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What Graphics card will work with my setup?

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Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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I am looking for advise on what would be my best option for a new graphics card; I currently have an old ATI Radeon x1550 and I really need to upgrade. My price range is no more than $110 including rebates. I am looking to run at least Battlefield 2 on moderate settings but it would be nice to be able to run Battlefield 3 on low settings.
My CPU is a, AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.21 GHz; and i'm running Microsoft Windows XP Professional 2002 service pack 3 with 2GB of RAM.
My power supply's label on the side says, ATX switching power supply model 450W

v- | 115V- | 7.5A | 60Hz |
Input | 230v- | 4.5A | 50Hz |

V - | +5V | +3.3V | +12V | -5V | -12V | +5VSB | PS-ON |POL | COM |
Output | 30A| 25A |25A | 0.6A | 0.6A | 2A | REMOTE |P.G. | RETURN |

| 180W | 300W | 3.0W | 7.2W | 10W |
MAX | 430W | 20W |
| 450W |

There are no other labels on the power supply.

My motherboard specs are: (its a Pcchips motherboard)

CPU Socket AM2 for AMD Athlon 64 FX/Athlon 64 x2 Dual-core/Athlon 64/Sempron processor



FSB 1000 MHz



Chipset NVIDIA MCP61S Single chipset (co-lay MCP61V)



VGA Embedded Geforce 6100-based with 128MB share memory



Memory Dual-channel DDR2 memory architecture
2 x 240-pin DDR2 DIMM sockets support up to 16 GB
Support DDR2 800/667/533/400 DDR2 SDRAM



Expansion Slots 1 x PCI Express Pro slot (runs in x8 mode)
1 x PCI Express x 1 slot
2 x PCI slots
1 x Azalia CNR



LAN Boardcom AC131 10/100Mbps Fast Ethernet Phy



Audio Realtek ALC660 6-channel High Definition audio



IDE 1 x Ultra DMA 133/100/66



Back Panel I/O Ports 1 x PS/2 keyboard
1 x PS/2 mouse
1 x Parallel Port
1 x Serial Port
1 x VGA port
4 x USB 2.0 Ports
1 x RJ 45 Port
1 x Audio I/O (Line-in, Line-out and Mic-in)



Internal I/O Connectors & Headers 24-pin ATX Power Supply connector
4-pin ATX 12V power supply connector
2 x USB 2.0 header support additional 4 USB2.0 ports
2 x Serial ATA connectors
1 x Front panel switch/LED header
1 x Front panel audio header
CPU / SYS FAN headers
1 x IrDA for SIR header
1 x Speaker header
1 x CD in header
1 x Floppy connector-support 360K~2.88M Byte, 3 Mode FDDs or LS120



System BIOS Supports Plug and Play 1.0A, APM 1.2, Multi Boot, DMI
Full support for ACPI revision 1.0 specification



Form Factor Micro ATX Form Factor, 244x214mm




I am looking to upgrade my old Radeon x1550 to something that can play newer games.(Battlefield 2 and C&C Generals 2 and the like) After doing the research I think I want the Radeon 5770/6770, however i'm not sure if it will work with my motherboard and power supply. If anyone can help I would appreciate it. My motherboard specs are:


CPU Socket AM2 for AMD Athlon 64 FX/Athlon 64 x2 Dual-core/Athlon 64/Sempron processor



FSB 1000 MHz



Chipset NVIDIA MCP61S Single chipset (co-lay MCP61V)



VGA Embedded Geforce 6100-based with 128MB share memory



Memory Dual-channel DDR2 memory architecture
2 x 240-pin DDR2 DIMM sockets support up to 16 GB
Support DDR2 800/667/533/400 DDR2 SDRAM



Expansion Slots 1 x PCI Express Pro slot (runs in x8 mode)
1 x PCI Express x 1 slot
2 x PCI slots
1 x Azalia CNR



LAN Boardcom AC131 10/100Mbps Fast Ethernet Phy



Audio Realtek ALC660 6-channel High Definition audio



IDE 1 x Ultra DMA 133/100/66



Back Panel I/O Ports 1 x PS/2 keyboard
1 x PS/2 mouse
1 x Parallel Port
1 x Serial Port
1 x VGA port
4 x USB 2.0 Ports
1 x RJ 45 Port
1 x Audio I/O (Line-in, Line-out and Mic-in)



Internal I/O Connectors & Headers 24-pin ATX Power Supply connector
4-pin ATX 12V power supply connector
2 x USB 2.0 header support additional 4 USB2.0 ports
2 x Serial ATA connectors
1 x Front panel switch/LED header
1 x Front panel audio header
CPU / SYS FAN headers
1 x IrDA for SIR header
1 x Speaker header
1 x CD in header
1 x Floppy connector-support 360K~2.88M Byte, 3 Mode FDDs or LS120



System BIOS Supports Plug and Play 1.0A, APM 1.2, Multi Boot, DMI
Full support for ACPI revision 1.0 specification



Form Factor Micro ATX Form Factor, 244x214mm



Thanks!

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Graphics card Master

That's a really outdated rig... personally, I wouldn't recommend upgrading it. I'd recommend saving up until you can replace pretty much your whole rig.

As to your question, your CPU is going to bottleneck pretty much every modern GPU, and your operating system limits you to DX9 in games... I'm not even sure you can play battlefield 3 on windows XP.

If you really want to upgrade your GPU anyways, I agree with you about the 6770, and it should work on your PSU and motherboard.
Graphics card Master

your pc is old, so i'd suggest a full system upgrade first, including psu and os.
now with that out of the way, for your current rig, i'd say... a radeon hd 6770 and a corsair cx 500 v2 or cx 430 v2.
corsair cx 500 v2 $60. after rebate, $40
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
powercolor 6770 $90. after rebate, $80
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
xfx 6770
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
after rebate, the above two come to $120. imo that is cheap.
psu upgrade is strongly suggested. make sure your chosen components fit the rest of the pc. recommendations are based on price.
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Ok.... well so I don't have an issue with bottlenecking would it be better to go with a Radeon HD 6670? And would that be less of a load on my psu? The reason I don't want to put too much money into it is because I will be getting a laptop in a few years and I only need this to last till then. Oh and how bad would the 6770 bottleneck?
Graphics card Master

bottleneck - not by much. your choices are all entry level gfx cards, they don't get cpu bottlenecked often.
6670 will also work, but it will run modern games at quite lower settings than 6770 could. it will put less load on the psu though (6770 has 108w while 6670 has 66w~69w tdp).
what do you mean by 'few years'? if it's more than one year, then the new psu and a 6770 should pay off imo.
msi 6670 1gb gddr5, $90. $65 after mir, $7 shipping. cheapest 6670 gdr5 version i found. recommending the gddr5 version because it has twice the memory bandwidth than ddr3 version. ddr3 version is cheaper, but it will be a bit slower.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
if you're not okay with cx 500 v2, then how about cx 430 v2?
$45, $35 after mir. the 500w one was $40 after mir, so it seemed like the better value to me.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
btw, if your pc is prebuilt/slimline case, then skip the psu bit. also, knowing your gaming resolution would help e.g. no use recommending a 6670 if you want to game at 1080p at medium-high settings.
Graphics card Master

Just as a point of comparison re:bottlenecking

I had a pentium 4 560 @ 3.6 GHz paired with an 8800GTS 320 for a while, and the 8800GTS was substantially bottlenecked at 1080p resolution in many games; my framerates increased from 25-100% when I upgraded the p4 to a triple core Athlon II.

Your CPU is comparable to my old pentium 4, and a 6770 (at least according to toms) is more powerful than my 8800 GTS was. So yes, you are likely to see substantial bottlenecking on a 6770 with your CPU.

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Graphics card Authority

You CPU simply is not powerful enough to run a graphic card much faster than what you have, what we are trying to tell you is you are spending money on something that is not going to help you much.
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