Looking for a video card. Any suggestions?

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b4ux1t3

New Member
Having had laptops/pre-made desktops my entire life, and only rudimentary knowledge of building computers based off of taking (very) old ones apart, I recently invested about $600 into a nice custom machine. The specs are in my sig. I am proud to say that everything went together very smoothly. Now, my computer is great for everything that I used to use my old laptop for (i.e. browsing, flash games, Google Docs, and the Sims 3, mostly).

Now, my laptop ran World of Warcraft just fine... on the lowest settings possible. However, I'm sick of my computer just being for WoW. I want a computer that plays anything I throw into it. So, I need a nice video card. So keeping in mind that I'm on an extremely limited budget (I just built a computer!), I have a couple questions:

1. As far as video cards go, the only thing I know is that higher numbers don't necessarily mean better quality. So, I'm pretty sure I don't need a $200 card if I don't mind dumbing down the graphics just a bit (I only have a 1600x900 monitor anyway). In the end, I'm only really looking for frames-per-second, not being able to see every bead of sweat on my teammates' buttocks. So, if I stick any video card in it at all (assuming I don't have one at all), will my frames-per-second in, say, World of Warcraft improve significantly?

2. Is there anything specific I should know about buying a card when it comes to what I already have in my build? Like, does my RAM affect my video card in any way that would make a certain card useless/sub-par?

Thanks in advance!


EDIT: I should add that I DO have an on-board GPU. Kind of obvious, but I guess it doesn't hurt to specify that.
 
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Pssh, only a measly five-times the price of my whole computer. One can dream, I suppose.

EDIT: Oh, one other thing I want to ask:

Does a video card take all of the video-related strain away from the motherboard? As in, if I were to install a ridiculously powerful graphics card with other, less-powerful components, it could solely be responsible for running, say, Crysis on full settings all by itself?
 
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yes for the first question. and yes for second question because you cant run crysis on max settings on any integrated graphics i could think of
 
Hi b4ux1t3, welcome to CF

A dedicated GPU will take control of the graphics of your system so yes to your first question.

you second question is a bit harder to give a strait forward answer to. You need a balanced system in order to get good performance in a lot of games. Your system will be just fine for gaming whenever you get a more powerful GPU in there.

So what games are you planning on playing and what is your budget for a new GPU. Keep in mind that if you get a very powerful GPU you may need to get a higher rated PSU. I am not too sure what cards you can fit in with a 500w.
 
salvage-this said:
Hi b4ux1t3, welcome to CF

A dedicated GPU will take control of the graphics of your system so yes to your first question.

you second question is a bit harder to give a strait forward answer to. You need a balanced system in order to get good performance in a lot of games. Your system will be just fine for gaming whenever you get a more powerful GPU in there.

So what games are you planning on playing and what is your budget for a new GPU. Keep in mind that if you get a very powerful GPU you may need to get a higher rated PSU. I am not too sure what cards you can fit in with a 500w.
Click to expand...

Well, I'm eying Battlefield 3, and several of my friends play a game called World of Tanks. Eventually, I want to migrate all of my gaming away from my 360 and PS3, so I'll probably pick up Assassin's Creed (all of them) and Dragon Age for it, along with any other new releases that come out. Currently my budget is nil, but I plan on buying one in the next few months, and the max will probably be $200, though I'd be relieved if I could pick up an $80 one that could run some of these games.

As far as power goes, how can I tell when I'm approaching my PSU's max? I've glanced over all the booklets that came with everything, but I never found how much power each component took up. Admittedly, I wasn't looking very hard.
 
b4ux1t3 said:
Well, I'm eying Battlefield 3, and several of my friends play a game called World of Tanks. Eventually, I want to migrate all of my gaming away from my 360 and PS3, so I'll probably pick up Assassin's Creed (all of them) and Dragon Age for it, along with any other new releases that come out. Currently my budget is nil, but I plan on buying one in the next few months, and the max will probably be $200, though I'd be relieved if I could pick up an $80 one that could run some of these games.
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Battlefield 3 will take a bit of power to run but there are some good cards that are in your price range that will not push your PSU to it's limits.

Look at the GTX 460 1gb, GTX 560 TI, AMD 6850 & 6870.

All of those will be able to play the games you mentioned. maybe not at maxed all the time, but I would think hi with great frame rates. If you want a hint of what BF3 will perform like take a look at the bechmarks for BFBC2. I would not think that they will be all that different.

b4ux1t3 said:
As far as power goes, how can I tell when I'm approaching my PSU's max? I've glanced over all the booklets that came with everything, but I never found how much power each component took up. Admittedly, I wasn't looking very hard.
Click to expand...

http://www.antec.outervision.com/

Enter in your components and it will give you a general idea of what you need. The components themselves will not tell you.

The mail thing that you want to avoid with PSUs is reaching the max output. A PSU can not constantly push out the max wattage that it is rated at. Any of the cards that I posted will be under the limit. You should have no trouble even with overclocking.

Hope that explains it a bit better.

EDIT: I forget to ask. What is the resolution of your monitor?
 
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xxmorpheus said:
yes for the first question. and yes for second question because you cant run crysis on max settings on any integrated graphics i could think of
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No for both, it depends entirely on how the game is coded, and what settings you have the game on. With lower settings, in some games a lot of the 3D processing will go to the CPU. And no for the second. Go and throw a GTX 590 in with a Pentium 3, then tell me only the video card matters for games ;)

Regarding the link you posted, that is the 460 SE, referred to as the slow edition because it is cut down a fair amount. The only "proper" 460 they have is

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0342819

which is a hell of a lot more expensive than what the egg has to offer, for the same card, but without factory overclock:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500202
 
Aastii said:
No for both, it depends entirely on how the game is coded, and what settings you have the game on. With lower settings, in some games a lot of the 3D processing will go to the CPU. And no for the second. Go and throw a GTX 590 in with a Pentium 3, then tell me only the video card matters for games ;)

Regarding the link you posted, that is the 460 SE, referred to as the slow edition because it is cut down a fair amount. The only "proper" 460 they have is

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0342819

which is a hell of a lot more expensive than what the egg has to offer, for the same card, but without factory overclock:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500202
Click to expand...

I'm probably going to grab that overclocked one (mainly because I get reward points at Micro Center), and after the rebate it's only three dollars more expensive anyway. Thanks for the input, and thanks for saving me from the SE. :)

Oh, one more thing: Would it be worth it to eventually set up SLI cards? I noticed that this card has SLI support, and I wondered if it would be worth it down the line (as in, not in the next six months or so)
 
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You can't SLI on that motherboard, at least not officially. There are hacked drivers that will allow you to, but the board officially only supports Crossfire.

It would depend on your budget. If you could afford a second GTX 460, remember too that you can sell the one which you get and then you will have even more money, which could be spent on later, and better technologies, that will give similar performance, but use less power, produce less heat, and use less space, and won't suffer from issues such as micro stutter
 
Oh, yeah, I'm aware that the motherboard can't. I plan on upgrading it in a few months (Since it came free with my processor).
 
Aastii said:
You can't SLI on that motherboard, at least not officially. There are hacked drivers that will allow you to, but the board officially only supports Crossfire.

It would depend on your budget. If you could afford a second GTX 460, remember too that you can sell the one which you get and then you will have even more money, which could be spent on later, and better technologies, that will give similar performance, but use less power, produce less heat, and use less space, and won't suffer from issues such as micro stutter
Click to expand...

That's what I did. I sold my GTX 480 for a GTX 570.

Yea, that's it. The GTX 460 is still a pretty stout card. That's probably what i'd get if I was on a $200 budget.
 
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