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I need a new GPU - you decide!

Tommyyards

Tommyyards

Tommyyards

Associate
Joined
19 Jan 2012
Posts
14
I need a new GPU i'm beginning to think im stuck in the stone age!

I've got a GeForce 8800gtx at the moment and so I need to badly upgrade it.

Im looking for a price range around £100-£200 but defiantly no more, probably not even £200!

I was thinking of the 560ti but dont know if there is anything else thats more for my money, I dont know much about ATI etc

many thanks!

if you need any more information i'll provide it!
 
oh lordy right specs:

CPU: Intel Q9550 quad core 2.83ghz
RAM: Corsair 4gb DDR3
Motherboard: ASUS P5G41M -LE
PSU: 950w (can't remember the name but its got multiple PCI-E slots etc)

the other stuff is pretty irrelevant
I was going to upgrade the GPU before everything else though first, its a pretty old build though and was on a budget!
 
That system should handle a ti560 no problem. You might want to overclock the cpu to make sure that it wont bottleneck the new card. There are new midrange cards coming but they are around 2 months away atm. The ti560 is a good card for the money and would serve your system well. It also comes with a free game in bf3 which if you already got you could sell and if not use.
 
d'ya reckon its a better idea to save up a bit of money and buy an i5 or the new AMD bulldozer 3.60ghz quadcore and wait for the new range of cards at the same time then instead?
 
I would stay clear of bulldozer. If you want a new build the i5 is a good option. I would if you can get your current cpu to around 3.6-4.0ghz which should give you an instant performance upgrade. Adding in a ti560 to it would make it a pretty good gaming system. You would then have a good gaming system while you save up for a new build. This way you get the best of both worlds. The ti560 will still be a good card down the line for your new build.
 
Last edited:
Tommyyards said:
d'ya reckon its a better idea to save up a bit of money and buy an i5 or the new AMD bulldozer 3.60ghz quadcore and wait for the new range of cards at the same time then instead?
Click to expand...

Avoid the cheaper end Bulldozers their performance in games is embarrassing if I'm being honest - just read this. No amount of overclocking, bios flashes and Windows patches is going to bridge that gap, your better of with a dual core i3.

As for a video card I would be tempted to say try and get 2x 6850's for £99 each and go crossfire. A single 6850 is no slouch either it really depends on if think all that extra cash is worth the extra FPS. The alternative is wait a month and see what new mid range cards AMD brings to the table.
 
Tommyyards said:
how far do you recommend overclocking to?
Click to expand...

TheRealDeal said:
I have seen guys on here with 4.0ghz but i would try to get to 3.6 to start with.
Click to expand...

You're going to need a better mainboard if you want to start overclocking. the ASUS P5G41M-LE is hardly renowned for its overclocking abilities :(

Might be worth selling your current board, ram, cpu and upgrading to a newer platform. Q9550s can demand a fair chunk of cash still so you'd be able to make a bit back by selling it on.
 
I just done a little reading around and it seems coupe is correct. What your bios does have is auto overclocking options with the most being 20%. This would get you to just under 3.6ghz. Try it and see if its stable. If its not set it to 15% and test again. A new build is gonna be needed at some point but as i said above a ti560 would still see your gaming experience improve giving you the time to save up for a decent build to go with the card.
 
A CPU upgrade would be nice in the future, but a Q9550 (even at stock clocks) is able to run pretty much all modern games rather well. It is the 8800GTX that is the glaring bottleneck and a shiny new GTX 560Ti, HD 6870 or HD 6950 would be an excellent investment and get the machine running games like it should be.

After you have done the GPU upgrade then turning your attention to a future CPU/mobo/RAM upgrade is a worthwhile idea (though not an urgent one IMHO). Personally I would suggest waiting for the Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs that should be coming out in the next few months. I would avoid AMD at the moment as their high-end parts aren't competitive with Intel Sandy Bridge (never mind Ivy Bridge) and their mid-range quad core parts will be little better than what you already have.
 
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