Upgrading GeForce GT 220, 200$ budget.

DonCorleone96 · Nov 21, 2013

Hi! I NEED to upgrade my awful GeForce GT 220 graphics card to something that will handle games for a good amount of time. I play strategy games like Civilization 5, Crusader Kings 2, Europa Universalis 4, would like to play recent Total War games like Rome 2. I don't care about first person shooter like BF4, Crysis and those kind of games, I play strategy games and I start to simply not be able to play them anymore.

My specs :

- I have a 1920 x 1080 Monitor
- I have 9 GB of installed RAM
- I have an Intel core i7 CPU 2.67 GHZ
- And a GeForce GT 220 graphics card

What are your suggestions? Thank you.

rolandzhang3 · Nov 21, 2013

What's your power supply?

Well considering your budget might as well go with a fairly decent GPU even if you're not going to be play the most demanding games

This 7870 should do the job very nicely

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-video-card-r78702gd5toc

Froggytv · Nov 21, 2013

Yes, we need to know your power supply.

I think that a r9 270x would do well, it's about 10 dollars over budget, if that's okay.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202063

Gate9er · Nov 21, 2013

DonCorleone96 :

9GB of RAM?? I thought they were only available in even numbers.!

Froggytv · Nov 21, 2013

Gate9er :

DonCorleone96 :

9GB of RAM?? I thought they were only available in even numbers.!

I do not understand why anybody would ever get 9GB of ram even if you could...

DonCorleone96 · Nov 21, 2013

Well on my PC's box, it says 9Gb DDR3 Memory. My Power supply : AC Input : 100-127V/220-240V 9A/5A 50-60 GHz Some of it is written in mandarin or japanese idk.

rolandzhang3 · Nov 21, 2013

The 7870 GHz edition is essentially the same as a 270x and is over $40 cheaper mate

DonCorleone96 · Nov 21, 2013

Please tell what to look for in the power supply. Because I don't really know what I must look for.

My Power supply : AC Input : 100-127V/220-240V 9A/5A 50-60 GHz Some of it is written in mandarin or japanese idk.

rolandzhang3 · Nov 21, 2013

Look at the PSU sticker under the +12v, what's the amp reading?

DonCorleone96 · Nov 21, 2013

Well in the Output thing, it says +12V1 and one line under it it says +12V2. However, at the right of these two things it says 18.5A MAX.

rolandzhang3 · Nov 21, 2013

That's pretty weak and you'd be better off upgrading both components at once

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB Video Card ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ Microcenter)
Total: $159.98
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-11-21 22:40 EST-0500)

DonCorleone96 · Nov 21, 2013

Alright thank you very much. And for the GPU, do you think that it will be good for my games? And for future strategy games, mostly strategy games? Because if it a weak GPU, then I could go to 250 as a price.

rolandzhang3 · Nov 21, 2013

Yes it will, the 7870 GHz/270x should perform well, Rome 2 seems to a bit buggy but patches should fix those issues for the most part. The only game off the top of my head that doesn't run very well for everyone would be Company of Heroes 2

For the most part the 7870 will run all those games without a problem

DonCorleone96 · Nov 21, 2013

And will it be good for a couple years at least? I don't want it to be useless after 2 years cuz then I would rather buy a more expensive one.

rolandzhang3 · Nov 21, 2013

It should be good for 2 years or so, the next step up would be this 7950 which is out of stock right now

http://pcpartpicker.com/mr/newegg/sapphire-video-card-1003523l

DonCorleone96 · Nov 21, 2013

If I somehow manage to raise the budget to 250$, what would you recommend? Btw thank you you were very helpful.

rolandzhang3 · Nov 21, 2013

Well then that would be the 7950 or GTX 760 price range, the $250 budget including new PSU?

$10 over budget but yeah... (the cheaper 7950 is out of stock as already mentioned)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

Video Card: PowerColor Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card ($229.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ Microcenter)
Total: $259.97
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-11-21 23:04 EST-0500)

If a little over $250 for the GPU itself then

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/powercolor-video-card-ax79703gbd52dhv3

Powercolor isn't the best brand out there, but these were as cheap as I could go

DonCorleone96 · Nov 21, 2013

Edit : Nvm. You posted prices.

DonCorleone96 · Nov 21, 2013

The 7950 AMD would cost how much if I waited for it to be in stock?

rolandzhang3 · Nov 21, 2013

http://pcpartpicker.com/mr/newegg/sapphire-video-card-1003523l

Around less than $200 if prices don't go up again

DonCorleone96 · Nov 21, 2013

Are the discounts the same if I live in Canada? Like the rebate maybe doesn't apply in Canada cuz it's not the canadian newegg?

rolandzhang3 · Nov 21, 2013

I'm not sure about that since I live in neither countries

7950 and GTX 760 in Canada

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/xfx-video-card-fx795atdkc
http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-video-card-02gp42765kr

In that case you could still consider the 7870+new PSU, you could save up for a while and get a 7950/760 or even a 7970/280x instead

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB Video Card ($174.00 @ NCIX)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ NCIX)
Total: $203.99
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-11-21 23:25 EST-0500)

cst1992 · Nov 21, 2013

hey hey don't worry dude, the cards are very powerful. The GT220 gives a performance of 128 GFlops and the 7950 gives a performance of 2867 GFlops, and the 760 gives 2258 GFlops. You should be able to run even demanding games at high to ultra settings, and the strategy games should be a breeze.

Also, your comp seems pretty powerful for the most part, could it be the case that the psu is too weak to handle it?
The 220 requires 58 W for itself at full load. That's 5 A for itself. If you have a lot of fans, HDD's, CPU cooler, etc then 13.5 A seems too weak, and even the card may be performing at slow speeds than is otherwise possible.
How much watts does your system require here?

magneezo · Nov 21, 2013

So...a 7870 Ghz edition for $129. & free games. It's actually true. Damn.

DonCorleone96 · Nov 21, 2013

Yeah, my PC isn't bad at all, 9GB RAM, i7 2.66 GHz processor is good too. I have a 1080p monitor

Upgrading GeForce GT 220, 200$ budget.

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