- Apr 18, 2015
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- 4,510
First.. I'd like to formally say hello to everyone. While I have never communicated on these forums I have certainly used them for a resource for as long as I can remember.
What's going on?
About 2(?) years ago my wife and I bought a pair of Gateway DX4879-UB318 computers from best buy ($600/EA), and while she was completely content with the onboard GPU I wasn't. I'm not a top-end gamer (I typically play WoW, D3, SC2, Immortal Titans, Planetside 2, Quake Live, and America's Army), but I do want what I play to look good and smooth. I prefer 1080P, but I will play 720P if I think the higher is straining my computer. I don't really venture too much into what's new. If it's not broke then why fix it, heh?
I bought a Geforce GTX 650TI (Boost) and a Corsair 500XT to get that computer up to speed. About 2 months ago My computer went dead, and the cause of death was ruled as a power spike from the PSU. I'm serious ... It was dark in here and I seen the flash come from the back of my PSU and it went through EVERYTHING. The only thing left that was still useful was a HDD that I now use as backup.
After that went down I ended up buying another i5 (haswell) system. It's an Acer ATC-605-UR19, and it come stock with the Intel HD 4600. While it's a little improvement over the HD 4000 I'm still seeing a lot of struggling even in the games listed. I made sure to buy the 3 year warranty this time.
Well, now I want a new graphics card, but I am not going to remove anything from the system as I don't want to pick over those details should I need to exercise my warranty. I do not want to buy components or another pc which would most likely cost me another $500. So, yes, I'm going to keep the stock 300W PSU in the computer. While there are quite a few molex that I can convert to a 6 pin or 8 pin I don't think I want to pull more than the 75W that the bridge provides. Safety is my number one concern, but I want to play too.
I really wish I would have just built our PCs, but hindsight is always 20/20 I guess.
Anyhow, after spending the past 24 hours really reading up on what's what with graphics cards now I have a few that fit the bill which I want to run by the community to query opinions.
NOTE: I am NOT going to swap out my PSU! This is just in case someone is just skimming the post.
Geforce GT 720 - 1GB GDDR3 - $50
Geforce GT 720 - 2GB GDDR3 - $60
Geforce GT 730 - 1GB GDDR5 - $70
Geforce GT 730 - 2GB GDDR5 - $75
I'm not necessarily a Nvidia fanboy. Why it looks as if is because I found out that the new Maxwell GPU in the 700 series was specializing in efficiency which means less power per performance. I chose EVGA cards, because that manufacture was kind enough the list the power draw on their website.
Would you all be so kind as to advise me which card listed (or unlisted) would fare well in playing the listed games in 1080p at suitable frame rates (50+)?
Thank you in advance,
Bill
What's going on?
About 2(?) years ago my wife and I bought a pair of Gateway DX4879-UB318 computers from best buy ($600/EA), and while she was completely content with the onboard GPU I wasn't. I'm not a top-end gamer (I typically play WoW, D3, SC2, Immortal Titans, Planetside 2, Quake Live, and America's Army), but I do want what I play to look good and smooth. I prefer 1080P, but I will play 720P if I think the higher is straining my computer. I don't really venture too much into what's new. If it's not broke then why fix it, heh?
I bought a Geforce GTX 650TI (Boost) and a Corsair 500XT to get that computer up to speed. About 2 months ago My computer went dead, and the cause of death was ruled as a power spike from the PSU. I'm serious ... It was dark in here and I seen the flash come from the back of my PSU and it went through EVERYTHING. The only thing left that was still useful was a HDD that I now use as backup.
After that went down I ended up buying another i5 (haswell) system. It's an Acer ATC-605-UR19, and it come stock with the Intel HD 4600. While it's a little improvement over the HD 4000 I'm still seeing a lot of struggling even in the games listed. I made sure to buy the 3 year warranty this time.
Well, now I want a new graphics card, but I am not going to remove anything from the system as I don't want to pick over those details should I need to exercise my warranty. I do not want to buy components or another pc which would most likely cost me another $500. So, yes, I'm going to keep the stock 300W PSU in the computer. While there are quite a few molex that I can convert to a 6 pin or 8 pin I don't think I want to pull more than the 75W that the bridge provides. Safety is my number one concern, but I want to play too.
I really wish I would have just built our PCs, but hindsight is always 20/20 I guess.
Anyhow, after spending the past 24 hours really reading up on what's what with graphics cards now I have a few that fit the bill which I want to run by the community to query opinions.
NOTE: I am NOT going to swap out my PSU! This is just in case someone is just skimming the post.
Geforce GT 720 - 1GB GDDR3 - $50
Geforce GT 720 - 2GB GDDR3 - $60
Geforce GT 730 - 1GB GDDR5 - $70
Geforce GT 730 - 2GB GDDR5 - $75
I'm not necessarily a Nvidia fanboy. Why it looks as if is because I found out that the new Maxwell GPU in the 700 series was specializing in efficiency which means less power per performance. I chose EVGA cards, because that manufacture was kind enough the list the power draw on their website.
Would you all be so kind as to advise me which card listed (or unlisted) would fare well in playing the listed games in 1080p at suitable frame rates (50+)?
Thank you in advance,
Bill
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