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Looking to upgrade my Graphics card.
evianwater
Member UncommonPosts: 308
in Hardware
I admit I have fallen quite behind the times when it comes to knowing my shit about computer hardware (Not that I was ever very savvy) so I thought I'd try to get some suggestions from you wonderful unbiased folks.
I currently have a GeForce GT 430 (1gb) (believe this currently retails for less than $40 )
The rest of my computer I believe is pretty solid : 13gb RAM, Intel i7 3.2ghz / 3.5 ghz
But I really feel like my video card is the first place I should look to upgrade.
Do ya'll have any suggestions ? I was looking for a price range maxing out at about $150-200, so nothing amazing 
Thank you very much!
Comments
Dollars or euros?
Eh well don;t I feel a bit ego-centric for not taking into consideration an international audience! Dollars.
Saw this one and was wondering what you guys thought ? : http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-GDDR5-Graphics-04G-P4-3748-KR/dp/B00KJGYOGG/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=undefined&sr=1-2&keywords=video+card
I'd go with
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202099&cm_re=Sapphire_R9-_-14-202-099-_-Product which gives the 760 gtx from Nvidia a run for its money (I recommend the Sapphire one to MSI or the other brands because I know Sapphire GPUs are built to be resilient, mine took a short that fried the south bridge on my old mobo and it is still ticking right now).
I think you ought to figure out exactly what you have in your current computer first, as I don't think you know. While it is technically possible to build a computer with 13 GB of memory, it's a really stupid thing to do, and you probably didn't actually do it.
You don't want to buy a nice new card and then immediately fry it because the rest of the system couldn't handle it. Exactly what hardware do you have? I want to see case, power supply, motherboard, CPU, and memory, and give the exact brand name and model, not just some partial specs. The case and power supply are critical, and the others perhaps less so; for memory, I'm really only interested in the amount--you said 13 GB, but that's probably wrong.
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You're looking to replace one card that has no good reason to exist by another. Pairing Nvidia's bottom of the line GPU chip with 4 GB of memory is completely crazy, as that adds a lot of cost but not a lot of performance. Unless, perhaps, you like ultra high resolution textures but don't mind turning everything else way down.
Depending on what you're looking to spend, this would probably about double the performance of that card, while still being cheaper:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161460
Or a few notches up the chain, there's the card that Dihoru linked.
Ram is 12g ddr3. Its 2048 sticks in 6 slots putting it at 12288, it rounded up, not down.
MB : MSI X58 Pro-E (MS-7522)
Processor : Intel Core i7 960 CPU 960 @ 3.20ghz
Most things out there are an upgrade for my current GPU, I just want to make sure I'll be good for a while, not just a year.
I play MMOs, not the hogs like BF/CoD etc etc, I do plan to play Dragon Age Inquisition though the predicted requirement I've seen for that is a GeForce GTX 650
As I said: Sapphire R9 280, the link in my previous post shows you to it. The R9 280 is roughly on par with the 760 GTX and Sapphire keep their make of GPUs up to date in driver terms quite well so you should be able to run DA: I on medium to high settings barring any heat issues with the other components.
Ah, you've got a Bloomfield system. That's 12 GB of memory exactly, as 1 GB = 1024 KB. But that's sensible for that rig. And yeah, your CPU is fine for a while to come still.
What power supply do you have, and what case? The power supply has to deliver power to the GPU, and the case has to be able to pull head away from it, so if either of those are inadequate, things can fry. If the power supply is no good, you could be looking at replacing both the video card and the power supply, but that's still massively cheaper than replacing the computer outright.
I'll have to check later to be certain but I believe its 650 or 750w. As far as I know that should be perfectly fine for most rigs right ?
Case : http://www.amazon.com/NZXT-Phantom-Tower-Gaming-Case/dp/B006I2H08E/ref=sr_1_11?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1408234404&sr=1-11&keywords=computer+case
It looks like that has a front fan, a top fan, and a rear fan. My guess is that they're all 120 mm fans. You should be fine on airflow so long as you don't go crazy--not that you could fit crazy hardware into your budget unless you go out of your way to grab old, obsolete cards that were inefficient.
But the power supply could be worrisome. The nominal wattage alone doesn't really mean much, as that's a marketing number, not an engineering one. That's why I asked for the exact brand name and model. If you don't know, then open up the case and read the label. If you've got a high quality 650 W power supply, you're fine, but some there are some "650 W" power supplies that are junk unfit to power a computer of any wattage.
Xion 700w, model no. XON-700p12n
Also have a spare corsair 650
Can't recommend that, Nvidias 740 serie is low performance cards and not really made for gamers.
Cards ending with 500 like the 750 are basic gamers cards, the 60 cards are for regular gamers with somewhat higher demands, the 70 and 80 cards are high end.
You really need a 760 card as a gamer, that is the most bang for the buck as a gamer (I have 780 myself but that is a bit pricy).
And yes, that is 40 bucks over your 200 bucks limit but I would wait a month and save 40 bucks instead of getting one now, you get a lot more out of that card than a cheap budget card. Or I would look around and see if anyone but Newegg have it cheaper (as a Swede are my knowledge about US retailers somewhat limited).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125556&cm_re=760-_-14-125-556-_-Product
In worst case I would go for a 750, can't really recommend that but it is at least miles better than the 740. Or you could get a ATI card, they are somewhat cheeper (but tend to have worse drivers). I am sure Quizz could recommend a good one, he is way better at ATI cards than me that use Nvidias cards for all my builds.
This is uncannily true for both ATI/AMD and nVidia. nVidia also has the Ti thing, which is like "inbetween" whatever number it is and the next number up.
core i 7 is nothing if it is 2nd generation . core i5 of 4th generation performs more well than core i7 of 2nd generation etc. secondly you are on wrong forums and website . mmorpg.com is everything but not unbiased community lol .
The bias towards certain games on this site has nothing to do with the hardware section. There are people who put in great effort to make this section pretty decent. They've been doing it for years. Not to mention extremely knowledgeable. Helping people to make informed decisions and leaving the choice up to the poster asking. Don't get the two mixed up. I'm not one of those that are all that knowledgeable but it's pretty good thanks to those posters. A shame it slowed down lately though.
Nehalem CPUs are still quite servicable even though they are several years old now. I would put them against a modern Piledriver AMD CPU and wouldn't be surprised if they matched or even slightly bested the AMD chip.
Most CPU models in this era were excellent overclockers as well, some variants able to double (or very nearly) their clockspeed. That adds a lot to their current usability.
Sandy was a nice upgrade, yes, but Nehalem was, and still is, a very decent chip and very much so still viable for a solid gaming rig. Especially if you bump the BLCK a bit.
And the difference between an i5 and i7, across generations, I don't know what you are trying to get at, but ok.
Get rid of that GT430 and get something decent in there and that computer will still have some legs, and for cheap. $200 in the video card will put it back up to High/Near Max on pretty well every game out there at 1080p.