Hey guys,
So, to cut a long story short, I bought a Cataclysm Hogger rig from Overclockers a year ago, and in due course both the HDMI and DVI outputs on the graphics card decided to conk out, one after the other. Thankfully Overclockers, with their excellent customer services, have said I can send the card back in for repairs, free of charge. Today I sent it on its way. The only problem is that I will now be without a graphics card in my computer for up to 28 days!
I had been thinking recently about replacing the graphics card anyway, and it seems now my hand has been forced! (and I can sell on the old one when it comes back). Furthermore, as I'm not particularly knowledgeable about these sorts of things, I thought I'd humbly request some of the expert opinion on here!
Basic stuff: My old card was an nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti. My PC has an Intel Core i3 2100 3.10GHz DDR3 MMO Dual Core CPU.
I mainly use my computer to play Dota 2, so I'd like a card that would run this at full graphics capabilities (my last card seemed to do the job just fine). In the near future I'm probably going to give Far Cry 3, Skyrim and Eve Online a try (and I may even eventually go back to WoW!), so it would be nice to be able to run those at high-spec.
Budget-wise, I'm running things fairly tightly at the moment as a student, but if a card comes highly recommended I'd be willing to stretch potentially up to £200; generally I'd like to keep the cost down low however. From the research I've been doing, there seem to be some suitable cards down around the £70-£90 price range (like the GeForce GT 640 or the Radeon HD 7750). Before I buy, though, I'd like to have peace of mind knowing that there won't be any compatibility issues with my CPU, or any games that I try to play!
In summary, I'm looking for a mid-range, cost effective card that'll run Dota 2 with no problems on my mid-range, cost effective gaming rig. Ideally it would be an upgrade on my previous card, and be a bit more reliable in terms of hardware!
What would you guys recommend?
So, to cut a long story short, I bought a Cataclysm Hogger rig from Overclockers a year ago, and in due course both the HDMI and DVI outputs on the graphics card decided to conk out, one after the other. Thankfully Overclockers, with their excellent customer services, have said I can send the card back in for repairs, free of charge. Today I sent it on its way. The only problem is that I will now be without a graphics card in my computer for up to 28 days!
I had been thinking recently about replacing the graphics card anyway, and it seems now my hand has been forced! (and I can sell on the old one when it comes back). Furthermore, as I'm not particularly knowledgeable about these sorts of things, I thought I'd humbly request some of the expert opinion on here!
Basic stuff: My old card was an nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti. My PC has an Intel Core i3 2100 3.10GHz DDR3 MMO Dual Core CPU.
I mainly use my computer to play Dota 2, so I'd like a card that would run this at full graphics capabilities (my last card seemed to do the job just fine). In the near future I'm probably going to give Far Cry 3, Skyrim and Eve Online a try (and I may even eventually go back to WoW!), so it would be nice to be able to run those at high-spec.
Budget-wise, I'm running things fairly tightly at the moment as a student, but if a card comes highly recommended I'd be willing to stretch potentially up to £200; generally I'd like to keep the cost down low however. From the research I've been doing, there seem to be some suitable cards down around the £70-£90 price range (like the GeForce GT 640 or the Radeon HD 7750). Before I buy, though, I'd like to have peace of mind knowing that there won't be any compatibility issues with my CPU, or any games that I try to play!
In summary, I'm looking for a mid-range, cost effective card that'll run Dota 2 with no problems on my mid-range, cost effective gaming rig. Ideally it would be an upgrade on my previous card, and be a bit more reliable in terms of hardware!
What would you guys recommend?
