TX V2 series, which, in spite of the name, is not at all similar to the original TX series.
"I might be getting another one for SLI if the 1st card turns out it cannot handle games further on in the future."
Your motherboard only has one PCI Express x16 slot. It cannot do CrossFire or SLI. Even if it had two slots, Nvidia would artificially disable SLI through their video drivers just to spite you for buying an AMD chipset.
"I want to stick with Nvidia and I was looking at the EVGA GTX460 but should I be looking at a 5 series?"
The GeForce 400 and 500 series are basically the same chips. The initial designs of the GPU dies for the 400 series chips were catastrophic failures, with abysmal yields and awful clock speeds. So Nvidia redid the chips to basically fix the problems, and called it the 500 series. For various reasons, the GeForce GTX 465, 470, 480, and 590 are bad cards and should be avoided, but the rest of the cards in both series are decent modern choices at an appropriate price tag.
The GeForce GTX 460 and 560 series are basically just different bins of the same GPU chip. Technically the 560 is a respin of the 460, but all that did is allow for higher clock speeds--and at the cost of correspondingly higher power consumption. The 460 might have been discontinued around the start of this year, in which case, Nvidia simply has a bunch of old dies that they're still trying to get rid of. Or they might be branding failed GF114 dies that can't meet the GTX 560 bin requirements as a 460, so that they can use them without having to introduce a lower bin into the 500 series.
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I would worry about the case size and airflow before trying to upgrade the video card. What case do you have? People don't typically put Micro ATX motherboards in huge cases. Some video cards may not physically fit, and those that do may release too much heat into the case for your case to reasonably handle.
Depending on what case you have, you may need to add fans to improve case airflow. Or you may need to get an external exhaust video card, so that the card dumps much of its heat out the back of the case, rather than overloading the case airflow and making things overheat. If you are seriously constrained by heat, then you should probably consider an AMD card, as they can offer the same performance with considerably less heat output.
If you've got a nice case already, then you've got a lot more options.
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"I have a GTX 470 myself however the 560 Ti would be somewhere in between the 460 and 470 performance wise but you do get the added cooling."
A GeForce GTX 560 Ti is considerably faster than the GTX 470, while using less power. The GTX 560 Ti doesn't have very good energy efficiency, either. It's just that the GTX 470 was awful.
"I say the EVGA 460 GTX is going to be the best bang for $200."
$200 is way too much to pay for a GTX 460. You can get a much faster Radeon HD 6870 or GeForce GTX 560 (not Ti) for less than that.
"For around 300, either two 550 in SLI or a 570 would be your best bet."
No, no, no. Don't get two GeForce GTX 550 Tis in SLI. Tom's Hardware likes SLI and CrossFire way, way, way too much, and completely ignores their drawbacks in making their recommendation. I'd advise against SLI or CrossFire on anything less than a GeForce GTX 560 Ti or a Radeon HD 6950.
"Only real differnce is power supply.
The 500 series draw a lot LESS power then the 400's."
Actually, no. The performance per watt for the 400 and 500 series cards is basically the same, as the underlying architecture is nearly identical. The corresponding 500 series cards tend to draw more power, because they hit higher clock speeds. The exception is the GF100-based cards that were a complete disaster, and managed to get no improvements at all in performance per watt out of a full node die shrink.
I have a Raidmax Cobra mid tower and it has plenty of room. As far as cooling goes my cpu runs idle at 38C with stock cooler ( i have a liquid cooled coming) and it has 3 case fans and 2 pci slot fans right now. I put the slot fans in there becuase i wasnt using the pci's for anything. Honestly if you think going with the A TI card would work out I am more then willing to give it a shot, Ive just always used nvidia so was going to keep with it. As far as my motherboard goes I know its a bit older, I upgraded my cpu to the phenom from a athlon x2 6000. Im still using DDR ram and might just bite the bullet and go with a newer motherboard and get DDR3 and the extra PCI express slots. Youve got me teetering on the point of just handing this pc down to the teenager for his gaming rig..hes using my old athlon... and just building myself a new pc, and if I do that It will probably be the I5 2500K. Decisions decisions. I want to thank all you guys for your help too
If you've got a Phenom II, then that requires either DDR2 or DDR3 memory, not DDR. Your motherboard takes DDR2 memory.
Your processor is fast enough that I don't see any dire need to replace the processor and motherboard. If you don't already have 4 GB of memory, you might want to upgrade to that. As I said above, you will need a new power supply.
The case isn't exactly what I was worried about, but it's kind of close. That's a relic of another era, and New Egg discontinued it way back in 2005. Apparently it only comes with two case fans, and only 80 mm fans at that. And one pushes air in and the other out, so it really isn't very much airflow.
Now, that was fine for a budget gaming case in an era when a nice gaming card might use 60 W. Put a modern 200 W internal exhaust card in there and you've got problems. The interior of the case will get very hot at gaming loads, and then blowing hot air at heatsinks just isn't that effective of a way to cool them.
One option that you might want to consider is to replace the case. Do that and you can get nearly any video card that you might reasonably want. For example, this one is $50 including shipping, before a $15 rebate:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042
That's got a 120 mm fan and a 140 mm fan, both pulling air out, as well as plenty of air vents for air to come in. That might get you triple the net case airflow of what you've got.
Another option is to get an external exhaust video card that will send the bulk of the video card heat right out the back of the card, and hence out of the case. If a video card produces 200 W of heat, but only 50 W of that leaks into the case, then a case that can only handle 50 W from the video card is fine. For example, any of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150517
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127552
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161359
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150506
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130565
You may also need to measure with a ruler to make sure you've got ample room for the card to fit inside the case.
A third option is to just replace the computer instead. You're not in a situation where that's your only serious option. $400 in upgrades could get you performance comparable to a modern $800 gaming computer. But if you're willing to spend $1500 on a very nice gaming computer, then replacement makes a lot more sense.
i'd switch the 120mm fan in the back to the front to push cool air into the case. AND add another 120mm fan in the front so you have 2x120mm pushing cool air into the case and 140mm pulling hot air out. together with your powersupply and video card it should make the case fairly balanced in terms of airflow. a balanced airflow case will reduce dust and noise while increase cooling efficency. whenever possible, ALWAYS pick an external exhaust video card.