Which Graphics card for an old Maximus 2 Formula? Help Please!

kerouac

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I have an Asus Maximus 2 (with the Intel 2 Quad Q6600 2.4 Ghz chipset 4 series with only 2G of Crucial ram ) which needs a graphics card that will work on an old mob.

I would like to play F1 and other racing games on screens with vga ports. (I know I'm out of date.)

As I don't know much about PC gaming, I would like to know which graphic card series or attributes one needs to take into account for such an old board. I've read that a GTX 660 could work good?

Does this mean I should buy an older graphics card for better compatibility? Or would a newer one work just as well?
 
Solution
The 2GB of (I'm assuming ddr2) ram is going to be the bottleneck. I've seen MSI Afterburner show over 4GB of system ram used on some newer games recently on my setup.

Personally I'd go with a GTX750ti unless you plan to upgrade your motherboard/cpu/ram soon and in that case I'd skip the 660 and go with a GTX760.

Your motherboard shouldn't be an issue other than maybe a bios update.
The 2GB of (I'm assuming ddr2) ram is going to be the bottleneck. I've seen MSI Afterburner show over 4GB of system ram used on some newer games recently on my setup.

Personally I'd go with a GTX750ti unless you plan to upgrade your motherboard/cpu/ram soon and in that case I'd skip the 660 and go with a GTX760.

Your motherboard shouldn't be an issue other than maybe a bios update.
 
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kerouac

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Thanks. So if I get more ram (yes ddr2) I would have more options?

Sounds like one or the other, just a question of enough memory I take.

BTW, I still have PCI-E16x 2.0

Should I give up on vga monitors?
 
Your processor is comparable to a newer dual core pentium 1155 or 1150 socket processor just because of it's age.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-overclocking,3077-5.html

Honestly I wouldn't put any money into ddr2 ram unless you can find it dirt cheap.

You won't need an older card. There's a very small possibility you might need a bios update, but a newer card will work perfectly fine in you motherboard.
 

kerouac

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kerouac

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Thanks for all your advice! But one last thing if I may:) - why not upgrade ram? Would it be wasted on such an old board/ processor?

Does it matter which GTX750ti I get, are some brands more compatible?

Thanks again, it's much appreciated!
 


You could upgrade the ram. I didn't think about you having 4 ram slots in that board, so if you can just add another 2GB instead of dropping $75 on 2x2GB it might be worth the $30. I just wouldn't invest a ton of money in an older setup seeing as how 4GB of ddr3 AND a new slot motherboard costs about what 4GB of ddr2 ram costs.

Any brand will work fine in your motherboard. MSI and EVGA both have 3 year warranties and are the only ones that claim they will still warranty even if you overclock or replace the factory cooler. I tend to stick to MSI unless something is a really good deal price-wise.