Need help buying a graphics card.

[garciaomar0203]

My budget is under 300.

Computer specs:

AMD athlon II X4 630 Processor 2.80 GHz
4.00 GB Ram
quad core
integrated video card

I don't wnat to choose the wrong video card and end up regretting it.

 

[TheBigTroll]

first of all, its upgrade time because if you are buying a 300 video card, you will likely run into a cpu bottleneck. i recommend getting a 7850 card anyways then

 

[TheBigTroll]

make sure your psu has 24 amps on the 12v rail and a extra 6-pin adaptor. if you dont have one, get the 7770

 

[garciaomar0203]

You are talking about the watts right? how much should I get? sorry I am a noob. Can you send me a newegg link to the card?

 

[mouse24]

make sure your psu has 24 amps on the 12v rail and a extra 6-pin adaptor. if you dont have one, get the 7770

7750 is the one without the need for the connector. but yeah we need more info to be of any help, what games do you want to play, how powerful is your PSU, when you might upgrade next, etc.

 

[garciaomar0203]

I would like to play Diablo 3 to the best settings and possibly battlefield 3.. I want to upgrade as soon as possible. I never upgraded this computer and it has 250w

 

[mouse24]

Me personally I would suggest: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371044

and http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150549

Don't expect to absolutely max out BF3 @60fps though, you will need an i5 + 680 for that.

You will be able to play it on high with some AA/AF no problem I expect though.

(I play it on high with a min of 30fps (I do get a bit of spikes down to 25ish) with my setup of an athlon 2 x3 + 6870 1g, 4g ddr2)

 

[Guest]

performance on the gpu will most of the time bottleneck with resolutions less than fullHD.
whats the size of you screen?
why not use a nvidia gpu (less driver "trouble" and physx "out of the box")

 

[mouse24]

performance on the gpu will most of the time bottleneck with resolutions less than fullHD.
whats the size of you screen?
why not use a nvidia gpu (less driver "trouble" and physx "out of the box")

The only driver trouble I had was needing to reinstall a few times because I was an idiot and messed up my own drivers.

Physx is debatable as its only on select titles and even then the effects usually aren't worth the performance hit that goes with it.

But true, the 560 TI is almost the same price as the 6950 so its a viable option also.

(and what benchmarks are you reading?)

If he was using say 1024 x 800 or 1280 x 1024 than yeah but I doubt he is.

 

[ocada]

To tag along to this post as I have a similar setup and conundrum as the OP.

Athlon ii x4 630, 2.8 ghz processor, 6 gb ram and I'm thinking about buying:

Sapphire 2gb 6950 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102987
8 gb ram http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231426
and a 750w PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371051

With rebates this will be $327.

Couple of questions:

1. My rig is a pre-built HP, so i can't overclock my CPU. Am I going to run into a huge bottleneck because of this?

2. I figured for $40, I'd upgrade my RAM and get 4gb x2. Right now i have 2gb x3. Will I see any improvement?