How badly does a poor graphics card effect your PC perfomance

[gregbird101]

Hey all,

Quick question,

My PC atm :

i7 920
6 GB Corsair RAM
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 Mother board
60 SSD
2 x 1TB hdd

and a

XFX GeForce 9500GT Graphics card - 512 MB

Does the graphics card hinder my machine?

 

[kerrgreg]

it really depends on what you use it for if you play modern games on a 30' monitor then you might struggle if you only use it for PS then you will probs be ok.

 

[cmndr_andi]

I really depends what you are doing.

If you are playing modern PC games, then it definitely will.

If you are playing HD video, you will be fine (though I believe the ATI 5000 series offerings fare better).

If you are using graphics card accelerated applications, you will get by - but a graphics upgrade will certainly improve performance (how much depends on how each program uses the graphics card power).

But, if you mainly use non-GPU accelerated apps then you will notice no performance increase from a better card.

 

[paradigm]

Hinder it for what?

For gaming, hell yes, the rest of the system goes to waste.

If however you are mainly encoding video, or running non 3d calculations, then no the video card is irrelevant.

 

[gregbird101]

Sorry lads, yea i meant for gaming. Mainly Wow.

But i am considering buying a new card for Starcraft 2, or some other new games....

budget 100-150? - Problem is, that if i spend 150 pounds now, 1 month the card is going to be woth 60 quid? ha

 

[cmndr_andi]

Ah, in that case you will want a graphics upgrade if you want to improve performance. I'm sure that the 9600GT will run the game fine (depending on resolution), but it is not a good match with such a powerful CPU. How are you finding your PC's performance in Wow?

From what I hear, WoW makes better use of Nvidia cards than ATI cards (please correct me if i'm wrong), so for that budget I would suggest giving this card a look.

As for spending £150 now and being worth £60 next month - not exactly. Usually you can expect the price to fall by around £30-40 in that kind of timescale purely because you can't offer the warranty if it is second hand. However, if you pick the right card, you won't need to contemplate selling it until a year or two down the line.

 

[gregbird101]

Yea in wow my machine runs pretty much perfectly, i get lag spikes here and there but i think thats the server/ my internet.

To be honest my PC runs fine, just wondered if i am hindering my speed, loading graphics etc.

when i built my pc, the only part i took from my previous was the graphics card so just wondering what the difference a new card would make.
If its 10% worth of performance for 150 pounds, mehhhhhhh lol.

sadly to say i think i would have to go with ATI, just because i believe that they have the edge on the market....

 

[welshdragon]

A 5770 should fair you well. I've been using one for 6 months now, the Asus voltage tweak one and I find it really good. I was running Starcraft 2 with everything set to Ultra and it never missed a beat!

 

[cmndr_andi]

Yea, that's probably a good idea - save your money if you are happy with your current performance.

As for what performance increase you could expect for your money - £140 would buy you a GTX 260 (as linked to above). This review compares how the GTX 260 fares against a 9600GT in WoW. Obviously, the numbers have to be taken with a pinch of salt - as real-world play would most likely give you different framerates - but as a comparison of graphics card I think it is pretty good. It also seems to show that the ATI cards don't do as well as their Nvidia competitors in this specific game (though I would certainly agree that ATI has the market edge overall).

 

[gregbird101]

Yea 5770 Looks cool and so does the GTX.

I will Probably save my money for now and wait until the decent cards come down in price. Just because i cant bare spending 200 quid on something that because old hat so quickly lol.

Cheers and thanks for the help andi and all I will definitely have a look at all the comparisons etc.

 

[EdwardTeach]

For that budget go for a 5770. Prices are holding pretty stable i wouldnt expect to see them half price in a few months.

 

[Marine-RX179]

Sorry lads, yea i meant for gaming. Mainly Wow.

But i am considering buying a new card for Starcraft 2, or some other new games....

budget 100-150? - Problem is, that if i spend 150 pounds now, 1 month the card is going to be woth 60 quid? ha

For £150, your best bet for for these requirement is spend £120 on a 5770, and £30 on a decent CPU cooler (such as Titan Fenrir) to overclock your i7 920 to 4.00GHz.

As for card value depreciation...I think you shouldn't think too much about it. For example, I bought my 9800GTX+ 512MB last year in April for £110, now it only worth around £45-£50 in the 2nd hand market. So its value dropped by £60...but do I regret getting the card? No. Because the £60 is well worth it and provided me many many hours of fun on gaming for the pass 14 months.

It is a bargain...comparing to eating out with my friends costing £15-£20 each meal lol