Upgrading 9400GT, $75 budget. HELP Please

[tingbots]

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: this weekend

BUDGET RANGE: USD$50-$75 but I might consider $100 if it's wort the money

USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming, Diablo3, MW2, Dota2, BF2 and working with it like photoshop and some video rendering

CURRENT GPU AND POWER SUPPLY: NVIDIA GeForce 9400GT with a Generic PSU 600W

OTHER RELEVANT SYSTEM SPECS: Mobo Gigabyte 945GCM-S2L / Intel Core 2Duo E7200 @2.53GHz / 3GB DDR2 / Windows 7 32-bit
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2669&dl=1#sp

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: buying it locally here in the Philippines

PARTS PREFERENCES: Nvidia cards

OVERCLOCKING: No

MONITOR RESOLUTION: I'm in dual screen. One is 1366x768 and the other is 1280x1024

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: I'm considering GT 630 but also GTX550Ti if it's ok with my system.

What's the difference between DDR3 and DDR5 in video cards? Will DDR5 be ok with my system?


THANKS in advance. Really need help here.

 

[festerovic]

diff between ddr3 and dd5 = faster speeds. DDR5 is preferred.

Both of your screens are low resolution, as far as gaming goes. The CPU will bottleneck a very fast card, but not the 2 cards you listed.

You want a nvidia card, but it is my opinion that the nvidia cards in the price segment you are looking at are beaten by the AMD cards at the same point. If you look hard you might find the 7770 card for around $100, otherwise look at the $80-90 7750. Those are both great cards for the price. Personally, I think both those cards represent the best value for lower end cards in the last 5 generations of cards. Its a good time to be cheap.

 

[tingbots]

Thanks! I'll think about 7750 and GT630.
If I'll choose GTX550Ti I might have to buy a true rated PSU since I have no 6pin for the card.

Last question. Will a GT630 DDR5 cause a bottleneck on my CPU or any other DDR5 for that matter?

 

[Deleted member 489584]

Toms handles this very issue for us each month by listing "Best Gaming GPU For [Insert Price Bracket Here]".

The bracket you are looking for points to either the AMD Radeon HD 6670 or the AMD Radeon HD 7750. I can personally vouch for the performance per dollar ratio of the 7750. If you can acquire one where you live I recommend going that route.

Source: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-2.html


EDIT: Spelling and grammar

 

[tingbots]

Cool! Didn't know they have that section here.
Thanks

 

[MC_K7]

Last question. Will a GT630 DDR5 cause a bottleneck on my CPU or any other DDR5 for that matter?

Depends on the card, if you buy a GTX-680 of course your CPU will bottleneck it. There are so many DDR5 cards out there. DDR5 itself is not the problem, you just have to check the general performance of the card, DDR5 alone is only one aspect but there are many other factors (bandwidth of the bus, GPU generation and clock speed, etc...). You only need to look at the global performance of a card, not only one aspect. Here is Tom's Hardware Graphics Cards Hierarchy Chart, it might help you compare the performance of different cards if you hesitate between two models:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

Anyways, I agree with the others, the Radeon 7750 or 7770 would be the way to go, best bang for the bucks in that price range. Nvidia are a little more expensive in that price range unfortunately.

 

[tingbots]

By the way it's said in the AMD site for 7750 that it needs a 4GB of RAM as minimum. I only have 3GB.
http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/7000/7750/Pages/radeon-7750.aspx#3

Is that gonna be a problem for me?

Saw a video on youtube with 3GB ram using this video card. http://youtu.be/gkQvQQPlSqM

Just want to make sure if I'll run into trouble or something. Thanks

 

[Deleted member 489584]

I don't think there's any physical limitation stopping the card, and have never run into an issue like that in 20 years of PC building/breaking. It's probably just a value they use for the card to run optimally under the OS, I wouldn't worry.

 

[festerovic]

By the way it's said in the AMD site for 7750 that it needs a 4GB of RAM as minimum. I only have 3GB.
http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/7000/7750/Pages/radeon-7750.aspx#3

Is that gonna be a problem for me?

Saw a video on youtube with 3GB ram using this video card. http://youtu.be/gkQvQQPlSqM

Just want to make sure if I'll run into trouble or something. Thanks

won't be a problem.

 

[jaguarskx]

^^^

Yeah, 4GB of RAM is an odd requirement.

 

[tingbots]

Just bought the Sapphire 7750. I must say my old video card was really realy old. Great boost in performance. Tested it in Diablo3. Will test it in more games.

No problem so far. Thanks guys!

 

[tingbots]

Best answer selected by tingbots.