Chosing New Graphics Card

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Ok, so about 2 weeks ago i noticed my screen does this weird light purple colour thing. Then the following day it started artifacting, flashing green and grey pixel width lines on all images that contained white, yup, graphics card issue. I decided to ignore it as it stopped after I installed the latest drivers however, i go to buy a new game (bbc2) and the gameplay is hell chopped up. At the moment i have a NVidia Geforce 9500 GT. Its lasted me a good 1.5 years and has been very good. My specs are as follows:

- Mainboard: ECS Nettle3
- Processor: AMD Phenom X4 9550 @ 2200MHz (2.20 GHz) quad core.
- Physical Memory: 4096MB ( 2 x 2048 DDR2 - SDRAM)
- RAM: 4GB

So, now i plan on buying a good card, i said i'd stick with NVidia however from what i've heard ATI produce some very good ones too. I'm aiming at a strong card which will last me a year or two to come and be able to handle the expectations of future games (games such as bbc2 etc). My budget being around $300, maybe more if the extra cost really improves performance. I don't need a god card but a good one to be able to play the new more advanced games smoothly. I do not plan on overclocking anything either. I'm also interested in knowing if the higher ranged graphics cards in that price range can be supported by my computer. No point buying a good card to find out it won't work efficiently :heink: I've checked the specs on the nvidia 400 series however i don't know much about ATI. So far, the 400 series seems promising but i thought i'd take more opinions incase i'm making a grave mistake in chosing the wrong card for the wrong purpose. Any extra information on other issues such as wattage supply or extra devices that need to be installed would be great as i'm not a genius on computers.

Reply to xOmegax

well for 300 bucks IMO a HD 5850 is the way to go. but we dont know your monitors rez so depeneding on that if its lower then 1920x1080 a HD 5770 might be a good card at 150 to 170

You are going to need to check and see what power supply you have, post its rated wattage and the current on each 12V rail if you can find it. If you have a good PSU, the 5850 is my recommendation for the $300 price range, the GTX 470 does perform a bit better but it also costs more while using more power and generating more heat so to me the extra price cant really be justified. For the 5850 or GTX 470 you might need to change your case as well, as they are both large cards, it depends how much clearance you have in your case, but its something important to keep in mind.

Message edited by hunter315 on 06-20-2010 at 06:46:30 AM

Reply to hunter315

Also have to say either a 5850 or 470 will be held back by the low clock speed of your CPU. A HD 5770 /5830 or new GTX 465 might be a better choice for you.

Message edited by anort3 on 06-20-2010 at 06:52:56 AM

------------------------------ i7 2600K @ 4.5/P67A UD4/Scythe Mugen 2 Rev B/OCZ Vertex 2 120GB/2xWD 640 Blacks/Antec 1200/Samsung 23in LED LCD/EVGA GTX 460/2x4GB GSkill Ripjaws X DDR3 1600 7-8-7-24/Windows 7 Ultimate x64/Corsair 750TX
Reply to anort3

Depending on your Power Supply I would recommend either a GTX 470 by nVidia or a 5850 by ATI.

470: If you have a good ~650W PSU then the GTX 470 is worth the 330$ It can run faster than a 5850 easily with the new drivers and in some DX11 games can even out-bench the 5870! It will also run 3D and PhysX if you're interested in either of those products. The cheapest I've found it is.... (Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 0470%20pny )

5850: It runs a lot cooler than the GTX 470 if you overclock you can have it preform close or similar to the GTX 470. You only need one of these to run 3 monitors in Eyefinity as opposed to two GTX 470s to run three monitors. You also only need around a 550W PSU to power this baby and it'll still run everything on the market today smooth! On Newegg you can get an XFX for 289 but I'd recommend spending a bit more (~310) and going with possibly a toxic version or one with more cooling.
XFX @ 285$ - (Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] -_-Product )
Dual Fan Gigabyte @ 310$ - ( Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] -_-Product )

My overall opinion is if your PSU and your case can handle the heat and power go with a GTX 470, they're longevity will make them hold up against DX11 and future titles much better than the 5850 will be running in 1-2 years. If you can't take on the power requirements just opt for a 5850 it's also an amazing card made by a stable quality company!

Good luck!

P.S. - The 5830 and GTX 465 aren't worth the money unless you can find a good deal on either, they don't have good performance : price ratios.... (Good price 5830: less than 200, on 465 less than ~240)

Message edited by jammert19 on 06-20-2010 at 07:02:09 AM

------------------------------ i5-750 @ 3.8Ghz w/ H50 - Corsair 2X2GB 1600Mhz - PNY GTX 470 Performance Edition - 750TX Power Supply - CM Storm Scout

"Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window." - Woz

Reply to jammert19

22-inch - Resolution: 1680x1050 @ 60Hz. I just checked my power supply and it said max output being 300W. Not sure if needed but
voltage CPU: 1.04V.
+3.3V Voltage is 1.79V.
+5V Voltage is 5.11V.
DIMM is 2.50V and
VBAT is 3.23V. Just took those from pc wizard 2010. I'll probaly lift my price range higher but from what i've read going any higher will mean i need more power supply and other additions to my system. Thanks for the suggestions, saving me alot of time, narrowing down the wide range of options

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to xOmegax

Yeah, you will definitely need a PSU upgrade. For 1680x1050 a 5770 would be plenty and would leave sufficient budget left over for a good quality PSU. If you want a bit more performance you can get a GTX 465 or a 5830 but they will likely push you a bit over $300

Reply to hunter315

xOmegax wrote :

All right you will definitely need a new PSU, and as your monitor resolution is under 1920*1080, you should consider either a 5830, or even a 5770, and you should also consider a cpu upgrade. A very simple and relatively cheap upgrade for your cpu would be a phenom 2 x4 955, which can be had for around $150, and would fit with all your existing hardware. With a phenom 2 955 and a 5770, your performance would be about equivalent to a with your current cpu, as your cpu would be a bottleneck for those higher end cards. I would recommend getting a nice corsair psu, such as the 650tx, the phenom 2 955, and a 5770. that would cost around $400 in total, and would increase your performance greatly, and more than just a gpu+psu upgrade.

------------------------------ Albert
Reply to alberthynek

Yeah you definitely need a PSU upgrade if it's only running @ 300. My recommendation is a 650 TX Corsair PSU with either a 5770 or a 5830. The difference in performance between the two isn't that much, in fact some say the 5830 would be more like a 5790. It's all up to you in that department, price wise it'll be within 50 dollars of each other. I'd make sure whatever card you choose has a good warranty, I had problems earlier with a 5770 but I had a good manufacturer's warranty and therefore had my issues resolved.

My final (ONLY GRAPHICS AND PSU) suggestion is a 650TX (89 -10 promo code(650wsave) - 10 rebate = 69) with a 5830, the 5830 is 215 (-15 rebate), so you could get out of this with a great PSU and graphics card for ~270!

Corsair 650TX : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] ir%20650TX
5770 : 159.99 w/ double lifetime warranty ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] -_-Product )
5830 : (200 w/ rebate + MW2) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] -_-Product )

Again, good luck with whatever you choose!

EDIT:
If you did want to upgrade your CPU it would look like this (with a 5770):

Corsair 650TX - 89.99 - 10 w/ promo code above - 10 rebate = 69.99 - (link above)
Asus CuCore 5770 129.99 after rebate - ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] -_-Product )
AMD Phenom II X4 940 @ 3Ghz Stock - 101.99 - ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] -_-Product )

The total cost of this before rebates - 331.97 after rebates - 301.97~ Which is right about where you wanted to be from my understanding!

That'll bring up your system performance quite a bit!

Message edited by jammert19 on 06-20-2010 at 07:59:15 AM

Reply to jammert19

Thankyou for all the advice. I'll take all options into consideration and hopefully have improved performance within 2 weeks

Reply to xOmegax

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