GPU Buying Guide - (Read first post)

Larry Ortiz5 said:Just tell me how much cash you're willing to drop and we'll figure it out.

heh...
Honestly? The less the better... I mean, I'm really just looking for a new card, provided there's actually a noticeable jump in performance.

From what I've been digging up, I don't see any point in looking below $167 since anything else in that price range is either worse, the same, or maybe just a tiny bit better than my current card (which I grabbed back in 2009 for like a hundred bucks).

My main goal is to grab something that'll last me a few more years without getting totally bottlenecked by my CPU—while still feeling like an actual upgrade—all without breaking the bank, you know? So, basically, cheap is best.

Like I mentioned, I'm eyeing the 7750 or the 7770... that's pretty much my limit. Plus, based on the benchmarks I saw, those seem to be the only ones that show a decent boost over my old card while staying somewhat affordable. At least, that's how I read it anyway!

I really don't want to just throw money away, so if there's some older gen card out there (either ATI or Nvidia) that hits that sweet spot I'm looking for, I'd super appreciate some recommendations.

Grab the 7770 if you've got the cash; an overclocked Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 should be enough to get the most out of it, and you might as well keep it for later when you finally decide to upgrade.

fadedorca66 said:Grab the 7770 if you've got the cash—if you've got an overclocked Intel Core 2 Duo E8400, it should actually keep up, plus it'll still be useful whenever you eventually decide to upgrade later.

That’s what I was thinking too... honestly, the 7770 seems like a pretty solid sweet spot for price versus performance, I guess.

Hey everyone.
I’m looking to pick up an Nvidia card with 1 GB of VRAM, though I haven't settled on a specific model yet.
Right now, I'm running a Radeon X1650 Series with 512 MB. I want to know if upgrading will actually let me play newer titles like Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, or Grand Theft Auto IV.
Here is the rest of my build:
AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual-Core 4400+ 2.31 GHz
1.50 GB RAM
320 GB HDD
Motherboard: BIOSTAR Group N61PB-M2S
(P.S. Will this card even fit on this motherboard?)
Thanks in advance.

Man, what am I even supposed to say if you don't even know which model you have? Knowing how much VRAM a card has doesn't tell us anything useful.

If the GPU is decent, you might be able to play a bit, though you'll probably have to stick to low settings since that CPU is going to bottleneck you.

So, from what I can gather, this guy is looking for some kind of 1 GB recommendation.
Offtopic: Man, this thread totally reminds me of this ancient post I saw back on PC Play where some dude was seriously asking if he’d actually need a brand new Voodoo2 with 8 MB just to run Quake II :P

Alex Barnes93 said:The guy is basically looking for a recommendation on something with 1 GB of VRAM, if I'm following him right.

What part of this isn't clicking?
I mean, what's even the point of hunting down some old "DDR2" card with 1 GB of memory when a decent 512 MB GDDR card is just going to eat its lunch anyway...
So fadedorca66 is spot on—that "1 GB" label doesn't actually mean anything in this context, plus the OP didn't even bother to list a price...