Help with graphics card choice

nitemode on 13/6/2011 at 00:44

Hi, im looking to buy a graphics card, suitable for running games like deus ex human revolution and battlefield 3 this year, as well as bad company 2 and other games of the type that are currently on the market. I currently have a intel core 2 quad Q8300, 6gb ddr2 ram. and i have a 400 watt power supply. If the power supply is a must upgrade that is fine, im just looking for the cheapest allround way to run these games to a relatively high standard. if it can be done without a power supply upgrade that would be great!

Thanks any help is much appreciated.

Ostriig on 13/6/2011 at 22:17

I'm not really sure how much of a bottleneck your CPU would be... I assume your mainboard supports PCIe 2.0, right? And you don't mention what you're moving up from in the GPU department. Have a skim over this (http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html) listing from Passmark, maybe it gives some sort of idea of what you're looking at.

Maybe someone else can weigh in here, if your system can reasonably make use of it maybe go for a GeForce GTX 460? Or if that would be overkill, maybe a GTX 260 or a Radeon 4870?

Koki on 14/6/2011 at 08:16

What is your resolution?

Renzatic on 14/6/2011 at 08:34

(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130661&cm_re=evga_geforce_gtx_560-_-14-130-661-_-Product) Yup.

Your processor will probably bottleneck you a bit, but who cares? It's a damn solid card for $180, and will run just about anything you throw at it beautifully with 95% of the bells and whistles on. Sure, you won't be able to eek the absolute maximum out of the card in your current machine, but you can always transfer it to a new computer later, if it bothers you at all.

...which it won't.

The only downside is you probably should consider investing in a new PSU. From what I've read, the 560 line of cards eat up about 300-350 watts under full load. You won't even be eeking by with a 400w. I'd recommend getting a 600w at least, (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139028&cm_re=corsair_600w-_-17-139-028-_-Product) such as...