Help choosing graphics card

[zyphen]

hello! could you help me choose a graphics card. i want to be able to play games at my native resolution (1290 x 1024)

and not be bottlenecked by my cpu

currently i have a amd athlon x2 4800+ @2.5ghz 2gb of ddr2 ram a new 500gb hard drive.

games i would like to be able to play

Tribes ascend
Boarderlands
League of legends

and some newer fps games and such. my current graphics card is a amd radeon 2400 pro 512mb its bad and i cant play games at my native resolution

 

[amuffin]

budget.

 

[zyphen]

well i have £125 atm but i would like to save a bit because im saving for a i3 new mobo and 4gb of ram. but surely a £125 would be bottlenecked by my cpu?

 

[amuffin]

I believe it would be, save up for the i3-2100 and a new mobo!

 

[zyphen]

well its only £151 for the i3 2100 a new motherboard and 4gb of ram. i have a 500w psu is that going to be enough?

 

[zyphen]

but in the mean time. what is a good graphics card for the i3? not too expensive though

 

[swifty_morgan]

looks like you have an old set up. seeing how you are limited by that- a 5670 would be about the best card I think would benefit from what you have and blow the old card out of the water. it should play those games well at that res and you should be able to play most fps well enough........ still running XP ?

BEFORE YOU BUY THIS CARD THOUGH........... WE NEED TO KNOW IF YOUR SYSTEM IS PCI-E OR AGP......... VERY IMPORTANT TO GET THIS RIGHT. .........

if you know what motherboard you have please list it so we can better help you.

 

[zyphen]

well i have a amd radeon hd 2400 pro atm so i do have a pci express 16x my mother board is a MS-7309

 

[zyphen]

also no. i am running windows 7 64bit. and if i buy the 5670. how much of an increase would i get.

in tribes ascend. if im running at my native resolution i get like 3 - 10 fps. what would i expect with the 5670?

 

[swifty_morgan]

here's a problem. I looked that card up and it says PCI not PCI-E......... there is a difference. make sure you know what kind of slot you have.

 

[zyphen]

do they look different? coz mine looks like a PCI E slot

 

[swifty_morgan]

if you know what mother board you have please post it. if the machine was pre built give link. the card I looked up is different than pci-e. pci and pci-e are different.

 

[zyphen]

http://www.directron.com/k9n6pgmf.html this is the motherboard. if link doesnt work its a MSI k9n6phm f

 

[swifty_morgan]

okay.the card I listed above should work. as far as fps, it'll be faster and you will get more but don't forget that what else is in your system makes a difference too. you would be cpu limited. every time i upgraded my graphics card when using 939 it always mad a difference.

 

[zyphen]

but how much fps would i get? like would i be playable framerates like 30+ or bad ones

also could you post a link of the graphics card? thanks

 

[swifty_morgan]

i don't know what you'll get. it would take too long to go back and look for benchmarks on what you have and then cross check video cards/processors/old and new hardware.

you should really think about a total upgrade. even a new amd quad apu running the on board video will be better than what you have/can make with what you have.

 

[zyphen]

what about an intel core i3 is that a good choice since im on a budget? is the onboard graphics better than what i got now?