Should i upgrade my son's graphics card?

[concernedmother]

My son wants to upgrade his gaming PC video card. He wants to play Battlefield 3 and other high spec games like this. His card at the minute only just handle Battlefield 2, Bad
Company and Dirt 2, so he thinks he needs a new one. But, i am unsure.

his PC spec is:

250 GB SATA-II HDD UDMA 300 7200 8MB
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX - 512 MB - 2X DVI/VGA (XFX)
OpenOffice 2.4.1 (Unlimited PC License)
ASUS P5N-D S/L 1333FSB (NVIDIA 750i)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (2 x 3.0 GHZ) 1333FSB - 6 MB
X-Blade Black
ASUS Wireless LAN 54Mbps (PCI)
ThermalTake Blue ORB II - Low Noise
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic SP1 32-BIT (Genuine DVD & COA Included)
Internal Card Reader 50-in-1
4GB PC-6400 800 MHZ (2 x 2 GB) (DDR2)
Samsung (S222A) DVD PLUS/-RW 22x Dual Layer - Black (IDE)
OCZ 600W Stealth XStream - Low Noise

He says he wants a:

NVIDIA GTX 570 or similar

can any one advise if upgrading the graphics card or is it a false economy and a new PC he needs?

 

[Ubrales]

If it is for your son, new PC!

 

[dmen]

the graphics card is the bottleneck here for sure, however a 570 would be bottlenecked by the processor.
because the system is still quite up-to-date, i'd just invest in a new graphics card.
i'd pick a hd6850, anything above will be overkill.

something like this would be good

EDIT: have a look over here

 

[ozanuyan]

I had a very similar set-up with 9600GT and I bought a GT 430. I'm very happy with it and it was really cheap compared to other GPUs I browsed. By the way DO NOT buy an ATI card for your son because it will get old really fast for the games and he will want a new one in a year or two.
The best option would be to get the one he wants so that he can't complain about it. Getting a new CPU won't be needed as Nvidia has its own Physics processor but if you get a Radeon then it will be a strain on the CPU and you will need a new one.

 

[mute20]

I had a very similar set-up with 9600GT and I bought a GT 430. I'm very happy with it and it was really cheap compared to other GPUs I browsed. By the way DO NOT buy an ATI card for your son because it will get old really fast for the games and he will want a new one in a year or two.
The best option would be to get the one he wants so that he can't complain about it. Getting a new CPU won't be needed as Nvidia has its own Physics processor but if you get a Radeon then it will be a strain on the CPU and you will need a new one.

This makes no sense at all as nvidia is way behind on the low end ....

 

[FlintIronStagg]

for BF3, I say gt him a new rig, DDR2 just isnt very fast, and he will need a better cpu. ATI getting old fast? how so? The 6970 is on par with the gtx570, so i guess just because it is ati it will start to get liver spots quicker? idk.

 

[jjb8675309]

first off BF requires a healthy quad so id say upgrade the whole pc and the graphics card, what is your budget? and yeah, I'd say a gtx 570 or gtx 560ti would be a great choice for an upgrade from his current gpu. But the bottom line is that your going to need to upgrade the whole platform imo, you need a good quad

PS the OCZ psus are crap so I would be careful with that If I were you

 

[ozanuyan]

Firstly mute20 I didn't say that he should buy a gt430 I just said that I was happy with it.
Secondly I meant that ATI cards become out of date faster than Nvidia. You're saying that 6970 is on par with gtx570 which is true when you don't take the CPU into the calculation. If we assume that we have the latest CPU available then they are on par but if we have a "Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (2 x 3.0 GHZ) 1333FSB - 6 MB" then the 6970 will lag on games that use excessive physics or even on games that don't because it uses the CPU more and GPU less unlike Nvidia which does the exact opposite and uses the CPU less and GPU more. So for her son I would recommend getting an Nvidia graphics card and not an ATI one and I would also recommend getting the exact same one that her son wants or a very similar one. In doing that she would be able to tell her son that it was his decision to get that one instead of all the others and he has to live with it.

By the way "His card at the minute only just handle Battlefield 2, Bad Company and Dirt 2, so he thinks he needs a new one. But, i am unsure." this statement is not true as I have played Bad Company 2 and Call of Duty 7 with 9600GT. (not on highest settings but I played them)

 

[FlintIronStagg]

Case in point why i said to upgrade the entire rig. for BF3 a 9600 wont cut it , a core2duo wont, and 800mhz ram wont either. he needs an entire rig, and once that happens, it doesnt matter what brand he gets, as long as he isnt doing extremely high resolution or multiple monitors. you are trying to help him get a card that would work better with his current config - i get it, but the reality of his son's situation is that for future gaming and BF3 he will need a 2nd gen quad with 1333, and a higher end card to last. the 560Ti or 570 are great, and ati has the 6950/70 that also will last a while.

 

[hstpctech]

If I were you Mom, I'd wait until the game is actually on the shelves; that would be in October.