Adding a GPU to my build

EvanK

EvanK

Member
Hello all,

I completed by build back in January, but because of financial reasons I could never afford to add in a GPU. With the build being primarily for photo and video editing, I assumed that I wouldn't need one and left it out.

Well, a few months later I'm ready to finally add in some dedicated video graphics. My primary uses would be photo and video editing with CS6 (once I can afford it :) ) which currently is only GPU accelerated with Nvidia cards, so I'll be sticking to GeForce cards this time around. I don't really do any gaming outside of non-intensive titles like The Sims (yes, as much as I hate to admit it, it's my guilty pleasure), but I'd definitely be interested in trying out some actual games in the future :P

Anyways, my budget's absolutely no more than $200 (£130). I've been considering a 2GB 650 Ti superclocked from EVGA that's on sale at my local PC parts store, do you guys think that's enough? Should I hang on for now and save for a 660? Also, for tasks like CS6, how important is having 2GB of video memory as opposed to 1? Should I primarily be looking at the number of CUDA cores?

Thanks for the advice guys, I appreciate it as always!
-Evan

EDIT: Forgot to mention, my current monitor's 1280x1024, but I'll definitely be upgrading to a 23" or 27" 1080p display within the coming months, and use my current monitor as a secondary display.
 
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You don't think that a 660 is overkill for my uses? Especially for video editing, it seems like it may be a bit much. However, if I do go for the 660, would the standard non-Ti version be sufficient? Would this be okay?
 
Yeah because you want to do editing in Adobe suite I'd recommend looking at NVIDIA over AMD. I'm having issues with Photoshop CS5.1 and AMD drivers right now on Windows 8 (screen flickers, and apparently it's the same for CS6 too), but disabling GPU acceleration solved the problem. Not really the ideal solution though.

The 650 Ti should be OK for your needs I reckon, but I'd still look for a 660 if you afford to spend the extra. If not, the 650 Ti will be fine. I think the 660 you found would be a great choice though.
 
EvanK said:
You don't think that a 660 is overkill for my uses? Especially for video editing, it seems like it may be a bit much. However, if I do go for the 660, would the standard non-Ti version be sufficient? Would this be okay?
Click to expand...

Certainly not overkill since rendering is done on the GPU in modern versions of CS.
 
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