medium priced GPU for my 3 yr pc - advise please

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Julieann60

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Feb 5, 2016
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Please can someone help with suggestions. My pc about 3 years old and I just bought the rise of tomb raider but not getting the best performance (surprise, surprise !). I want a new GPU and will probably increase the memory to 16 GB but not sure what motherboard to get. I'm not one for over clocking but would like a GPU that will play games on medium quality settings (at least). My monitor setting 2560 x 1440 res although I'm happy to carry on running at lower res. I list my pc specs and hope you can recommend a intermediate motherboard if you think I would gain from a newer one along with graphic card. I've considered the ASUS NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 GPU. I would value any advice please, many thanks Julie
Operating System
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
CPU
Intel Core i7 3770 @ 3.40GHz
Ivy Bridge 22nm Technology
RAM
8.00GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 665MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
MSI Z77MA-G45 (MS-7759) (SOCKET 0)
Graphics
HDMI (2560x1440@59Hz)
1023MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti
Hard Drives
699GB Seagate ST3750528AS ATA Device (SATA
 
Solution
coozie7
Rise of the Tomb Raider is a demanding game with the settings turned up, particularly Geothermal Valley and the Soviet Installation, my R9 290/i5 4690K struggles a little at 1080 rez and the high preset in those locations.

No need to switch the motherboard, and the CPU may be a few years old but it's still a more than capable gaming part.

You may gain a little performance by moving to dual channel, faster memory, but not much.

Have a read here: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Performance_Analysis/Rise_of_the_Tomb_Raider/
and here: http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/rise-of-the-tomb-raider-pc-graphics-performance-benchmark-review,1.html
The tests were done at max settings but indicate what I've already found out: This game is...
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coozie7

coozie7

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Jun 2, 2007
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Rise of the Tomb Raider is a demanding game with the settings turned up, particularly Geothermal Valley and the Soviet Installation, my R9 290/i5 4690K struggles a little at 1080 rez and the high preset in those locations.

No need to switch the motherboard, and the CPU may be a few years old but it's still a more than capable gaming part.

You may gain a little performance by moving to dual channel, faster memory, but not much.

Have a read here: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Performance_Analysis/Rise_of_the_Tomb_Raider/
and here: http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/rise-of-the-tomb-raider-pc-graphics-performance-benchmark-review,1.html
The tests were done at max settings but indicate what I've already found out: This game is demanding, and will be especially so at 1440 rez.

Minimum I'd suggest is a GTX960 or R9 380, they should handle the game fairly well at that rez and medium settings but you can see from the test results that the far more expensive GTX970/R9 390 are also far faster.

My suggestion: Throw all your budget at the graphics upgrade, the CPU/MB/RAM is fine, you certainly won't see any changes by swapping the motherboard and little improvement with more or faster RAM, but a faster graphics card could easily be a night and day upgrade.
Just be aware a larger more powerful graphics card needs a decent power supply to keep it happily fed!
 
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