Upgrading from Geforce 9500GT

hawaiidave

Honorable
Apr 14, 2013
2
0
10,510
Alright here's the deal, hoping I can get some third party opinions/options! Thanks so much in advance for any/all info!

I'm running a Geforce 9500GT card at the moment. I want to upgrade, but not sure what my best option(s) is/would be.

I have a 600w psu so I think I'm alright there - I don't want to spend more than maybe 120 (give or take) on the card (new, not refurbished or used). My only other restriction is that the card, and here's the kicker, has to have a VGA port - don't want to chance/go the route of "adapter cords", so it needs to have the VGA port because, sadly enough, I simply don't have it in the budget to buy a new monitor AND a new gpu, and I figure there's a good chance of finding a better GPU than the one that I've got that still supports vga connections.

Some side info I figure I'd mention- running windows 7 (64 bit), my native screen resolution is 1366x768 (convinced that widescreens are the worst waste of space I've ever laid my eyes upon, but that's another story for another day), and I've got 4GB of ram, moving up to my max of 8GB this week.

If anyone has any tips or info they'd like to share, it'd be much appreciated, just browsing at the moment but it's nice to be prepared!

-Thanks-

Afterthought - Running games (barely) such as Skyrim, Arma2, and Planetside2 on low to medium settings, and I'm hurting the most in the texture/opengl/shader processing areas it seems - I figure the RAM upgrade I have planned will help a bit, along with speeding it up in general, but I'd really like to be able to play these on medium settings with more than 15 frames per second - no point in playing at less than around 45-60 in my opinion, though I know some who play Skyrim at 25 frames per second, unimaginable to me, but to each his own.
 

hawaiidave

Honorable
Apr 14, 2013
2
0
10,510
I just realized I didn't mark this as a discussion - tomshardware noob here - Lol. Anyway, I checked out the HD7770, not a huge fan of AMD I admit, though I failed to mention that, have had many friends with amd GPU's that burned out - BUT I wouldn't be completely against the switch if it were worthy of a swap. The HD7770 seems ok at first glance, the price is about what I'm looking for given the fact I could sell off this card, though a tad cheaper and I'd just hand it off to a friend as a hand-me-down.

I'm looking however, and can't seem to find a VGA port on this card (HD7770) could you provide a link for me that would lead me by the nose down the right path? I'm seeing HDMI, etc. but no VGA and that's my main requirement.

Also regarding Skyrim - just using the game as one example of many, but the processor limitation is understood - I'm using an AthlonII 3.4GHz dual core for what it's worth - would like to upgrade that in the future, too, but it's more trouble than I'm willing to go through at the moment.

ANYWAY, thanks for your continued help fellahs, always looking for more options, have bookmarked that 7770, all opinions much appreciated!