Looking for a good budget graphics card

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jimbojango

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Jun 7, 2013
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Hi, I just upgraded my rig, basically everythin except the case and GPU.
Running i5 3570k (will overclock at some point)
Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H mobo (crossfire supported).
8gb Corsair vengance ram
Asus Geforce GTX 550ti pre overclocked.

Only got the GPU last year but im looking to upgrade for a little extra umph out of my games, was disappointed that i have to run Metro on low settings!

Obviously id like to do this on a budget, can anyone please give some suggestions (£100-£150 ish limit)? I'm thinking maybe GTX 650ti but also saw suggestions for the radeon 7850. Would it be beneficial to maybe go a little under the 7850 and get another one down the line for a dual gpu set up given that its a crossfire board not sli?

Also what should i look out for when GPU shopping? high gb, high mhz, high cores? Theres a lot of variety!

Thanks!
 
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game junky

game junky

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Feb 2, 2012
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At that budget you're looking at a Nvidia 650ti/660 or an AMD 7850/7870 - while they're a step up, those are going to struggle to get to high settings with any stability. I would go with a Nvidia 660 and grab another card down the road to SLI.

For GPUs, the variables are going to be total video memory capacity, ram speed, core clock and processor cores (name will vary depending on whether you select AMD or Nvidia but they are still processing cores). If you're planning on running more than 2 displays or playing games with a lot of texture mods, then it's a good idea to look at cards with more than 2GB of video memory. If you're planning on running 1-2 displays on an FPS (especially w/ large maps like BF3) they pushes the limits, then you're going to be more concerned with core clock. EVGA and ASUS typically are the two brands I select because their customer service doesn't suck and their warranty is usually not horrible.

Go to the top of your budget on a GPU - even when you SLI, the video memory isn't shared between the 2 cards and the processor performance isn't a 1:1 ratio so it's really not like running 2 graphics cards in tandem. I believe the same is true with Crossfire (haven't tried). If you're not in a hurry, I am sure the 760 will be worth grabbing because it should be in your price range and I am guessing performance will be a 10-15% drop off from the 770 which is way better than the 660.
 
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