• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Best PCI Express x16 Graphics Card?

FlapR

FlapR

FlapR

Associate
Joined
5 Oct 2011
Posts
1,142
Location
Manchester
My PC is awful unfortunately and I've got a very limited budget at the moment however I was wondering what the best PCI Express x16 card is out there that I can get?

These are my current specs:

Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) 9850 Quad-Core Processor (4 CPUs), ~2.5GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM - DDR2
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5
Mother Board: ASRock N68C-S UCC - http://www.asrock.com/mb/NVIDIA/N68C-S UCC/?cat=Specifications

Tomorrow I'll be installing the following:

AMD Phenom II X6 1045T 2.7ghz
8GB DDR 3 Ram

Any help would be appreciated :).
 
The BEST single GPU card you can buy is a nVidia Titan.
The BEST dual GPU on a single PCB card you can buy is either a nVidia GTX690 or an AMD 7990

Your current CPU will hold it back though. Additionally your PSU will need to support the above GPUs.
 
Apologies, I was under the impression my choices were limited due to my motherboard. If that's not the case then I'd be looking to spend no more than £80-£150, but the main idea would be to get the best value possible increase in performance for the least amount of money.

Thanks again.
 
You're more limited by your CPU to be honest, best you can afford is probably some 7870 LE and then sell the games (Which would be like 180 - 30 or whatnot)

But you will bottleneck it.

Chances are you won't be able to clock that Thuban very far.
 
Before you upgrade your CPU and RAM, upgrade your BIOS by downloading the latest one from their site to ensure that your CPU is detected properly. In regards to a GPU, I'd recommend an and 7850 or around that level. Or, if you're on a really tight budget and don't mind going second hand a 6950 is great value for money, although they require more power than a newer card.
 
Last edited:
Probably a 7850 then but there may be a CPU bottleneck. So once you install the PII X6, try and overclock it to 4ghz or so (better have a decent CPU cooler for this).

But, what PSU do you have? Needs to have enough power and a decent brand to power the whole thing.
 
Gaming at 1920x1080, not expecting to be able to play games on high or anything just want a decent mid level performance if possible.
 
Orcvader said:
Probably a 7850 then but there may be a CPU bottleneck. So once you install the PII X6, try and overclock it to 4ghz or so (better have a decent CPU cooler for this).

But, what PSU do you have? Needs to have enough power and a decent brand to power the whole thing.
Click to expand...

That board will limit the clock, he'll have a lowish multi too.
Probably be lucky to get 3GHZ out of those cores.

Ideally a Phenom II 980 or something would have been better.
 
FlapR said:
I have a brand new Corsair CX600m (80 Plus Bronze) - http://www.corsair.com/en/cx-series...att-80-plus-bronze-certified-modular-psu.html

The only reason I'm upgrading to the AMD Phenom II X6 1045T 2.7ghz is because I got it brand new sealed in the box through a friend for free by the way, otherwise I'd be stuck with what I have now until I could afford something new.
Click to expand...

Still a great chip and you'll be impressed with the performance over your ancient Phenom Quad ;) Seeing as you have a decent PSU you should be good to go for pretty much any graphics card. You should be able to play with pretty respectable settings on most games. As mentioned a 7850 fits the bill nicely although as I said before considering second hand prices for 6950s you get better price to performance ratio but then you obviously don't have warranty etc. I'm still personally glad I went that route though as I'm running crossfire and paid £195 for better performance than the £240 7950.
 
Fair enough, seeing as the CPU was free, grab a 7850 for now and save up for a better CPU + motherboard. Try and overclock the CPU as much as possible (whatever your board will allow) and it should be a good leap from your current system.
 
I can stretch to that one yeah will see what I'm left with next week when the mortgage payment goes out. I don't mind making a few weeks or whatever to make sure I get the right thing :). Cheers!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom