Upgrade Time!

randombattle

I've got an 768mb Nvidia 8800GTX in here now and I've always liked nvidia... But I built this pc back at the beginning of 08 and had to upgrade a few pieces on it from wear and tear but now it looks like my graphics card is starting to get a bit temperamental in it's old age and I think it's time to retire the old GTX. I haven't been keeping up with graphics cards at all since I bought it originally so I really have no idea what's good or not these days. Ideally I'd like to get another high end card though I really don't want to spend more then 100 or 150 bucks on a new one. Especially since I play a shit ton of PC games getting a crappy video card will not do me any good so I've come to the old Tech forum to get some ideas on what to replace my card with.

I'm thinking a 1gb GTX 460 might fit what I want pretty well though a 560 isn't too much more.. I just don't know!

Elimination

$100 - $150 will not get you a high end video card. The 460 is the best thing you will get, and thats still a little more than $150. The 560 is a lot better than the 460, and its a fantastic card, probably the best bang for you buck in the Nvidia category (But also $240+). I have one and overclocked it really easily and it performs amazing. Nothing I can't run on max.

One thing I have to ask though...what does the rest of your computer look like? A really old CPU will bottleneck those video cards pretty badly. I know when i bought my 560 Ti i originally had it with my old setup (AMd Phenom 9860 or something, 2.5 ghz quad.) and i had upgraded to it from a 9800GTX and saw very little performance difference. Realized the rest of my PC was bottlenecking it. Went ahead and just built a whole new system and plopped the 560 Ti in. It was like night and day, massive performance improvements.

randombattle

I've got a Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 which ok is not really a super awesome CPU but not that bad I think. Admittedly I am not a super hardcore tech person so I never looked much into it beyond when I bought it.

TychoCelchuuu

Having upgraded from a Core 2 Duo E6700/8800 GTX 768 MB to an i3-2120/8800 GTX 768 MB, I can say that the 8800 GTX is still a fantastic card, although if yours is crapping out you're stuck with upgrading your video card, I suppose. Your best bet is a Radeon 6850 or a GTX 460.

randombattle

Yeah pretty much all I need is something as good or better then the 8800 GTX before it eventually dies on me. I've got a 1920x1080 monitor now and the 8800 works fine though it's getting to the point where I need to run everything on medium/low to get good framerates.

I don't really have a hard cap on what I want to spend but on the same hand I know it's a waste of cash to get anything far better then what I have.

TychoCelchuuu

If it's any help, I was able to start jacking things up to medium high/high/ultra with my 8800 GTX at 1920 x 1080 once I upgraded to the i3.

Donovan Puppyfucker

GTS450 will give you slightly better performance than what you currently have (I mean slightly) for about $100.

Stormwatcher

I have a radeon 6870 paired with a Core2Duo E8400, and the machine kicks some serious ass, still. Not so much on CPU intensive games like GTA IV, but I can run most games on MAX. DX11 Tesselation makes Deus Ex HR look so pretty.

randombattle

Well I ended up going with this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121391

Should be a nice card for what I want and right in the range I was looking for with the rebate.