Graphics card upgrade help

dragonx_08

Distinguished
Aug 28, 2010
185
0
18,680
hello all i have an issue in deciding what graphics card to upgrade to as we all do at one point

also i have an AMD cpu so will i benefit from an ati card?

my budget is £70-£100

my pc speccs are

processor:amd athlon 64 x2 dual core processor 6000+
os:Windows 7 64bit enterprise edition
ram:4GB
graphics card: geforce 8800gt
power supply:corsair hx 650w modular
hdd: 768mb
motherboard:ECS A770M-A


id like to upgrade my geforce 8800gt to an ati card as i heard ati is the gaming company carda nd nvidia is the casual gamer/multimedia photo/video editing card etc

oh and the only game i play on pc is warcraft cataclysm and obviously the card has to fit in my motherboard
 

wiinippongamer

Distinguished
This'd be a VERY nice upgrade (about 3x the performance) from your 8800gt at your price point: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-149-XF

You can combine any CPU brand with any graphics card you could possibly want, what you need to look at the time of buying a graphics card is whether there'll be any bottleneck from the cpu ( that's not your case) and mobo compatibility ( only with PCIE 2.1 cards, not your case either as the mobo is PCIE2.0), not whether to combine Intel/ Nvidia or AMD/Ati. It's up to personal preference and the price/performance offerings from each camp at the time.

And no there aren't any extra performance improvements from using Ati with AMD processor.
 

wiinippongamer

Distinguished
AMD sends a shipment of PCBs to all card makers, then they can put stickers, change the cooler, modify the PCB without noticeably afecting performance, Modify the BIOS so the card comes factory OC'd, or do anything they want to it. All that to add better cooling performance and make it more visually appealing to the customer.
 

wiinippongamer

Distinguished
ALL of them have to be sold with at least one damn sticker, that's the only way to differentiate them from the other brands aside from the box they came in. Even the cheapest ones do have them.

The fancy dual fan cooling , pre-OC'd ones do tend to be expensiver.
 

dragonx_08

Distinguished
Aug 28, 2010
185
0
18,680
i get like 45-60fps in wow cata the only reason i want to upgrade is that the minimum card for cata is an 8600gt which is close to my card sowhtever expansion is realeased next im prolly gonna need a new card
 
If you are happy with your current performance then just wait until you actually need something better. Video cards are a fast moving technology and later on there will always be better and more advanced choices available for less money.
 

Cs342

Distinguished
Jul 12, 2010
426
0
18,780
The 5770 should be more than good enough for WoW, since it's never been a very demanding game. You could get an HD 6850 or 6870 as they are newer and are both very good deals.