Please Recommend a Graphics Card

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ThaiBoy

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Hello TH Community,

I"m very new to the PC modding/upgrading community as I have always been console gamer since the 80's. I recently got a Dell XPS 8300 for xmas/bday. My specs to my knowledge is I have a i7-2600 3.40GHz, 6GB DDR3 Memory, and a AMD Radeon 6450 1GB. I want to be able to give PC gaming a legitimate chance to I want a decent/great GPU. I was hoping to pick one up hopefully by end of next month. I have purchased a Corsair GS600 watt PSU over the weekend. My price range would prob be $175-250 with the possibility to maybe shoot for $325ish if the performance upgrade would be significant. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I am totally lost in this process.

Oh BTW i have a HP LED 23 inch monitor so I will probably wanna play on the highest possible resolution.
 
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ThaiBoy

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I will prob try BF3, Skyrim, Mass Effect 3(when it comes out), SWTOR possibly but i mainly play shooter/action/ some RPGs.

I have no preference to either AMD or Nvidia as long as it will fit in my stock XPS case.
 
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amd955be5670

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the following are possible-
gtx560, 560ti, 570 (barely)
6870,6950

The 6950 2gb is the best card for bf3 (I think)

My personal recommendation would be to get a 560ti, and later when you feel the need, sli, I know its much better to fetch a 580, but its hard to collect all that cash together while sitting without a card, your choice!

The 560ti and 6950 in single gpu configurations exchange blows in benchmarks. The 6870 in crossfire scores more than a 560ti in sli (Atleast from where I've seen).
 
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amd955be5670

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for BF3 you'd atleast want a 6950 or a 560ti, and check if your motherboard has got sli capability, if the board has sli capability, then your chassis automatically allows it.
I assume you have a P67/Z68 motherboard paired with that processor.

But if you go single GPU then get a 6950 2gb version, its found very easily.
 
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subrata4web

subrata4web

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I think first you change your PSU to 550W power PSU[http://www.corsair.com/power-supply-units.html],
because you have AMD Radeon HD 6450 ,it's a good card for gaming.
But definitely change your psu it give the power to your GPU.
I think this is not a good time for GPU upgrade .Wait for AMD 7 series/NVIDIA 6 series graphics card hit the market[1st qtr 2012].
 ;)
 
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subrata4web

subrata4web

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:non: :non:

Minimum requirements for Battlefield 3

Processor: Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or Althon X2 2.7 GHz
RAM: 2GB
Graphic card: DirectX 10 or 11 compatible Nvidia or AMD ATI card, ATI Radeon 3870 or higher, Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT or higher.
Graphics card memory: 512 MB
Sound card: DirectX compatibl sound card
Hard drive: 15 GB for disc version or 10 GB for digital version

 
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ThaiBoy

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@subrata4web i picked up a 600watt Corsair Gaming Series PSU over the weekend. Now im just looking for a GPU that can give me great performance and will not be outdated anytime soon for a decent price.
 
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refillable

refillable

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GS600 is nice, go ahead and you have a headroom until GTX 570 there :).

If you can't wait, go with in the $250 budget http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127604

If you surely can push to $325, you can't find any card on that budget. A GTX 570 would be over $335

However if you can save more money later and wait for Radeon 7950 which I saw on wikipedia will be priced $400, It is very good. It's maybe readily available on March, but then I am not sure. But they will I think give you much better performance than GTX 570 or HD 6950.
 
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sunnk

sunnk

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go for the powercolor 2gb one it will give u a better performance in low price and can play all mordern games like mw3,bf3.:).and you can also get one gtx 560 ti hawk but its more costy then the hd 6950 and give almost same perfomance.:).in my thoughts just buy an hd 6950 2gb overclock it,unlock more shader units.:)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131393#top$239.99.

 
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JackNaylorPE

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I don't know what you've seen but Guru3D at least has a different story to tell. The 560 Ti and 6950 compete closely in a single card configuration but in SLI / CF, the 560 Ti crushes. In both cases, the factory OC'd cards w/ the bigger coolers and beefier VRM's are the ones to buy as there's very little price premium for these extras.

Guru3D uses the following games in their test suite, COD-MW, Bad Company 2, Dirt 2, Far Cry 2, Metro 2033, Dawn of Discovery, Crysis Warhead. Total fps (summing fps in each game @ 1920 x 1200) for the various options in parenthesis (single card / SL or CF) are tabulated below along with their cost in dollars per frame single card - CF or SLI:

$ 240.00 6950 Frozr OC (484/759) $ 0.50 - $ 0.63
$ 215.00 560 Ti - 900 Mhz (495/862) $ 0.43 - $ 0.50

As can be seen above, the 11 fps lead in a single card config is almost statistically insignificant (495 to 484), but in SLI, the 560 has a 103 fps lead (862 to 759) over its counterpart in CF.

For the "reference cards", the story isn't much different but it's hard to make a case for buying those while the others are around at such a small price premium. Here the 6950 has a 24 fps edge in a single card config but loses when paired by 41 fps.

$ 220.00 6950 (479/751) $ 0.46 - $ 0.59
$ 205.00 560 Ti (455/792) $ 0.45 - $ 0.52
 
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sunnk

sunnk

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so learn mate it will help u in future and we all are also learning here that is what the side is for.:)
 
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sunnk

sunnk

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otherwise the recommendation between is that the gtx 560ti 1gb will oc better then the hd 6950 1gb but the 2gb hd 6950 will be better then the gtx 560 ti and u should overclock and unlock shaders if u dont know how to unlock shaders then open a new thread all toms hardwares member will help you.:)

between those two 560ti or 6950 the hd 6950 2gb power color will be better with an cheaper price and higher performace and what i said before that this card can overclock and unlock shaders believe me just go for it.
 
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refillable

refillable

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I don't think the 2GB VRAM will any help to boost the performance in single 1080p, not talking about QHD/WQXGA/Dual Monitor Though, but I am assuming you have one 1080p monitor (23 inch there). And the card I suggest you has better cooler than the sunnk suggested, so yeah, you got the Idea mate... If you are not going to unlock/overclock, I'd definitely go with 6950 1GB... Unless if you want to learn how to unlock as sunnk said :).
 
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