Graphic Cards Graphic card for 3k budget

Doremon

Doremon

Adept
I promise my fast growing son to upgrade home PC with graphic card making him to play high end game to his age. Till the time, I could limited his interest to basic gaming only.

To keep my word, I wish to install good Graphic card to play either high end games, as he is regularly exchanging crack/legitimate games between friend group. Wish to upgrade reasonably knowing facto that PC is of old gen.

Friends here, pl suggest. Thanks in advance.

Specification of home PC:
  • Processor = Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 (2.2 GHz) Box Proc.
  • Motherboard = Intel D945GCNL Original Mother Board
  • Chasis / SMPS = Micro ATX - Mini Tower Case, I ball, Pride model
  • System Memory= 1 GB DDR2
  • RAM-TranscandHard Drive= 250 GB SATA
  • Hard Drive - SeagateOptical Drive= 20x SATA
  • DVD Writer - Sony
  • Graphics= Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
  • Output= 19" Wide Screen LCD - Viewsonic
  • Audio =Creative 5.1 Ch. SBS 560/580
 
You should at least also upgrade the RAM with it. 2 GB should do fine.
And for the graphic card, you have not mentioned your budget and the SMPS.
I used to have a Radeon HD 4670 1 GB DDR3 with 17" LCD and 2 gig RAM and Pentium D. It was pretty good. Sold it last year for 1700 without warranty.
You should get your son a 4770 as it would cost less, uses less power, has GDDR5 memory and is sufficient for 19" monitors. Also look for 5670. Dont know about nvidia
If power and money are no issue, you could get 4850,4870 but I doubt that, as they need external power.
All of these should cost below or near 2000. And if the budget is more than 2k, you have other options as well
Hope I am not wrong with the suggestion
 
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Go thru this article. For your system configuration, only the entry level cards will make sense for you. So, my vote goes to AMD R7 250 or equivalent.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-2.html

What equivalent, you ask. Go to the last page where they have lined up the similar performing cards in one block. Search for R7 250, and whatever card you find in the same block and is cheaper than the others (in the same block) on flipkart, start with that. Read the reviews, and start narrowing down your choices until you find the sweet spot of performance vs. price ratio.

Only go for AMD 7*** or R ***** and nVidia 6*** or 5*** (meaning dont go for AMD 4***, 5**** or 6**** and dont go for nvidia before 5***). Reason is that for similar performance, older cards will consume much more power and generate much much more heat.

And, please remember, for the current configuration, only the entry level cards will be compatible. Anything above that will have no effect on performance whatsoever.
 
@Doremon
what is your budget? and how old is your son?
does he play many modern FPS-es?
your existing setup is a little too old to be used or even modified as a mid or low end gaming setup.
even if you add a GPU, its questionable how the "experience" would be as its performance would be held back by the processor.

i'd suggest the following cheapest but quite powerful enough config

Processor AMD FX 4300/AMD FX 6300 6-7k
Motherboard gigabyte 78 lmt s2 3.1K
GPU Amd HD 7750 5.3K or hd 7770 8k or HD 7790 for 10k
RAM Corsair Value Select 4GB Ram 2.7K
PSU Antec Basiq 450W PSU 2.6k

total about 21K(for hd 7750) or 26K(hd 7790)

Keep your Hard disk, dvd writer, cabinet, and display as they are.
its not worth upgrading them
 
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Thanks. Having advices above and limited mind set i.e. not to invest >3k, knowning its old rig & plan to upgrade with new Lappy/PC after 6 months down the time.

Son approaching @13 yrs....he need at least equal platform in gaming with his colleagues...He also having Samsung Tab..
 
Doremon said:
Thanks. Having advices above and limited mind set i.e. not to invest >3k, knowning its old rig & plan to upgrade with new Lappy/PC after 6 months down the time.

Son approaching @13 yrs....he need at least equal platform in gaming with his colleagues...He also having Samsung Tab..
Click to expand...
in that case get a used HD5670/6670/7750 and a used DDR2 2GB RAM
 
Doremon said:
Thanks. Having advices above and limited mind set i.e. not to invest >3k, knowning its old rig & plan to upgrade with new Lappy/PC after 6 months down the time.

Son approaching @13 yrs....he need at least equal platform in gaming with his colleagues...He also having Samsung Tab..
Click to expand...

Thats what I thought. I dont think anybody read OP correctly. All must be in some hurry. He clearly said he is on a tight budget.
Anyways leave it. yeah, get 2 GM RAM at least and 5670,6670 is good. Also someone is selling 5770 in 3500 on erodov. Its better than 5670 and 6670 Try that. Also someone over here is selling a 1 GB RAM in 500. Try that too
But do check your SMPS wattage and total power consumption before getting that
:):):):):):):):):):):):):):)
 
scott1391990 said:
Also someone is selling 5770 in 3500 on erodov. Its better than 5670 and 6670 Try that. Also someone over here is selling a 1 GB RAM in 500. Try that too
But do check your SMPS wattage and total power consumption before getting that
:):):):):):):):):):):):):):)
Click to expand...
Mechanic said:
in that case get a used HD5670/6670/7750 and a used DDR2 2GB RAM
Click to expand...
ok, 5670/5770 with 2 GB RAM. Thinking to install first 5670/5770 & run with 1 GB to check overall performance. Am I going right ?

How could figure out SMPS wattage & total power consumption?:facepalm: 'M noob ...:)
 
yes, to be on the safe side you can check with 1 GB RAM first. Or buy the GPU, then ask your son to borrow 1 GB stick from his friend to check how it performs against 1 GB. If you see any significant change, then buy one. If not leave it. Don't compare 1 GB against 2 GB without GPU while gaming.
E4500 has a max TDP of 65W.
Your mobo and RAM combined, should be taking 40W approx
10W for HDD approx
5W for DVD drive during idle and 20W during load
Take 10W approx for fans too
Adding above we get 145W but while playing games DVD drive would be most probably idle so we can take it as 130W while playing games.
And 5670 consumes a max of 65W while 5770 does 108W max.
Now check your SMPS power rating. If its near 250W, then get 5670. And if it's near 300W then take the 5770.
 
Dont know if one can read it from the windows or not but usually people check the rating on the SMPS itself
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/iipcache/59935.jpg
http://oi50.tinypic.com/r8h84j.jpg
:)
Most probably it is 250W according to this
http://www.homeshop18.com/iball-mid.../computer-components/product:221413/cid:4197/
So now you have the option of 5670 and a 1 GB RAM extra.First buy GPU, play games on it with 1 GB RAM. Then get a 1 Gb RAM stick to check. Now run the same game with 2 GB RAM. Notice the improvement. If its significant, you know what to do.
All this would easily come under 3000
 
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@Doremon - mention your maximum budget and Trust me : 1GB or even 2GB ram is not enough for modern gaming let alone the cpu. Start with at-least 3 - 4GB ram and a good gfx card is a must. If the second hand gfx card you're getting has proper warranty then get that or think of something else.
 
topgear said:
@Doremon - mention your maximum budget and Trust me : 1GB or even 2GB ram is not enough for modern gaming let alone the cpu. Start with at-least 3 - 4GB ram and a good gfx card is a must. If the second hand gfx card you're getting has proper warranty then get that or think of something else.
Click to expand...

His budget is 3k. Now suggest him 4 GB RAM and a good GPU and a CPU under that
 
Well, in under 5k you could get a 5670, sadly the RAM prices are high but try getting a 1/2 GB stick so total is 2/3 GB. You could also sell the CPU and get E8400 or E8600 as these are the only ones that are good for you depending on your 5k budget and SMPS rating.
Now, if I were you I wouldn't buy a CPU as first option as 775 is really really old.
Getting a better GPU than 5670 is also not gonna help due to slow CPU and SMPS. Upgrading the whole PC is also out of question as it would be slightly out of budget but TBH it's what I did and am happy now. I sold my LGA 775 system and GPU and got LGA 1155 without GPU but now I have money and trying to buy one. You could do the same thing.
Your options.
1) Do what I did. Sell this mobo, CPU and RAM and move to LGA 1155 and DDR3 RAM and buy the GPU later.
2) Get 5670 and try with 2 GB RAM and 3 GB RAM and see the improvement in games and save some bucks.
3) Try option 2 and if it doesn't make your kid happy, sell the CPU only and get E8400 or E8600
You will save 1500 bucks approx in option 2 and nothing in option 1/3. It's an estimate. Might be wrong by a few 100 bucks
 
scott1391990 said:
His budget is 3k. Now suggest him 4 GB RAM and a good GPU and a CPU under that
Click to expand...

I must have overlooked the thread title but now Op's budget is decent. He can get HD6670 1GB GDDR5 @ 5.2k and upgrade ram later or he can go for second hand gfx card + ram. But like you suggested getting a new mobo+cpu+ram combo is a much more future proof idea.
 
So, what should I conclude,
1. 5670 with 2GB RAM or
2. 6670 with existing 1 GB RAM.
Hope, my rig-2.2 GHz-1GB RAM-945 Board shall clock ok with either of above.
Am I going rightly?!..
 
many games will run poorly with only 1GB ram and may not even meet the minimum specs so getting 2GB ram and HD5670 is what you can do or like I said before if you can get more ram later settle for HD6670 /R7 240 ddr5 cards.
 
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