What graphics card would be best under 300$ for my system?

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x1expert1x

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Mar 21, 2013
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Hi, so last year I upgraded from a radeon HD5450 512mb to a Asus HD7750 1gb gddr5. It runs well-optimized games great, like Battlefield 3, Bad company 2, Metro Last Light, Skyrim, Minecraft, Far Cry 2, all on ultra-high in the 50-60 fps range.

But I got ArmA 3 and I really like it, unfortunately the optimization for the game is way beyond my graphics card capabilities. I get 10-20 fps on servers, but 60-70 fps on singleplayer with everything on ultra and grass turned off.

What graphics card would you recommend for these specs?

AMD Phenom ii x4 945 3.0GHZ
Asus HD7750 GDDR5
Windows 7 64-bit
8gb ddr3 ram
1tb Hard Drive
1360x768 display
Corsair 430 watt psu (I upgraded from a 300-watt craptrap chinese psu, which probably only put out 200 watts. Failed a few times)

I bought this computer from HP so I can't overclock the CPU. GPU overclocking is just fine. Is my system bottlenecking any of my components/GPU? My mom needs a new computer, so I can probably gift her this one and she would slip me some cash to build a new one, but I am trying to hold back, because if I start building then I want a top-of-the-line that should be future-proof for at least another 2-3 years, which would cost me 800-1,500$.

This PC works fine, it runs a standard ATX motherboard, so I should be able to swap out motherboards and be able to overclock, right? There are no more PCI-E slots on my motherboard available except the one that is being used now, so I can't crossfire another graphics card, and ArmA 3 doesn't work with crossfired cards, only on DX9 mode, which is not available in multiplayer, and I would need a new motherboard and PSU.


 
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JD88
If you are getting good FPS on single player and low FPS on multiplayer, your CPU is definitely what is holding you back. In multiplayer, the CPU is stressed a lot more. Graphics typically aren't much different if any at all. That Phenom CPU is actually pretty old and has a relatively low clock speed. Also, at that resolution you really shouldn't need a whole lot more in the graphics department.

I would suggest spending the $300 on a CPU/Motherboard or go ahead with your full system build like you talked about.
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MC_K7

MC_K7

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Aug 31, 2008
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The problem you might have with 300$ graphics card is that even with your new PSU it might not handle it, 430-Watt isn't that much. What Corsair model do you have exactly? CX I presume?

Given that you play with a very low resolution (1366x768), you could get away with a Radeon 7850 or GTX-650-Ti-"Boost" without having to change your PSU again. This might be your best bet and you'd save money, you wouldn't have to use the full 300$ budget since these two cards sell for around 175$ and they should give you a significant increase in performance. Enough to play Arma 3 smoothly at 1366 x 768 I guess.

If the game still doesn't run well with one of these two cards, getochkn might be right and it could be a CPU bottleneck but I'd be surprised, the 7750 seems like the weak link to me.
 
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JD88

JD88

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Feb 25, 2013
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If you are getting good FPS on single player and low FPS on multiplayer, your CPU is definitely what is holding you back. In multiplayer, the CPU is stressed a lot more. Graphics typically aren't much different if any at all. That Phenom CPU is actually pretty old and has a relatively low clock speed. Also, at that resolution you really shouldn't need a whole lot more in the graphics department.

I would suggest spending the $300 on a CPU/Motherboard or go ahead with your full system build like you talked about.
 
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