Upgrading a graphics card?

[LtFirefly]

I really need some help with buying a new graphics card - when I first got my PC I bought a GTS 450, as it was only £60, and seemed like an excellent card. For the price, it was amazing; I could play every new release on maxed settings.

However I've recently found that some games - The Witcher 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Guild Wars 2, for example, cause me to get a massive fps drop and I'm forced to significantly lower graphic settings.

I can't really spend much cash though - preferably only £100, £125 absolute maximum - so is there anything I can get on a budget like that which would give me a good upgrade? I know I could probably buy a card that would definitely play *current* games on max, but I'd really rather buy one that would last for at least a years worth of new releases.

I really have no idea on this, (more of a software than hardware person,) so if anyone could give me some recommendations, I'd be extremely grateful.

To sum up:
Cost being £100-£125
Use: Pretty heavy gaming, maxed settings on graphic intensive games
Size/noise/non gaming features are completely irrelevant

I know that seems quite a hard ask, but my experience with the power of the 450 and its ridiculous price has given me hope. Thank-you for reading!

 

[Quadacon]

Get the Nvidia GT 640 2GB Its about $100, I resently upgraded to the GT 640 and Its awesome, I maxed out all video settings in games like Skyrim and COD and theres zero lag + great fps

 

[thymanbearpig]

^Do not recommend that! For $100 you can get something much better, that 640 is DDR3.

To LtFirefly, where do you live? I'm not good with other currencies, idk what the difference in price is for the same video card in different places.
These are US prices and maybe you can look at merchants in your country for these
$115 - 7770 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127687
$140 - GTX 650 Ti http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130839
$170 - 7850 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161425

Also what PSU do you have? If you don't know, it's probably a ~300W OEM unit

 

[spawnkiller]

650ti or 7777 is the minimum i recommend as to play in 1080p it's pretty much the lower cost effective choice... If you can afford the 7850, go for it it's a lot faster than the 7770 !!

 

[Quadacon]

^Do not recommend that! For $100 you can get something much better, that 640 is DDR3.

To LtFirefly, where do you live? I'm not good with other currencies, idk what the difference in price is for the same video card in different places.
These are US prices and maybe you can look at merchants in your country for these
$115 - 7770 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127687
$140 - GTX 650 Ti http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130839
$170 - 7850 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161425

Also what PSU do you have? If you don't know, it's probably a ~300W OEM unit

I dont see how you shouldn't recomend the 640, its a great card, everybody thinks that its not good but it has advantages like not needing psu connector and not consuming much power

 

[thymanbearpig]

Quadacon, a 7750 is much better than a GT 640.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/367349-33-ddr3-7750-gddr5
7750 doesn't need a 6-pin connector and uses little power too.

Anyways LtFirefly, I found out you're from UK, I thought you used the euro sign :s

I found some UK supplier links for the video cards in your price range!

£90 - 7770 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-184-MS
£120 - 7850 http://www.ebuyer.com/434547-xfx-hd-7850-core-edition-1gb-gddr5-dual-dvi-hdmi-dual-displayport-fx-785a-znfc

(Cheapest 650 Ti I found was £110, only £10 from the superior 7850)

Also, I should've asked in my other post, what are your full PC specs? Do you know if upgrading the video card is the best option?

 

[LtFirefly]

Hi, thankyou so much for your replies - yeah, I really should have said I'm from the UK, sorry about that!

The processor I currently have is AMD Athlon II X4 640 @ 3000 MHz; (which I am planning to upgrade in the future, possibly to a phenom hexacore.)
The actual motherboard is Asus M4A78LT-M LE.
I currently have 4GB of DDR3 RAM, which within the next week is going to be 8GB.
The power supply I have is 650 watts.

The cards you've linked look really good, I just have a few questions if you wouldn't mind;

-> I've never bought anything but nVidia cards, and I've heard that radeon series aren't as up to spec to their nvidia equivalents - or are they on par with the higher power stuff?

-> Do you think the cards in your examples would provide a significant enough upgrade to my current one - as you mentioned, what I really want is a big improvement, and I figured that that would come from upping the graphics card, but honestly, I'm open to suggestions.

Thank-you once again.

 

[ASHISH65]

1)it is just a myth.both gpu brand are excellent and you should choose gpu according to your specs,screen resolution and budget not by brand. 2)hd 7850 is a good worthwile upgrade for you.

 

[LtFirefly]

Ok, I really like the look of the 7850; and thinking of upping my budget to get the 2GB version. Would that be worth it?

 

[ASHISH65]

It is worthwile.In todays gaming battlefield 3 and total shotgun games uses 1.5gb vram at max at 1080p so it is important for future.go and get hd 7850 2gb.