Need help with figuring out what card to put in rig

Z

Zaros24

New Member
My motherboard is an 4VWF2 MS-7591 (it's inside an 7-8 year old Alienware Aurora ALX). I swapped out the original cards that it came with about 4 years down the line after they both went for a GTX 550 Ti. Now I'm trying to get back into FPS games such as ARK and UnknownSoldier and I'm worried it's just going to end up being a laggy mess.

So, the idea is to make sure my set up is good enough to run those games at a steady 60+ FPS at high-ultra settings. I'm attempting to keep my price range under $300 because I realize a good card comes with a decent price, but $300 is still relatively low considering some of the GTX series run $700-$1000. Also, I have no idea what fits in my motherboard, thus why I'm asking this question, so I don't really care what brand it is as long as it properly fits and works with my rig.

If you need any other details about my build, please let me know. I would really appreciate any input into this, as well as if you have any other suggestions into making the computer run a bit faster as well (I looked into my processor, HDD/SSD, Liquid Cooling, etc., but most reviews are saying my specific parts are still running beautifully even 7-9 years).

Thanks!
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
What cpu do you currently have? IF you limit is $300 then you ware looking at either a gtx1060 or rx 580. Also, what make and model of power supply do you have?
 
Z

Zaros24

New Member
Intel i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz, 2668 Mhz, 4 core(s), 8 logical processors

And I don't know how to check my power supply.. can't find it in msinfo32 or device manager. I've tried looking at it inside the rig, but Alienware has it stashed in a corner that's impossible to look into.
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Model of power supply won't be listed in any info screen or device manager. You would have to physically read the model number off the unit itself. Would be better to physically verify you have that power supply. If you have that unit then any card with your budget would be fine, at max you would only need about 600 watts.
 
Z

Zaros24

New Member
Awesome, I'll double check but I'm hoping that's the correct one.

I'm going to google the 2 previous cards you mentioned. Just out of curiousity, how do you know those 2 cards will fit my motherboard? The only indication I'm going off of is the (2x) PCI-Express 2.0, PCI-e x16, (2x) PCI-e x1 ports. So in other words, if the card says fits into "PCI-Express x16" - is that the same thing as "PCI-e x16" ?
 
Z

Zaros24

New Member
Also, googling both of those cards on Newegg shows tons of different selections for each card. Could you link each specific card you were mentioning off Newegg? Please and thank you
 
Darren

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Either will work, assuming you have enough physical space inside your case.

If you go for the 580 I'd recommend Sapphire followed my MSI and XFX.

If you go for the 1060 I'd recommend EVGA, Asus, or Gigabyte (Nvidia guys help me out here).

All 580's will perform basically the same, and all 1060's will perform basically the same. The different models you see are from different manufactures and might have different cooling, slightly tweaked clock speeds, and varying warranty/customer service. Usually best to just stick with the better manufacturers and get which ever suits your preferences as performance is basically the same. I personally go with Sapphire cards as I prefer AMD cards and they make the best coolers and have treated me well in the past in terms of customer service. EVGA is the best Nvidia brand usually.
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Zaros24 said:
Also, googling both of those cards on Newegg shows tons of different selections for each card.
Click to expand...
Only differences are brand, actual clock speed and budget. Pick a brand you like. MSI, Gigabyte, Sapphire, EVGA and Asus are good brands. But yeah, check what length of card will fit in your case. But I'm guessing should be plenty of room with that high wattage of psu.
 
Z

Zaros24

New Member
One more quick question guys - The gtx 1060 and rx 580 both say PCI express 3.0.. my motherboard only has (2x) PCI-Express 2.0, PCI-e x16, (2x) PCI-e x1 .. So doesn't that mean neither card would work with my motherboard?
 
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