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Which graphics card? Advise please

faseman7

faseman7

faseman7

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Joined
8 Mar 2011
Posts
52
Hi guys, just wondering if anyone can advise me which graphics card is the best for gaming etc. Want to spend around £150 to replace my Radeon HD 5570. Thanks

Specs are as follows :

Gigabyte P35 DS3R Mobo
8gb G.Skill PC2-6400 ram
Quad core Q6600 3.0ghz overclocked with Artic cooler
Radeon HD 5570
650w PSU
 
Hi there, May I ask what the make and model your PSU is?

sdfuk on these forums had a similar question (graphics card upgrade for a Q6600 system) and I recommended him the R7 265 2GB graphics card. This card costs £110 and performs rather well in modern games at 1080p (here is a review).

If you want to spend a bit more, then the R9 270X can be had for a bit under £150. The GTX 660 is available for a similar price to the 270X, but it tends to perform a bit worse. Similarly, the GTX 750 TI (which is very quiete and uses little power) is the same price as the R7 265, but the R7 265 does perform better in games.
 
faseman7 said:
i have an Ace 650w
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Ah, a £20 650W PSU.

In that case I would suggest a GTX 750Ti (due to its low power usuage of 60W). Compared to 39W of your current HD 5570 and the 150W of the R7 265, the GTX 750Ti should be ok without making your PSU explode.

However, I would strongly suggest you opt for a new PSU ASAP as that one is really poor quality and not at all suited for a gaming PC. Something like the Corsair CX 430W or 500W should be the minimum PSU upgrade.


faseman7 said:
What about the Asus AMD Radeon HD 7850 2gb?
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The R7 265 is basically a HD 7850 (the 7850 is end-of-life) - both have 1024 GCN stream processors and 2GB GDDR5 RAM, though the R7 265 is clocked slightly higher. However, both these cards are 150W devices and I wouldn't suggest using them in your PC until you get a new PSU.
 
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Haha i see what you mean :( What about the Corsair RM Series RM 550 '80+ Gold' 550W Power Supply, if i need one i might as well buy more than minimum requirement?
 
That one is a really nice PSU and will give you the headroom for future PC upgrades (plus the 5 year warranty gives you some peace of mind).

Another one to look out for is the Seasonic G series 550W.
 
Sapphire AMD R9 270X OC 4GB 256 Bit GDDR5 Lite Retail Pci-E Graphics Card...what about this as its got a benchmark of 4506 and its about £40 more than the r7 265
 
faseman7 said:
Sapphire AMD R9 270X OC 4GB 256 Bit GDDR5 Lite Retail Pci-E Graphics Card...what about this as its got a benchmark of 4506 and its about £40 more than the r7 265
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Well its a tough one, that Sapphire R9 270X card costs £160-165 and the R7 265 costs £110. In ideal circumstances then the 270X will give you around 15-25% higher framerates compared to the R7 265. It also has double the video memory at 4GB. However it is debatable how much use this will be since the memory bandwidth and GPU power of the R9 270X are unlikely to be able to fully exploit this in games that utilize more than 2GB of video RAM.

Then there is the consideration that you are running the card with a 3GHz Q6600 - so you are likely to be CPU limited in many games (though at a playable level of around 40FPS). Therefore, any performance advantage of the 270X compared to the 265 evaporates in those situations.

For these reasons I would still recommend the £110 R7 265 and use any extra money to save up for a full CPU/mobo/RAM upgrade in the future. However, if you do want to spend the money, then the R9 270X you picked is a good one.
 
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Thank you very much for your time and you input, you have helped me a great deal. I think i will go for a CPU/mobo/RAM upgrade in the near future. No point in trying to upgrade with end of line parts. Once again thank you
 
faseman7 said:
Thank you very much for your time and you input, you have helped me a great deal. I think i will go for a CPU/mobo/RAM upgrade in the near future. No point in trying to upgrade with end of line parts. Once again thank you
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My pleasure, have fun with the new graphics card when you get it :)
 
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