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Graphics Upgrade on a Budget

Wiley303

Wiley303

Wiley303

Associate
Joined
17 May 2011
Posts
15
Hi,
I’m looking to upgrade my PC a bit, and in particular the graphics card. My current set up is quite dated, so I was hoping to get your advice on what I should do. I have:

Intel Core i5 2500K Unlocked, 1155
MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION **
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive**
Coolermaster Elite 430 All Black Case With Elite 500W PSU

I’m only looking for 1080p and not looking to spend too much. I was looking at:

Inno3D GeForce GTX 960 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

PowerColor R9 285 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card

The latter is a bit pricier but comes with the Witcher 3 (I could cancel my xbox preorder to fund the difference ;) ). Would those cards work with my system, and in particular my PSU? Would the rest of my system cope, or would I see any benefit ftom going up to 8GB Ram? Any recommendations?

Cheers,
Wiley
 
An upgrade to 8 GB RAM is a good move anyway, but if The Witcher 3 is your thing, I'd hold off any purchase until the performance reviews come in.
 
The Witcher 3 is more a bonus than anything. A game I'll definitely play on something. Would either of those cards do better than an Xbox one?

Cheers
 
The R9 285 and the GTX960 trade blows with each other performance wise, so it's down to preference and features that you want.

XboxOne's graphic is pants comparing to even PS4. XboxOne and PS4 have the same graphic architecture, but XboxOne's APU's graphic has only a little more than half the shader processors found the APU in PS4 (768 on the XboxOne vs 1152 on the PS4)...also PS4 uses GDDR5 memory whereas XboxOne are stucked with using DDR3.

The graphic of PS4's APU I recall it being at around HD7850 (R7 265) level, so both the R9 285 and GTX960 would be faster...if not being held back by directx.
 
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I would be wary about getting any GPU with only 2 GB of VRAM these days. Can you manage the extra for a GTX 970 or R9 290?
 
Quartz said:
I would be wary about getting any GPU with only 2 GB of VRAM these days. Can you manage the extra for a GTX 970 or R9 290?
Click to expand...
That's actually a very good point.

It's a shame that we have not gotten to the point of entry level cards having at least 3GB of vram, mid-range having at least 4GB of vram, and high-end having at least 6GB of vram as standard just yet.
 
Is more VRAM going to make much difference?

I'd have thought that in 2-3 years I'd need to upgrade virtually everything else anyway?

Thanks for your suggestions :)
 
Wiley303 said:
Is more VRAM going to make much difference?

I'd have thought that in 2-3 years I'd need to upgrade virtually everything else anyway?

Thanks for your suggestions :)
Click to expand...
More and more games beginning to hit over 2GB even at 1920 res...but I suppose as long as you are willing to sacrifice AA and texture details, you can keep the vram usage under 2GB.
 
You would get more for your money by going second hand but you need to be careful what you put in that pc because of the psu. The CM Elite 500w is rubbish and only has 360w on the 12v rail. Overclocking the cpu would help as well but again, you are limited by that psu.
 
The 285 and 960 both perform about the same. The 285 is priced about right at just a bit above the price of a 270X and the 960's premium is because of its low wattage.

With GTA5, Witcher 3 and games like Batman and AC:Syndicate coming as pure next (or perhaps now 'current') gen games and making best use of all that memory the consoles have to offer.

If you just want a stop-gap I'd suggest waiting to see if the 300-series cards prompt some price cutting or any clearance sales in the run up to the launch.

The step up to 8GB of RAM is a good idea though.
 
If you upgrade infrequently and just have a bit of spare cash now I'd suggest you buy a 960 (as you'll have no worries about the PSU being able to cope) and try and squeeze out another 40 or 50 quid for a 128gb SSD which will make a world of difference to how your PC feels. More than another 4gb RAM would in my opinion.

If you can wait and will have more money in a few months I'd suggest you hang on for a slightly beefier overhaul.
 
Save some money and grab a used 7950/7970 or get the extra together for a 290/970 IMO.

EDIT - Wouldn't fancy the 290 on that PSU actually...
 
Thanks for all the help :)

I think I'm leaning towards the 960 because of the PSU, and upgrade to 8GB too. I do already have an 240 GB SSD which is serving me very well.

The question is whether it's worth waiting a couple of months and maybe finding a deal on a 970. That might be smarter, but I do get impatient ;)
 
The 970 is much much better than a 960 at 1080p. It'll play games at good settings for the foreseeable. The 960 won't. You must have had that 5850 for some time already - what's another month or two?
 
mulpsmebeauty said:
The 970 is much much better than a 960 at 1080p. It'll play games at good settings for the foreseeable. The 960 won't. You must have had that 5850 for some time already - what's another month or two?
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It's also double the price. If OP can stretch budget that far, then sure.

But I'm not sure if it's worth taking the risk of using 970 with that PSU.
 
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Or, of course I just get 970 now with the two games. I'm really impatient it seems today!

How's the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 WindForce OC 4096MB? And would my PSU still cope?

I've had the old card for about 4 years now, so it's not done badly ;)
 
How long have you been using that Elite 500W PSU?

Cause PSU would degrade over time in terms of performance and output, and it's not a very good quality PSU to begin with.
 
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It's been there since I built the PC, which is probably about 4 years ago.

I should probably overhauil quite a few things on the PC and do a proper job of it :)
 
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