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need some help guys re a gfx card for sim city

bigjonnyauk

bigjonnyauk

bigjonnyauk

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Joined
5 May 2004
Posts
2,389
hi guys a mate has asked if i can upgrade his pc so he can play sim city

i have been out of the game for quite a while now since buying a gaming laptop

so i am well out of touch with gfx cards.

the problem is he has a pre built hp system i have looked at the motherboard specs and it has a pci-e slot to add a gfx card but i am facing 2 problems

1. WHICH ONE needs to be cheapish but also needs to have at least the following re the ea website

At least a 512 MB video card featuring either an NVIDIA 7800 or better, an AMD chipset of at least an ATI Radeon HD 2x00

and also must have a minimum of 256MB of on-board RAM and Shader 3.0 or better support

2. the psu is the system is only a 300w one so the card will need to be ok with this


rest of system seems to meet the needs ok

windows 7
3 gig ram
AMD Athlon II X3 440 3.0 ghz tri core


so any suggestions on a suitable card would be much appriciated cheers

i have been looking but seem to be struggling to find one within a decent price range AND WHICH HAS 256 BIT MEM INTERFACE


thankyou guys
 
As you mentioned you only have a small power supply, I would take a look at the new Nvidia Maxwell cards 750 and 750ti. With the new architecture the power draw compared to the 700 series cards is crazy.


If you have the budget (as you didn't mention a budget) I would go for the 750ti card as it will give you more freedom when it come to which games you can play, and there isn't much difference in price.

With the 750 you get 1GB of vram compared to the 2GB of the 750ti cards.

My only concern is the power supply you already have, a good 300w or 400w supply would be fine however if it is a cheaper PSU they tend to rate it for 300w however it will ballpark at around 250-280w.


Personally I would recommend getting a more robust PSU as you will barley ever change your power supply build to build. It is one of the only components that will be top of it's spec in 5+ years.

Both are great quality power supplies, the only diffrence is the more expensive one is modular which means you can remove the cables you don't need rather than hiding them in the case.

YOUR BASKET
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 450W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £53.99
1 x SuperFlower Amazon 450W "80 Plus Bronze" Power Supply £39.95
Total : £103.54 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Now that you have a robust power supply you can stat looking at the graphics cards.

YOUR BASKET
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 750Ti FTW ACX 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £131.99
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750Ti WindForce OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £113.99
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 750 SuperClock 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £99.95
Total : £355.52 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
thanks very much for the info mate but tbh i think thats going to be over his budget .

i doubt he will want to go above maybe 50 or 60 quid

i was thinking something maybe a little older generation maybe

tbh to play one game i think he should not bother as he also wants me to put 4 gig ram in it

for the cost just for one game which doesnt get great reveiws anyway lol
 
300W is fine, I stuck a 7770 in a q6600 system with a 300W PSU and it's been running perfectly. Just make sure you don't exceed the current limit on the 12V rail but in most cases it will be around 220W, and 95 + 75 is way short of that, leaving plenty left over for other devices.
 
Or a 7750; there were a few of those that didn't even come with a plug in - limits the OC on them; but they will stomp over 750 TI......

7750 or 7770 would be the card choice......
 
Just a question are we talking the new sim city game that came out last year or the one from 1989?
 
The reason why I suggested getting a 7770 is because it has a 6 pin connector but still only draws around 75W. Since many PSUs have split 12V rails you can plug the motherboard into one rail and the GPU into another, thereby avoiding stressing the PSU. If you don't have a 6pin connector, all power is drawn through the 12V connectors on the motherboard.

It's actually better than a 7750 as far as the power supply is concerned because of this reason, as often you can't do anything with the 2nd 12V rail except plug a hard drive and DVD drive into it.
 
JonSmith said:
The reason why I suggested getting a 7770 is because it has a 6 pin connector but still only draws around 75W. Since many PSUs have split 12V rails you can plug the motherboard into one rail and the GPU into another, thereby avoiding stressing the PSU. If you don't have a 6pin connector, all power is drawn through the 12V connectors on the motherboard.

It's actually better than a 7750 as far as the power supply is concerned because of this reason, as often you can't do anything with the 2nd 12V rail except plug a hard drive and DVD drive into it.
Click to expand...

ah I didn't think about that at the time.....very good point Jon :)
 
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