Graphics Card?

[linkspast]

I kind of need(want) one But I know nothing about them. Some one educate me..

Heres what my goals are>

1 Better Graphics (duh). I am sick of playing Left 4 dead 2 on the lowest settings.. Middle of the road would be nice.. I don't need HD.. but that be nice.

Id also like to do more video editing.. I don't know if this is even related.

and A low price point.. Id rather buy a used one. (any one want to sell me theirs?)

Also How do I go about figuring out what Is compatible with my motherboard..

another also... I almost put this in the help/ tech section but Theres not a whole lot of traffic there.. so What video cards are in your machine right now? Thanks.

[Schwaltzvald]

How old is your PC?

Can you check and see if your MOBO uses AGP or PCI-E slots?

Assuming you can answer these questions, this card may be enough for you. Mind you I went to the cheap end on a quick browse. Some one else may find a better card for you at a similar price.

Also CPU-Z can easily get you the information you need about your PC.

[atmuh]

if you can find me somewhere on the his or ati site that i can rma my hd 4870 that is between 1 and 2 years old (i think the warranty is only a year but it might be 2 im not sure) id sell it to you

[linkspast]

if you can find me somewhere on the his or ati site that i can rma my hd 4870 that is between 1 and 2 years old (i think the warranty is only a year but it might be 2 im not sure) id sell it to you

... I dont know this means.. Im going to guess his is a company..

and Im not sure what rma is....

Ill open my computer up in a minute and check...

I opened it and I am about 99 percent its PCI. It says PCI right next to it, I dont know what PCI-e is I Googled and got this.. Confirming I have PCI.

Is PCI and PCI-e Cross compatible? I don`t even know if thats a phrase. . But you know what I mean.

[Souliarc]

I am also curious about this. I have a pretty powerful PC but it's lacking in the video department as it's my DAW.

I need something that's going to be able to run Borderlands or Left For Dead 2 at full specs. I'm kind of preparing for StarCraft 2 and FFXIV as well, when they come out.

I currently have an Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS. I have PCI-e slots (available to bride two together via SLI). Do you think it would be better to get another GeForce 7600 GS and bridge them or one bigger and badder card?

I don't want the top dawg of GPU's, but something that will get the job done, no doubt.

[prophetik music]

first of all, if you actually want to learn about all this you should check out the guide that's in my signature. it's got pages - literally, pages - of computerspeak turned into plain english. which is why i wrote it.

download a program called cpu-z, run it (no install, just run the .exe), and tell us what's under the motherboard pane. a screenshot would be glorious.

depending on what you've got, i'll be able to give you definitive answers on what to get based on what kind of cash you've got. this is, after all, what i do with my computer business, after all =)

[linkspast]

Is this what your wanting?

[Brycepops]

Is this what your wanting?

I think he wanted what's on the Mainboard tab.

[linkspast]

That would be this..

Also im reading your guide, Its rather informative, and easy to understand. Looks like yo put a lot of time in to it.

[Ajax]

Aight, I did a look up on your mainboard, and you have a PCI-e x16 video interface. (source)

If you had AGP, I would have been willing to sell a Radeon x800GTO that I have lying around.

[SynthesizedStampede]

Hey, sorry to derail the topic real quick but I'm also interested in "upgrading" my PC too.

But what I want to know is if it's right to assume that a 9500 GT will also play some recent games on the lowest settings? I mean, I'm planning on building my own computer down the road anyways, I just don't have the finances. I figured that I'd cheaply upgrade what I have now so I can squeak by.

I'm not too tech savvy but apparently I need a new power supply too for that graphics card. Any recommendations?

[prophetik music]

a 9500gt is enough. what processor do you have? check out the extreme power calculator. put in everything (be generous, you want extra), add 25-30%, and that's your minimum power needed. the key is to plan for psu efficiency - if you need 400w of power, you need 600w at 66% efficiency. see what i mean? regardless, i suggest you go with the modxstream pro 500w psu. it should be enough to cover your needs unless you've got a ridiculous amount of peripherals or a huge quad core. it's a great psu, it's modular, it's guaranteed to be over 80% efficiency...it's great. just put it in a computer for firouzi, here. for more info on efficiency and all that, check out my guide in my profile. i should point out that the 9500 is pretty damn bad. it'll handle itself, but look into getting the 9800gtx+ (it'll play new games at medium-high to high settings)...and the evga version is 119 dollars with their lifetime warranty. the rebranded version, the GTS 250, is the same card and everything with a different name. if these are too much, a 9800GT is excellent as well.

now, back to the OP. how much do you want to spend? everything i said before is just as good now, but you'll almost definitely have to upgrade your psu as well regardless of what you put into it. i'm pretty sure you've got a 300w psu in there, if that, so you'll need much more to handle a graphics card of any ability. also, thanks for the compliment =) i spent about two months of free time writing that. it's getting outdated - i wrote it right before the gtx2xx cards came out - but it's still got info regarding plugs and all that.

[Schwaltzvald]

9500GT should be enough for anything you want to throw at it assuming you you have at the very least 2GBs of RAM, and 2.6-3.4GHz Dualcore CPU. Check out Mephisto's guide for a more indepth look/direction.

Personally I have a 1.86 DC CPU with 2GBs of ram and a 9500GT on a Windows XP system running most of the newer games just fine on mid to high settings.

Recently built myself another system that vaguely resembles my older system except with a 3.0GHz DC CPU instead. It barely had any trouble playing FEAR/FO3 etcetera on the highest settings except for that one time a capacitor blew out of the graphics card and replaced it.

[prophetik music]

we have differences of opinion on 'high settings', schwaltzvald =) stampede, when he says high settings, he's not talking about AA. anti-aliasing is the thing that separates good cards from lower-end cards - it's what requires the most ram and the fastest clock rates to achieve, generally. i'll put it this way: a 9500 or 9600 can play crysis on medium-high to high if AA is off. that doesn't mean it's a good card - it just means that AA is everything for graphics quality. does crysis LOOK like it's on high? no. most modern games depend on AA for graphics quality and the 'high' settings just reinforce that.

modern game graphics still rely on a good cpu, too. yours is passable, in that regard. not great, but passable.

[Schwaltzvald]

modern game graphics still rely on a good cpu, too. yours is passable, in that regard. not great, but passable.

And all this time I though Crysis was just poorly coded becomign ravenous on resources when they put that together.

Also who seriously have a great need for quadcore cpus with the exception of those doing niche hobbies/professions? If he's just playing games, he really does not need to spend much on a system.

Edit:I wish to make a correction that its a 9800gt not a 9500gt on the newer system.

Need breakfast.

[Souliarc]

Prophet, I just want to let you know, you roxor my extended briefs.

I ran the extreme power test and it said I need 276 watts. I put in a Rosewill RP-5002 500 watt myself cause my old one went out.

[SynthesizedStampede]

Wow, thanks for the responses prophet, Schwaltz, really makes things easier when given an insight by tech-savvy folks like yourselves. I've been in this limbo mode into what I should purchase, but with those explanations I think it's helped make up my mind.

[prophetik music]

I ran the extreme power test and it said I need 276 watts. I put in a Rosewill RP-5002 500 watt myself cause my old one went out.

good choice. the rp5002 has crappy efficiency, so going high on the wattage balances it out. doesn't balance your power bill, but yeah =)

[Souliarc]

What GPU would recommend though? Like I said, I could get another 7600 GS and bridge them, but I don't know if it would be better to get just one more powerful GPU.

[prophetik music]

prior to the G92 architecture redesign, sli got you 42-45% efficiency at best. with the advent of the G92 8800GTS (the 512mb version), 8800GT (second version), and the 9600GT (initial version), sli increased to well over 90% - in fact, two older-model 8800GT cards in sli were comparable to two newer-model 9600GT cards at launch, even though the drivers were designed with the 8800 in mind (and the 9600GT was well below the price of the 8800 at that time).

don't forget that your 7600GS, while good for its time (i did all of witcher on it!), is four and a half generations old at this point. even the difference between a 7600GS and a 9600GT (or GSO, i don't think they're selling GT cards anymore) would be immense. between a 7600 and a 9800GTX+ or GTS 250...hot shit.

get an awesome single card, so that down the line you can buy another and link them. that 500w psu will support a gtx+ easily, and since it's the exact same card it should be able to handle a GTS 250 as well. right now, the best cost-to-performance ratio of any card falls in the gtx+'s favor below 140$ and in the GTX 260 core 216 for the 200 and under bracket (i got my core 216 for about 150 on sale, from evga/newegg). a core 216, due to 55nm manufacturing processes, actually uses four watts less than a gtx+, too.

ps: when you did the xtreme power thing, and it said 276 watts...what gpu was that with? that's a rather high number if you had the 7600gs on there, since the GS only needs about 25-30w of power to run. if it WAS with the GS, you've got other issues...like, why you need that much. my e8400, core 216, five hard drives, two optical drives, and five high-performance fans (with 25% capacitor aging, since my computer's on 24/7 for about a year) takes 360w total =)

[Global-Trance]

If you're thinking of getting a 9800GT, you might want to consider going either one step up or a 8800GT instead, as the 9800GT is a 8800GT with simply a die-shrink.

[prophetik music]

not even all 9800GT cards have the smaller manufacturing process. some are just straight rebranding, which is dumb. that's why i always suggest going 9800GTX+ or the next step up. the difference in cost is like 10 bucks and the difference in performance can be as much as 20-25%.

[Ajax]

I'm going to toss in my oppinion and say that I usually get 800 or 900 series cards (like 8800/9800 etc), and usually go to the effort to get a card with 256bit or more for the memory interface.

On a side note, the last video card i got was an open box radeon 4830HD for $58. However I must say that while I just love open box stuff, you only get a 30 day warranty, and there is no guarantee that you get all of the peripherals (cables, manual, CD, etc), or that the item you get will work 100%. So you are definitely rolling the dice when you buy open box, but for me, the cost savings are worth it.

[prophetik music]

i'd generally advise against open-box, since they always seem to come with the part you don't have missing. motherboards always come without the I/O shield, which is a great way to overheat your chipsets with dust and dirt contamination.

the main reason i advise against it is because the price that open box components are is usually the cost after the product's been out for six months or so. the 4830 is available now for a very low cost, with all the warranties and bits that you wouldn't have otherwise.

[Souliarc]

prior to the G92 architecture redesign, sli got you 42-45% efficiency at best. with the advent of the G92 8800GTS (the 512mb version), 8800GT (second version), and the 9600GT (initial version), sli increased to well over 90% - in fact, two older-model 8800GT cards in sli were comparable to two newer-model 9600GT cards at launch, even though the drivers were designed with the 8800 in mind (and the 9600GT was well below the price of the 8800 at that time).

don't forget that your 7600GS, while good for its time (i did all of witcher on it!), is four and a half generations old at this point. even the difference between a 7600GS and a 9600GT (or GSO, i don't think they're selling GT cards anymore) would be immense. between a 7600 and a 9800GTX+ or GTS 250...hot shit.

get an awesome single card, so that down the line you can buy another and link them. that 500w psu will support a gtx+ easily, and since it's the exact same card it should be able to handle a GTS 250 as well. right now, the best cost-to-performance ratio of any card falls in the gtx+'s favor below 140$ and in the GTX 260 core 216 for the 200 and under bracket (i got my core 216 for about 150 on sale, from evga/newegg). a core 216, due to 55nm manufacturing processes, actually uses four watts less than a gtx+, too.

ps: when you did the xtreme power thing, and it said 276 watts...what gpu was that with? that's a rather high number if you had the 7600gs on there, since the GS only needs about 25-30w of power to run. if it WAS with the GS, you've got other issues...like, why you need that much. my e8400, core 216, five hard drives, two optical drives, and five high-performance fans (with 25% capacitor aging, since my computer's on 24/7 for about a year) takes 360w total =)

That's exactly what I needed to here, you da best.

I was using the 7600 GS, it's the only GPU I've ever had. Not sure why it gave me those stats for wattage need. As far as "oddball" items go, I listed my MIDI controller (powered by USB), audio interface (Firewire, powered seperately), seperate 4-Port USB PCI card, liquid cooling with manual fan control... that's about it really.