GPU advice please (warning, long read)

[rfl420]

Since my rig got stolen(long story), I've been using this old emachines desktop for my computering needs. I mainly do some light gaming, web browsing, youtube, stuff like that. I made a bad call and bought a crappy GPU from bestbuy because I had to upgrade from onboard graphics immediately to do anything. So I'm kinda dumb for paying 75 bucks for a crappy gddr3 card. it actually does the job pretty well, but not for the price. Anyway, I did a couple other upgrades to it, and surprisingly, I'm having fun seeing how well I can get this dinosaur to run

My main game is League of Legends, and with this setup, I get 50 to 70+ fps with everything maxed. This machine is fine for that, but I just now got into Skyrim (I know, I'm late) and after messing with settings, I've found that with no AA on, I can run everything on Ultra settings, 16xAF, max view distance, with a playable framerate(not sure how to check fps in game, but its pretty smooth, no problems so far with playability) My goal is to see Skyrim in 1080p, maxed out settings.
I'm wondering what the best possible GPU that my CPU can fully utilize would be, and maybe a comparable card or two in case I can't afford the "best possible".

My current setup:
EMCP73VT-PM mobo (lmfao, ikr)
q6600 @ 3.0ghz (thank god, or just really smart people for BSEL mods)
3gb DDR2 ram @333mhz (mobo supports 800mhz, might go to 4gb @800mhz)
500g WD HDD
430w TT PSU
19" 1440x900 @75hz its a tv/dvd/display so I doubt its as good as a standard monitor, but I'm planning on buying something 23"+ for my setup

I don't want to overbuy a card that I can't utilize, because honestly, I have no idea when I'm going to able to start on my new rig, and the card I buy may be outdated by then. I read somewhere that the gtx 460 was like the "mate" for the q6600 and anything over isn't being utilized. But, I'm not sure if it applies to mine because mine is running ~25% faster than stock.

So, I'm buying a card and display. I should be fine picking a new display, and I'm sure i could get a great card that works well, but I'd really like to be about as close to the bottleneck line as I can be(if said line exists, I'm told no matter what, there is always a bottleneck.)

Any tips/help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time guys, you're the best!

 

[GOM3RPLY3R]

What GPU do you currently have?

The other thing I want to know is, what q6600, and how do you have 3GB with only two RAM slots?

 

[coozie7]

Please do not suck up until we have replied .
The PSU is n't the best made, but at least it's not the garbage some install in their systems.
Have a look here:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-graphics-card-review,review-32671-7.html

Without some searching you'll have a job getting hold of a GTX460, besides the newer GTX6xx are far more efficient, and have better availability.
Bear in mind, games like Skyrim tend to be heavily dependant on the CPU, and even overclocked its older design means it cannot do as much work per clock as current chips.
There will always be a imbalance, the trick is to minimise it.
For max settings, I'd opt for either the GTX650Ti or HD7770.

 

[rfl420]

What GPU do you currently have?

The other thing I want to know is, what q6600, and how do you have 3GB with only two RAM slots?

oh sorry, i meant to put it in there. I'm running a GT 430 right now. 1gig gddr3
also, I don't know why it only has 3gb of ram, it was an emachines bought off the storeroom floor (worst place to get a new computer) 2 slots, 2gigs x 1 gig of 333mhz DDR2 (would upgrading to 4gigs of 800mhz ram help skyrim?)
the cpu is the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 SLACR 2.40GHZ 8MB 1066MHZ Socket LGA775, (BSEL modded to 3.0ghz)

 

[rfl420]

Please do not suck up until we have replied .
The PSU is n't the best made, but at least it's not the garbage some install in their systems.
Have a look here:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-graphics-card-review,review-32671-7.html

Without some searching you'll have a job getting hold of a GTX460, besides the newer GTX6xx are far more efficient, and have better availability.
Bear in mind, games like Skyrim tend to be heavily dependant on the CPU, and even overclocked its older design means it cannot do as much work per clock as current chips.
There will always be a imbalance, the trick is to minimise it.
For max settings, I'd opt for either the GTX650Ti or HD7770.

would my q6600 be able to utilize up to 100% of the 650ti? i've been finding mixed answers on google. some say its laughable to even try putting such a newer card in with that chip, and others say the q6600 still has a lot of horsepower, even though its obviously not as good as i3,i5,i7. I know if i could use it all, I would love to run a card like that

 

[rfl420]

Please do not suck up until we have replied .
The PSU is n't the best made, but at least it's not the garbage some install in their systems.
Have a look here:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-graphics-card-review,review-32671-7.html

Without some searching you'll have a job getting hold of a GTX460, besides the newer GTX6xx are far more efficient, and have better availability.
Bear in mind, games like Skyrim tend to be heavily dependant on the CPU, and even overclocked its older design means it cannot do as much work per clock as current chips.
There will always be a imbalance, the trick is to minimise it.
For max settings, I'd opt for either the GTX650Ti or HD7770.

great link btw, ty. bookmarked

 

[spat55]

go for a HD 7850, or HD 7770? There nice and cheaper now as the new series are arriving. I'd go for the HD 7850 and use it on a new rig later.

 

[rfl420]

go for a HD 7850, or HD 7770? There nice and cheaper now as the new series are arriving. I'd go for the HD 7850 and use it on a new rig later.

thanks. both of those cards are considerably better than my gt 430. i honestly prefer Nvidia, but i guess thats only because i've never used ati before. i'm liking the prices though. so i'm probably going to end up just buying something around that area. its just there are so many cards that have 1gig of GDDR5 and i have no idea what makes newer cards faster than the older gddr5 ones.
wouldn't Skyrim, if maxed out in 1920x1080 with other settings fully maxed, wouldn't it use more than a 1 gig of VRAM?
should i go with a 2 gig version of one of the cards you mentioned? if i do, is that overkill that won't be utilized? sorry to ask so many questions, but while i'm asking, would upgrading my 3gb of 333mhz ram to 4gb of 800mhz help my performance in-game significantly? loading etc. i think the biggest performance increase after the GPU is gonna be the SSD, but after that the only thing i can think of is better ram.

 

[smeezekitty]

333MHz RAM? Wow that is really slow. I think upgrading it might help.

 

[rfl420]

333MHz RAM? Wow that is really slow. I think upgrading it might help.

I was mixed up on that actually, the 333Mhz CPU-z shows me is DRAM frequency. I have two DDR2 800(PC2-6400) sticks, one is 2gb, other is 1gb. I just found out that my 800 ram doesn't actually run @800mhz DRAM like I thought it meant
Its half, which was 400mhz til i overclocked my cpu. I guess OCing must have downclocked my ram to match my new 333mhz FSB speed.
I guess all I can do is put one more gig of ram in there. I don't think my mobo supports faster than 800. would that single gig make much of a difference? what about if it was able to use faster memory?

 

[coozie7]

@rfl420: It's normal to get different views and advice, ask 3 people how to get rid of rats in the garage and you'll almost certainly get 3 different replies.
While it's not in the i5/i7 league the Q6600 is still a viable gaming CPU, and can be particularly useful at higher resolutions where the workload tends to shift away from the CPU and onto the graphics card, hence my maximum recommendation of the GTX650Ti/HD7770.
I doubt you'll get any useful gains by altering the current memory configuration and as a pre-built I doubt you'll be able to get into the BIOS and overclock the CPU.
This is a fairly old article but I think you'll find it handy:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skyrim-performance-benchmark,3074.html

There other articles on the subject, try searching for 'skyrim cpu core scaling' or similar.
At 1920x1080 it would be normal to go for 2Gb of memory but the cards under consideration here are really not fast enough to use all that memory, which is mainly helpful with AA, something that can badly hurt the framerates of cards like these with their small 128 bit memory interfaces.
A quick check on the Newegg site shows about a $15 difference in price between the least expensive GTX650 and 650Ti but you'll pay an extra $30 for a 2Gb card.

 

[rfl420]

@rfl420: It's normal to get different views and advice, ask 3 people how to get rid of rats in the garage and you'll almost certainly get 3 different replies.
While it's not in the i5/i7 league the Q6600 is still a viable gaming CPU, and can be particularly useful at higher resolutions where the workload tends to shift away from the CPU and onto the graphics card, hence my maximum recommendation of the GTX650Ti/HD7770.
I doubt you'll get any useful gains by altering the current memory configuration and as a pre-built I doubt you'll be able to get into the BIOS and overclock the CPU.
This is a fairly old article but I think you'll find it handy:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skyrim-performance-benchmark,3074.html

There other articles on the subject, try searching for 'skyrim cpu core scaling' or similar.
At 1920x1080 it would be normal to go for 2Gb of memory but the cards under consideration here are really not fast enough to use all that memory, which is mainly helpful with AA, something that can badly hurt the framerates of cards like these with their small 128 bit memory interfaces.
A quick check on the Newegg site shows about a $15 difference in price between the least expensive GTX650 and 650Ti but you'll pay an extra $30 for a 2Gb card.

thanks a lot for the help. i'm going with the 650ti. newegg has one on sale for under a hundred dollars, which seems pretty reasonable. im really hoping my 430w TT PSU can handle it. it would probably be a week until i could get a better psu if needed