Graphic Card Help

[hoglan71]

Hello,

I'm new to the pc graphic card world as far as understanding the complete infrastructure computing power & architecture I'm still catching on. So I bought a used desktop which had a ATI x1350/1550 series card. Well then I wanted to upgrade to bought a Radeon 5450 which was an improvement. Then I picked up a Galaxy Nividia GT 430 and was blown away at first. So then my final purchase was EVGA GTX 275 oc version. Well obviously the gtx is faster than the 430 but it only supports DirectX 10 did I make a mistake?

 

[geofelt]

You are good.

Game designers want the maximum possible audience for their products, so they design them to run on the widest possible hardware.
While some performance and features might be available to directx11 code, it does not seem to be a requirement. In time, it may be.
So long as your games run well on the GTX275, you are good.

 

[larkspur]

Hi hoglan,

Upgrading the graphics card can be a difficult decision. There are many factors involved in that decision such as:

Is the CPU powerful enough to not hold the new GPU back?
Is the power supply adequate enough to power the new GPU?
Is the GPU overkill for the resolution of your monitor?

My advice is to post your full system specs: CPU, motherboard, ram, current GPU, power supply maker and wattage, monitor's native resolution, games you want to play (or apps you want to run), and the OS that you use.

Once you've collected and posted this info, people can give you advice on what graphics card will meet your needs.

An updated, general guide to purchasing graphics cards is here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html

The last page of that article has a hierarchy chart which shows approximately how different cards of different generations perform relative to each other. You can find the cards you've used on that chart. But your best bet is to post your specs and then we can give you specific recommendations.

Without knowing all that, I will tell you that the GTX 275 is a good card. It's true it doesn't support DX11 but if you don't have Vista/Win 7 then you can't use DX11 anyway.

 

[hoglan71]

Thanks for the fast response I appreciate. About my system well It not kind of outdated so dont laugh to much!
New PSU Corsair GS 600 (thats the good part)
windows 7 ultimate 64/OS
Pentium D 820 (I know Not great) At least it has two cores
Intel P45 chipset
Socket LGA 775 obviously
4 Gigabytes of dual channel DDR2 PC2 6400
Dell Flat Screen @1600x1200 res

 

[geofelt]

You are probably at the point where you should be planning a new build using a better cpu as the base before the next graphics card upgrade.

Start thinking about ivy bridge arriving the first week in april.

 

[larkspur]

Thanks for the fast response I appreciate. About my system well It not kind of outdated so dont laugh to much!
New PSU Corsair GS 600 (thats the good part)
windows 7 ultimate 64/OS
Pentium D 820 (I know Not great) At least it has two cores
Intel P45 chipset
Socket LGA 775 obviously
4 Gigabytes of dual channel DDR2 PC2 6400
Dell Flat Screen @1600x1200 res

Are you happy with the GTX275? Like said above, DX11 is nice, but not necessary. I would stick with the gtx275 on that system since the system will be CPU bottlenecked.

Does your motherboard have overclocking options? You could look into overclocking that CPU to try and squeeze some more performance from it. But definitely your next upgrade would be CPU/motherboard/ram. There are some inexpensive mobo/CPU/ram options out there which would definitely give you more performance both from AMD and Intel.

 

[hoglan71]

It seems to fine I can play SKYRIM At High & Ultra settings now with out any problems compared to the GT430 which played at medium settings. But I did bite off a chunk $80.00 for the card, $90.00 bucks for the PSU just to use the card. I dont know if it was justified or not? I would like to upgrade my Board next but at least I have a good PSU and video card to start with right?

 

[larkspur]

It seems to fine I can play SKYRIM At High & Ultra settings now with out any problems compared to the GT430 which played at medium settings. But I did bite off a chunk $80.00 for the card, $90.00 bucks for the PSU just to use the card. I dont know if it was justified or not? I would like to upgrade my Board next but at least I have a good PSU and video card to start with right?

Yeah and if it works fine in Skyrim then great! The PSU is a great investment and you can carry it along with a new system when you are ready upgrade.

 

[hoglan71]

Yeah and if it works fine in Skyrim then great! The PSU is a great investment and you can carry it along with a new system when you are ready upgrade.

Thanks Larkspur Just one more question for ya. I allready have the overclocked 275 what what be a safe percentage or number to push it a little higher if any using the EVGA precision software?


Default settings art:
648 Core clock
1458 Shader clock
1188 mem clock

xxx Core clock
xxxx Shader clock
xxxx mem clock

 

[hoglan71]

Best answer selected by hoglan71.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey