Upgrade from GTX 750Ti

HardwareExtreme

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Jan 5, 2016
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Hello everyone,
So in my system I have a GTX 750ti. It works perfectly fine since I run at 1440x900. However, I am planning on going to 1080p, which supposedly it can handle, but I would like to get a better graphics card. What graphics card can i get for roughly $100-$150? It can be used. I was looking at GTX 780Tis on Ebay, but they have gone up to about $180. I may not get the graphics card right away, but I am planning on upgrading it at some point in the nearby future, probably within a year or so.

I am leaning a little to AMD cards since I can run Crossfire (I have two PCIe X16 slots) but I would have to figure out some way to supply the power to them.

An additional thing is that the HP Z600 can only really handle a 150w graphics card, but I have seen that people have done more than that.

As for my specs:
HP Z600
2x Xeon X5650s (95w TDP for each)
20gb DDR3
650w HP OEM PSU with 6pin power connector
2x PCIe X16 (Rev 2.0)
 
Solution


they are slow as in their IPC is low, which is what matters in gaming

at 4ghz it would have similar gaming performance to a i5 2500



at 3 ghz it probably behaves like a amd athlon x4

The 1050 ti is probably your best option right now. Below it you've got the 1050, 460/560, and above it there's the 470/480, 570/580, and 1060. There's really nothing aside from the 1050 ti in that price range. A year from now? Who knows.

Another factor is that cryptocurrency miners seem to be grabbing all the newer AMD cards right now so it's driving the prices up. Not so much with older cards, but cards from the last generation are quite a bit more power hungry than the current generation due to the process shrink.
 

HardwareExtreme

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Jan 5, 2016
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I wasn't really looking much at the 1050Ti, since it is not much of an upgrade from my 750ti. What about used cards? If I get a GTX780ti, I can get it for $180 ($20-$30 more), and it absolutely STOMPS on the 1050ti. (http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-780-Ti-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1050-Ti/2165vs3649)

Does anyone know of any used cards that would probably work fine?
 
The 780 ti's power draw may pose a problem since it can exceed 250 watts:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7492/the-geforce-gtx-780-ti-review/15

And to be honest, $180 seems a little too good to be true for that card. If you want performance significantly higher than a 1050 ti from a used card you're looking for at least a 970 or r9 290, both of which also have much higher power requirements, not to mention price. The rx 470 used to be roughly in the same general ballpark, but the prices on it have shot well over $200 in the last month.
 

maxalge

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the cpu's are fairly slow for gaming

CF is out of the question

the 780 ti is not a bad idea, a gtx 970 would be about max you should drop in


probably a good idea to overclock the cpu's as well
 

HardwareExtreme

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Jan 5, 2016
261
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The CPUs are not slow for gaming. Each of them can turbo up to ~3gHz or so depending on what cores are being used. As for overclocking, I can't overclock through the BIOS, but I can use a program like SetFSB (IF it supports my PLL) but then again I don't know if my motherboard can handle the heat, and cooling, etc.

As for a GTX 970, they are still $300-ish. Any other recommendations for graphics cards?
 

maxalge

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they are slow as in their IPC is low, which is what matters in gaming

at 4ghz it would have similar gaming performance to a i5 2500



at 3 ghz it probably behaves like a amd athlon x4

 
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