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Thread ID: 125060	2012-06-04 07:17:00	What graphics card would be best buy to match with the rest of my system?	Andrew123 (16643)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1279604	2012-06-04 07:17:00	System specs: Intel Pentium D 935 3.2Ghz ASUS P5VD2-MX motherboard PCI-EX16 2GB DDR2 ram My older system doesn't cope with playing full HD quicktime videos from my Casio camera, and I would also like to be able to turn up the graphics on the GTR2 game. My hardware knowledge is rather out of date (since the days of CPU speed and amount of ram alone being the key factors for performance are long gone!) so am not too sure what graphics card would offer best bang for my buck based on what I already have. Thinking I should be able to get something that does what I need for $100-150? As my motherboard is PCI-EX16, I will not get any benefit from a PCI-EX 2.0 or 3.0 card will I? Also would another 2GB or ram offer much more performance or should a graphics card be sufficient for my basic requirements? One more question - anyone know of websites that give a good overview of advances in PC technology over the last few years...many reviews I read seem to be written for users that are already up to play with current technology. Cheers, Andrew	Andrew123 (16643)
1279605	2012-06-04 07:37:00	If you're trying to run games then as a rule of thumb when buying computer parts, spend the most on the graphics card. 2gb+ ram would probably add a nice boost as well more so for windows 7 (if you're running that). For $150 you could get an ATi 7750 or a 6770. 6770 draws more power and offers a very slight performance increase in some games (1-5fps) whereas the 7750 from memory doesnt need power direct from the psu and will support newer technology seeing as it was released this year. As for you're question about pci-e2 and 3: it depends on what motherboard you have pci-e16x 1.0 (assuming it exists) or pci-e16x 2.0 will probably be what you have. pci-e 3.0 is kind of irrelevant as no card is currently bottle necked by the pci-e2 bus. Also if won't matter if you have 1.0 or 2.0 because at low spec hardware its the same thing (compatibility issues might be your only problem, iirc the only difference between generations is speed so 99.9% of cards are backwards compatible. Sites I use for determining what hardware i consider good or not are: tomshardware, passmark and anandtech. Tomshardware will be particularly good for your purpose as you can view past benchmarks showing the performance increase over the years assuming the benchmarking material stays static. Wikipedia, geforce.com and amd's site also all offer good information on the evolution of graphics cards. Personally I don't like wikipedia for info on cpu's but that's just me. As a side note buying the best and most expensive card you can without considering the bottlenecks that your current hardware may provide can also be seen as a good thing as it means that the card you have will still be good/ won't bottleneck any new parts you may buy (e.g. cpu's). No i'm not saying go out and buy a 680 GTX and don't do this if you don't plan to upgrade any time soon as within a year or two the card will be out of date anyway.	icow (15313)
1279606	2012-06-04 10:11:00	Gaming PC hardware goes out of date in 5 minutes. Depressingly if you haven't got a large budget, ongoing, then get a console.	pctek (84)
1279607	2012-06-04 12:14:00	It's likely that your power supply won't be able to take a particularly powerful card, if you don't see your needs as ever changing (which is unlikely) then a card that doesn't require much of a supply could be of use. Otherwise, an incremental upgrade starting with a new power supply and nuts graphics card could see you with a sweet build eventually. There are going to be other bottlenecks but the biggest performance increases will come from putting in a gpu or upgrading your existing one, at least in terms of games performance (for the most part).	8ftmetalhaed (14526)
1279608	2012-06-04 12:58:00	Out of date does not mean its bad. I got a 7950 and that is already out of date but that doesnt mean it cant run any games. People who are obsesed with having the newest regardless of how small te performance increase is are just kind of silly. Eventualy you gotta bite the bullet and be happy that you even have a gpu that is that close to the top of its class. Also it might be beneficial to go to 4gb of ram.	Slankydudl (16687)
1279609	2012-06-04 20:17:00	After another thread here on a similar Topic the GT 430 for $100 seems like an ok option www.pp.co.nz However there are no guarantees it'll fix your issues, depends if the playback software can utilise the graphics card or just uses the CPU. A lot of video acceleration doesn't work under XP for example as I discovered trying to get some transcoding software to work, turns out it needed vista or later to use graphics acceleration. It's not a powerful card and won't game well at high resolutions if that's a factor but you don't mention gaming. It will play most current games on a lower res screen maybe with reduced settings for some, check out pressf1.pcworld.co.nz for some links and discussion.	dugimodo (138)
1279610	2012-06-04 21:41:00	Out of date does not mean its bad. I got a 7950 and that is already out of date . Out of date does mean bad. I was looking at his mention of DDR2 RAM........... My own system has a 5970, DDR3 and a Core i5. It's out of date. Still, it does OK so far, but with the new games out all the time - Far Cry 3 and so on, it will be sad very soon. It's just a fact of gaming hardware. It's also worse once you get used to running them all on max with a high res, and then have to start adjusting settings. Noooooooooooo!!!	pctek (84)
1279611	2012-06-04 23:44:00	I haven't had to make any changes to my settings really. Just turn off anti aliasing or turn it down, problem solved. Given that I grew up being used to graphics like those on the sega megadrive, master system and then ps1, I'm ok with jaggies.	8ftmetalhaed (14526)
1279612	2012-06-05 00:11:00	I play at 1080P on a 27" monitor myself, to make that look good you start at around a GTX560 or Ti. I like to crank everything up and make it look good, can't have it looking like a console, so I aimed a bit higher. It comes down to what you can personally accept and what your budget is, stick with a lower res screen and reduced graphics setting and it's amazing what can be played and still look ok.	dugimodo (138)
1279613	2012-06-05 00:30:00	At 1080p I don't really see it anyway. I mean sure, I don't get perfectly straight lines all the time or anything but stuff still looks pretty damn impressive. I'd rather play at high resolutions and then slowly increment AA as opposed to lowering res and running full AA.	8ftmetalhaed (14526)
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