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What Graphics Card Should I get for £150

Oliver12345

Oliver12345

Oliver12345

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Joined
8 Oct 2013
Posts
3
Hey I was wondering if any one could recommend a graphics card for some one who has little experience with graphics cards. My budget is £150 and I will mainly be using the card for gaming. my spec is
2.50 gigahertz Intel Pentium Dual-Core
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
2048 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (2 total)
Not hyper-threaded Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5KPL-SE x.0x
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
4096 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory
Slot 'DIMM A1' has 2048 MB
Slot 'DIMM B1' has 2048 MB
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX [Display adapter]
BenQ 241W [Monitor] (24.2"vis, s/n 10413, May 2007)

Thanks :)
 
Are you planning on upgrading the CPU/mobo/RAM?

If not, 7850/GTX660. Doubt there's much point in going any higher until you upgrade the rest of the system.
 
FoxEye said:
Are you planning on upgrading the CPU/mobo/RAM?

If not, 7850/GTX660. Doubt there's much point in going any higher until you upgrade the rest of the system.
Click to expand...

+1 7850, CPU will be holding you back pretty badly tbh. Maybe second hand GTX460/5850 to tie you over whilst giving you a reasonable boost and put savings towards a cpu/mobo/ram upgrade.
 
Oliver12345 said:
Hey I was wondering if any one could recommend a graphics card for some one who has little experience with graphics cards. My budget is £150 and I will mainly be using the card for gaming. my spec is
2.50 gigahertz Intel Pentium Dual-Core
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
2048 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (2 total)
Not hyper-threaded Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5KPL-SE x.0x
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
4096 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory
Slot 'DIMM A1' has 2048 MB
Slot 'DIMM B1' has 2048 MB
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX [Display adapter]
BenQ 241W [Monitor] (24.2"vis, s/n 10413, May 2007)

Thanks :)
Click to expand...

2.50 gigahertz Intel Pentium Dual-Core - you really should update your CPU too!

That 7850 will be bottlenecked on that!
 
I'd look to upgrade the cpu and mobo as soon as you can, because I think a great majority of graphics cards will be restricted by your cpu.
 
If the games you play are not to demanding, you can compromise on the GPU front and put in an A8 + motherboard for under £150. This will give you a reasonable upgrade in both. Eventually, you can replace the RAM with faster RAM and gain a bit more integrated GPU power.


If you eventually plan on upgrading both the CPU and the GPU, the 7850 is a good choice. If i were you though, given the current pricing, the extra money to get a 7950 will definitely go a long way when you grab yourself a more powerful CPU later.
 
For all the guys saying '7950', not only would he need to exceed his budget by £30-£50, but he'd be crippling its performance until he upgrades the rest of his system. A total system upgrade would likely be in the region of £500.

Having said that, if he plans to play any new titles coming out this year or next, a dual core Pentium isn't going to cut it.
 
As I said I got my 7950 for £170 (with 3 games he could sell).

If he only has £150 he needs to start some where.

what would perform better, a pentium dual core with a 7950 or an FX6 with a 8800 gtx (DX10 card)

There is going to be a limiting factor either way.

Jason.
 
Well if he manages to somewhat game on it till now, might be not all that demanding games and could get away with just chucking in a trinity set up. Overclock it and you have a half decent CPU and GPU boost for under the budget. Unfortunately, this does leave little upgrading room which will give you the same problem of 'GPU or CPU' a few years later when things become more demanding.

If we know what games you are playing and what you intend to play, also what resolution you play in, it would be easier to fit an upgrade appropriate to your budget. When people hear gaming, often they just recommend the best GPU in your budget and a CPU that wont bottleneck it. While this is good template if you are after demanding titles like BF4 but if you are not and you can get away with spending much less, there isn't a reason why you shouldn't go for it.

I think a few weeks ago a guy wanted a gaming rig without a specified budget, so people were speccing all sorts of stuff with shiny GPUs and i7s. Then he replied 'What sort of frames would i get in minecraft, as it's what i play most of the time?'.
 
Alkalinepro5 said:
2.50 gigahertz Intel Pentium Dual-Core - you really should update your CPU too!

That 7850 will be bottlenecked on that!
Click to expand...
The 2.50GHz Pentium Dual-core I'm guessing that's the E5200.

I have a system with that CPU and overclocked to 4.25GHz, and it would still at times bottleneck my 9800GTX+ (which is only around 10% faster than OP's 8800GTX).

IMO unless OP is gonna upgrade his CPU, then there's little point upgrading this graphic card, as his current CPU at stock clock would already be bottlenecking his 8800GTX. Should at the very least be dropping a Core2Quad CPU into his current system.

With his £150 budget, the best thing to do is probably try to get a 2nd hand Q6600, a CPU cooler, and a 2nd hand 6850~7850.
 
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I wouldn't spent anything on a GPU for that system, it's too outdated.

Figure out a budget for a whole system, and get a GPU that makes sense for that whole build.
 
shocco said:
Why has no one mentioned the R9 270X? It's cheaper and has much better performance than the 7850.

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-270X-vs-Radeon-HD-7850
Click to expand...

fXJ4ua2.jpg.png


7850 £120 on OcUK
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-295-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=411

Same brand R270 on OcUK
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-328-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1982
 
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FoxEye said:
fXJ4ua2.jpg.png


7850 £120 on OcUK
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-295-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=411

Same brand R270 on OcUK
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-328-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1982
Click to expand...

You can find the 270X for as low as £150 and the 7870 for the same price yet the 270x beats the 7870 in every aspect. As for the 7850 you're right it's cheaper but s 20% slower. Considering his budget is £150 I'd go for the R9 270X.

EDIT: I found a 7870 for £135 so go with that as there's not much difference between the two.
 
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