lol, those 2 cards are worlds apart. The 6870 has been up there with the best of the best in terms of gaming performance (as were the 5870 and 7870). The 7450 is simply not intended to be a gaming gpu. There's no comparison.
I think the way ATI names their cards tricks a lot of people. The first digit basically just represents the card's generation. The second digit is the one that really indicates the card's intended puprose and expected performance. x8xx are the top of the line ATI cards. x7xx cards are meant to be more economical, but still very good gaming cards. x6xx cards tend to be extreme budget gaming cards. You can get them for under $100, but you'll never be able to play new games at max settings. All other cards are either basic PC cards for displaying higher desktop resolutions or are laptop cards. The third digit indicates subtle differences between the card model. It's usually a 5 or 7 for the gaming ards, where 7 always seems to pack more performance. The last digit is irrelevant because it's always 0. I think they just wanted to make their numbers seem higher than Nvidia's cards.
If you are going to shop for a gaming video card, you need to keep this in mind. Find the top of the line single gpu model, such as the current HD 7970 or GTX 680 and only buy a card that is one or two steps down from it or even the previous era's top end card. Anything less is not going to meet your gaming needs for the cost benefit. So for the AMD, you would want to stick with something like the 7870 or 7770 or even the 6870 (previous era top end card). For the Nvidia side of things, you'd want to look at the 670 or 660 Ti or the 580 (previous era top end card). Compare the prices for each and determine the cost benefit that works best for you.
My thoughts on upgrading is that you choose the card with the greatest longevity / performance that you can afford rather than going in with a bargain shoppers mind set. If necessary, wait that extra month or two and save up for the significantly better card.
I want to try out guild wars 2 but i'm not sure if my rig can handle it. I want at least med graphic settings with 30-40fps if possible
I recently tried Tera and it was so choppy on med settings that it put me off, I could play it on min settings but it just turned me off big time and i stopped playing. here are some spec of my comp, pls let me know if you can thx!
As others have said, if you want to play games and don't like minimum settings, you'll need a decent video card, as opposed to the sort of thing that one might buy if the old card died and you just need to display the desktop. While you do have a discrete video card, it only offers maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the graphical performance of modern Radeon HD 7660D integrated graphics.
The good news is that your power hog of a CPU means that you've got a desktop--and probably not one of those stupid ultra-small form factor "desktops" that make it impossible to replace anything.
Your graphic card is bottom of the chain, why do you expect even medium graphic with it? Its designed to run windows and mutimedia, not games, you should be happy to play with min settings. Invest 80-90$ to have somewhat decent graphic card (even less if you buy used).
I'm using the HD 6870 and have all settings on max without problem.
Hell even my non-gamer laptop can play the game lagfree. (With PlayStation 1 grafics of course)
A Radeon HD 6870 is the same architecture as the Radeon HD 6450 that the original poster has. But it has 14 SIMD engines, while the 6450 has 2. See the difference? (The 7450 is the same card as the 6450, but AMD marketing awarded it an extra 1000 naming points to help OEMs trick clueless consumers into thinking it's newer than it is.)
Your graphic card is bottom of the chain, why do you expect even medium graphic with it? Its designed to run windows and mutimedia, not games, you should be happy to play with min settings. Invest 80-90$ to have somewhat decent graphic card (even less if you buy used).
I'm using the HD 6870 and have all settings on max without problem.
Hell even my non-gamer laptop can play the game lagfree. (With PlayStation 1 grafics of course)
this gives me hope then, the funny thing is, is that this comp i bought like 3 months ago! was labled a "gaming" rig by the guys at Frys lol. granted it only cost like 650 and i knew i would have to replace the graphics card sooner or later but i just didn't want to do it for guildwars 2 as money is tight.
If whoever sold that to you called it a gaming rig, then either he was clueless or a liar. Or possibly both.
Don't just buy a computer at random and hope that you happen to stumble onto something good. Before you buy a computer, ask someone who:
1) knows what he's talking about, and
2) isn't trying to sell you something.
The latter is because some people will say, in effect, "This is what you should buy because it gives us the largest profit margin."
And where will you find such people? On the Internet, of course. This forum has a hardware section.
Even though personally, I'd rather buy a 6870 than a 7750, even today
A 6870 is faster than a 7750, yes, but a lot of what to buy depends on prices. Furthermore, an OEM power supply isn't likely to have the two 6-pin PCI-E power connectors that a 6870 needs. While power supplies can be replaced, that adds to the cost.
Even though personally, I'd rather buy a 6870 than a 7750, even today
A 6870 is faster than a 7750, yes, but a lot of what to buy depends on prices. Furthermore, an OEM power supply isn't likely to have the two 6-pin PCI-E power connectors that a 6870 needs. While power supplies can be replaced, that adds to the cost.
Originally posted by Ezhae That CPU is your bottleneck. GW2's performance is heavily bound to CPU and that 6100 is about i3's levels of power. I'm not very familiar with AMDs CPU's since I stick to intel's stuff, but with i5 and a dated GPU (GTX 460 1GB) with 8 GB DDR3 I can easiy pulll GW2 on high detail at 60fps+.
Was waiting for some one to say it...
GW2 is a CPU intensive game and not a GPU intensive game. I run GW2 on an old 8800GTX, max setting except shadows. Shadows just kills the performance for this card in any game. I do how ever have have an AMD FX 8 Black edition CPU and 8 gigs of DDR3. I get no lag in even the largest of zergs.
It's sad that a lot of people are lying in this thread. GW2 is A LOT more demanding than TERA. I can play tera at medium settings and my fps is pinned at 60 with very little fluctuation.
GW2 on the other hand even at lowest settings varies wildly. In pve with few people around it is above 60, with many people it drops to 30-40. In WvW it starts at 30-35 fps (with no people around) and drops down to 10-15 in keep fights, especially when it's snowing. (why do you think they have culling?)
The weird thing is TERA looks much better than GW2. Its engine is optimized very badly.
I'd suggest to steer clear of GW2 since it is overrated as hell anyway.
Tera DOES NOT look better than GW2. TERA uses soft focus on the background so the rest looks good and it is optimized for NVidia cards. GW2, on the other hand, looks good no matter what graphics card I use.
Can I say one thing - troll much?
GW2 is design to look good at a distance, and it does a decent job at that, but your sorely wrong about the level of detail on world objects and characters overall. Tera has almost photo realistic textures on objects, weapons and armor, its quite amazing at max detail. They also make extensive use of shadows and real time lighting effects. The Unreal engine hands down has a superior shader rendering engine than GW2 in-house built engine.
GW2 is design to look good at a distance, and it does a decent job at that, but your sorely wrong about the level of detail on world objects and characters overall. Tera has almost photo realistic textures on objects, weapons and armor, its quite amazing at max detail. They also make extensive use of shadows and real time lighting effects. The Unreal engine hands down has a superior shader rendering engine than GW2 in-house built engine.
as always aesthetics and graphics come in to play when talking about how good a game looks.. TERA might be graphically superior but I find GW2 much more aesthetically pleasing overall.. aesthetics>graphics imho
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Originally posted by Ezhae That CPU is your bottleneck. GW2's performance is heavily bound to CPU and that 6100 is about i3's levels of power. I'm not very familiar with AMDs CPU's since I stick to intel's stuff, but with i5 and a dated GPU (GTX 460 1GB) with 8 GB DDR3 I can easiy pulll GW2 on high detail at 60fps+.
Was waiting for some one to say it...
GW2 is a CPU intensive game and not a GPU intensive game. I run GW2 on an old 8800GTX, max setting except shadows. Shadows just kills the performance for this card in any game. I do how ever have have an AMD FX 8 Black edition CPU and 8 gigs of DDR3. I get no lag in even the largest of zergs.
You've got an AMD FX Black Edition 8-core CPU. The original poster has an AMD FX Black Edition 6-core CPU. I don't think that the extra two cores are the big difference between your performance and his.
A GeForce 8800 GTX, on the other hand, is a lot faster than a Radeon HD 6450.
Comments
Yeah I got fooled by the numbers.
If you are going to shop for a gaming video card, you need to keep this in mind. Find the top of the line single gpu model, such as the current HD 7970 or GTX 680 and only buy a card that is one or two steps down from it or even the previous era's top end card. Anything less is not going to meet your gaming needs for the cost benefit. So for the AMD, you would want to stick with something like the 7870 or 7770 or even the 6870 (previous era top end card). For the Nvidia side of things, you'd want to look at the 670 or 660 Ti or the 580 (previous era top end card). Compare the prices for each and determine the cost benefit that works best for you.
My thoughts on upgrading is that you choose the card with the greatest longevity / performance that you can afford rather than going in with a bargain shoppers mind set. If necessary, wait that extra month or two and save up for the significantly better card.
As others have said, if you want to play games and don't like minimum settings, you'll need a decent video card, as opposed to the sort of thing that one might buy if the old card died and you just need to display the desktop. While you do have a discrete video card, it only offers maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the graphical performance of modern Radeon HD 7660D integrated graphics.
The good news is that your power hog of a CPU means that you've got a desktop--and probably not one of those stupid ultra-small form factor "desktops" that make it impossible to replace anything.
A Radeon HD 6870 is the same architecture as the Radeon HD 6450 that the original poster has. But it has 14 SIMD engines, while the 6450 has 2. See the difference? (The 7450 is the same card as the 6450, but AMD marketing awarded it an extra 1000 naming points to help OEMs trick clueless consumers into thinking it's newer than it is.)
If whoever sold that to you called it a gaming rig, then either he was clueless or a liar. Or possibly both.
Don't just buy a computer at random and hope that you happen to stumble onto something good. Before you buy a computer, ask someone who:
1) knows what he's talking about, and
2) isn't trying to sell you something.
The latter is because some people will say, in effect, "This is what you should buy because it gives us the largest profit margin."
And where will you find such people? On the Internet, of course. This forum has a hardware section.
The good news is that getting a decent budget gaming card doesn't have to be that expensive. Here you go:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102969
$95 before a $10 rebate, and with free shipping. That will give you about five times the graphical performance of your current card.
A 6870 is faster than a 7750, yes, but a lot of what to buy depends on prices. Furthermore, an OEM power supply isn't likely to have the two 6-pin PCI-E power connectors that a 6870 needs. While power supplies can be replaced, that adds to the cost.
thx for the tips http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102969 seems like the way to go for now, once i save up a few more bucks lol.
Was waiting for some one to say it...
GW2 is a CPU intensive game and not a GPU intensive game. I run GW2 on an old 8800GTX, max setting except shadows. Shadows just kills the performance for this card in any game. I do how ever have have an AMD FX 8 Black edition CPU and 8 gigs of DDR3. I get no lag in even the largest of zergs.
GW2 is design to look good at a distance, and it does a decent job at that, but your sorely wrong about the level of detail on world objects and characters overall. Tera has almost photo realistic textures on objects, weapons and armor, its quite amazing at max detail. They also make extensive use of shadows and real time lighting effects. The Unreal engine hands down has a superior shader rendering engine than GW2 in-house built engine.
as always aesthetics and graphics come in to play when talking about how good a game looks.. TERA might be graphically superior but I find GW2 much more aesthetically pleasing overall.. aesthetics>graphics imho
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
You've got an AMD FX Black Edition 8-core CPU. The original poster has an AMD FX Black Edition 6-core CPU. I don't think that the extra two cores are the big difference between your performance and his.
A GeForce 8800 GTX, on the other hand, is a lot faster than a Radeon HD 6450.