GPU Buying Guide - (Read first post)

🤷I'm looking to swap out my old ATI Radeon X1600 for something newer, but I'm a bit stuck—can I just grab whatever card catches my eye, or am I going to run into some kind of compatibility wall where I'm forced to stick to specific models??1>>

Maybe try asking in this thread instead:

jadelynx8 said:🤷I want to swap out my old ATI Radeon X1600 graphics card for a new one, but I'm not sure if I can just pick any card I want or if there are certain ones I have to stick to.

Could you please list your other components? It would be best if you opened up the case to check the specific brand and wattage of your power supply, along with your processor, motherboard, and how much RAM you're running. Also, let us know what kind of budget you've set aside for this upgrade!

Specs: running an Intel Core 2 Duo on an AMD690GM-M2 board, with just 1 GB of DDR2 RAM—and as for the power supply? Hold on, let me go tear this rig apart and check... 😁

power supply - EVGA 400 W

So why the sudden urge for a new GPU? You actually planning on gaming, or just looking to swap out the old one?

What’s the verdict on this build?---Motherboard-ASRock 960GC-GS FX, Processor-AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition, RAM-DDR3-1600-PC - 4 GB HyperX, GPU-XFX Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 896Mb DDR3 576M, HDD-HDD 1 TB WDC WD10EARS-22Y5B5

Is that something you can pick up right now? And what kind of price are we talking about? Honestly, if you can snag this rig for a decent deal, it’s a pretty solid machine. 😛

Look, I’m swapping out this old piece of junk because it’s driving me absolutely insane—and if you want the full, painful breakdown of why I'm losing my mind, just check this out:

Larry Ortiz5 said:Is that actually available for grabs? And what's the damage to the wallet? Honestly, if you can snag that rig for a decent price, it's a solid deal. 😛

It might be pricey, $833
though.

Larry Ortiz5 said:Is that something you can just pick up? What kind of price are we talking about here? Honestly, if you can snag that rig for a steal, it’s a solid machine. 😛

My philosophy? I tend to play the long game—whenever I actually have some cash on hand, I just grab components one by one... slowly building it all up piece by piece.

jadelynx8 said:I figure if I have the cash, I'll just pick up components one by one over time... and so on.

If I were in your shoes, I would aim for this setup:

1xAMD CPU Desktop AMD Athlon II X4 750K (3.4GHz,4MB,100W,FM2) box, Black Edition
1xASRock FM2A88M Extreme 4+ motherboard, FM2
1xSapphire AMD Radeon R7 260X 1G GDDR5 PCI-E HDMI / DVI-I / DP OC VERSION, 1050MHz / 1500MHz, 128-bit,2 slot active, LITE, 11222-05-20G
1xSpire Kepler Rev.2 cooler 1156/775/FM1
1xFortron Hexa Plus 400W power supply, 80+,active, 12 cm
1xMemory Device HyperX ValueRAM DDR3 SDRAM Non-ECC (4GB,1600MHz(PC3-12800),Single Rank,Unbuffered) KVR16N11S8/4
1xSEAGATE HDD Desktop Barracuda 7200 ST1000DM003 (3.5",1TB,64MB,SATA III-600)
1xZalman micro tower case black, ZAL-ZM-T1 PLUS

Total:$1021 Free assembly via CNN!

Hello everyone!

I picked up a new PC a few months back, but lately, I've been dealing with occasional graphical artifacts while gaming or even just browsing the web. It’s starting to feel like the GPU is the primary culprit here. If my warranty covers a replacement but they don't happen to have this exact card in stock, I was wondering if anyone could suggest the most powerful graphics card I might be able to upgrade to by paying the difference for my current setup...

ASRock B85 Pro4, LGA 1150
Intel Core i5 4440, 3.1 GHz
8GB DDR3 (2x4GB), HyperX 1600MHz
MSI R9 270X 2GB GAMING
XFX 450W
Zalman Z3+
Dell P2414H

Thanks!!

The power supply will handle an R9 280X or a GTX 770 just fine, but if you're looking at those high-end cards, this PSU is going to struggle.

Don't sweat it, you'll probably just grab 😬
instead.

So, my old GPU finally kicked the bucket, and honestly, everything decent out there right now feels like it costs an absolute arm and a leg, so I'm stuck weighing my options between these two http://www.hwcompare.com/5902/geforc...adeon-hd-6850/ . Which one should I actually pull the trigger on? I mostly just spend my time grinding in World of Tanks and playing CoD4, and while I know Nvidia usually holds the edge in raw performance, this Radeon card supposedly supports DirectX 11 and shader 5.0, but I have no clue if that even matters anymore. Like, how many new games are actually making DirectX 11 a requirement these days?

I wouldn't say Nvidia is *that* much stronger; those numbers are mostly theoretical. I’d steer clear of sites like that.

Sure, it’s about 50% faster, but it draws 3 or 4 times more power, runs incredibly hot, and you won't be able to play upcoming titles on DX10 anyway.

Why choose between just those two? What kind of budget are we actually working with here?

What are you running for a CPU and a power supply?

EVGA 750W, QuadCore Intel Core i3 running at 2800 MHz, 8 GB of G.Skill DDR3 at 1600 MHz, plus some kind of $167 card, roughly.

http://www.newegg.com/graphics-cards/p/12345678

Unless your motherboard is total junk, I’d suggest grabbing an LC-CC-95 cooler pretty soon if you want to try some overclocking. It might actually help those Athlon chips quite a bit... you could probably hit 3.3GHz without even touching the voltage, I guess.

Hey. Can someone give me a quick rundown on what’s actually better here? Like, should I try running two cards at once—and do they even need to be identical—or am I just better off sticking to one? I'm looking at a Zotac GeForce GT 630 2GB DDR3 versus a Zotac GTX 560 Ti 1GB 256-bit GDDR5.