GPU Buying Guide - (Read first post)

Much appreciated

I’ve actually got my heart set on the EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Liquid Cooled, but I probably won't have it in my hands until late next week. I guess I'm asking just in case they run out of stock... Also, if I were to order a full setup—like the whole tower and a monitor—directly from Micro Center, would they actually put everything together for me? Or am I looking at a bunch of separate boxes arriving at my door, leaving me to play IT technician myself?

And regarding paying them directly for that free shipping option, how does that work? Do they ship straight to my house, or is it more like a PO Box or something similar? Just trying to get a feel for how it works if anyone here has gone through the process before.

Thanks! 👍

dustytiger19 said:I'm also thinking about getting the Liquid Cooled version—assuming they actually have it in stock by late next week. One more thing: if I order a full tower and a monitor from Micro Center, do they actually assemble everything for me, or am I just getting a bunch of boxes to deal with myself?

Also, regarding direct payments for free shipping—does it go straight to my doorstep, or am I picking it up at the post office? Just looking for some real-world experience here.

Thanks. 👍

Yeah, they'll put it all together and drop it right at your door—they're fast, too. As for that Liquid Cooled card, it runs cooler than the standard model, though honestly, it's hard to say if that matters much for the GeForce GTX series—those tend to run pretty warm regardless.

So, which GPU should I grab, and what's actually the deal with the differences here?

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 1GB GDDR5, 256-bit, Dual DVI-I /
HDMI
Sapphire GeForce GTX 460, 1GB GDDR5 256-bit

Sapphire GeForce GTX 460 Liquid Cooled, 1GB GDDR5 256-bit, Dual DVI + HDMI

If you've already got the cash, go for the Liquid Cooled version because the cooling on that thing is way better. ☕

---I've got a bit of a weird question for you guys... I started digging through this thread and noticed some people at the beginning were suggesting that it might actually be better to stick with AGP graphics cards rather than PCI ... I'm honestly a little confused there—from what I understand, PCI should have a much faster transfer rate, or at least that's my gut feeling.... or was that just some old debate from back in 2008 when this whole thing first kicked off?

Michael Richardson12 said:---I've got a weird question... I started reading this thread and at the beginning, people were suggesting that it's better to grab an AGP card instead of PCI ... which doesn't make sense since PCI has a faster transfer rate, or at least I think so... unless this was back in 2008 when the debate first started

I highly doubt anyone suggested that because AGP is somehow superior to PCI Express (mind the E there, because standard PCI is a totally different beast!). It was probably just because people's motherboards only had an AGP slot, so they were told to go with AGP. 2008 isn't even that long ago, and by then it was already super obvious that AGP was ancient history...

Or were we talking about standard PCI graphics cards? In that case, I guess AGP would be the faster option.

...exactly... I was thinking about PCI Express, but then I saw it just said PCI and it totally threw me off—I wasn't sure what kind of setup we were even talking about here since AGP is pretty much a relic of the past at this point!!!

thanks

Hey, can anyone help me out here?
I'm trying to figure out which graphics card I should grab...
Right now I've got an Intel Processor - Athlon 64 3000+
and my current setup is just running an Nvidia GeForce 7025/NVIDIA nForce 630a
plus 2 GB of RAM
I mainly need something decent enough to actually play some games
I don't really know much about this stuff though, so any advice would be huge.

What motherboard are we looking at? I'm guessing it’s got a PCI Express slot, but hey, let me know what kind of budget you're planning to drop on a GPU. Just a heads up though—that Intel Processor is still gonna be a massive bottleneck for any modern games, no matter what card you pick...

Don't go any higher than this, or you're going to run into a massive bottleneck with the processor... ☕
Unless you're planning on picking up that Intel Core i7 they have over at Micro Center for $267 😛
I'm thinking that motherboard is pretty mediocre. It's just an old socket... 🤔

http://www.microcenter.com/product_info.php?c...oducts_id=7294

so I guess you could set aside maybe $300
for stuff like Football Manager and things along those lines
and honestly, I don't really know much about the processor side of things

Man, you clearly didn't read the thread... what motherboard are we talking about here?

It might support AM3 processors too, but it’d be awesome if someone could drop the model name...

I'm looking at picking up a new GPU and I need to know if this setup is actually an upgrade over the Radeon HD 5870. I'm talking about an EVGA GeForce GTX 460 with 1280 MB, 320-bit GDDR5, running on PCI Express 2.0 16x with a DVI-I port. Is this legit better?

Not quite.
But you might as well let us know the rest of your specs.

James Morris4 said:Nope.
Just tell us what else you're planning to run in the build.

Look, I'm putting a rig together right now, so I was originally thinking about pairing an AMD Athlon 64 X4 with a 5870, but then I stumbled onto this NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 thing and now honestly, I have no clue what I'm doing....

Not really. Honestly, when you look at the actual performance per dollar, it’s just way too expensive—plus, it actually underperforms compared to the 5870, while pulling noticeably more power and running much hotter.

Casey Long2 said:No. It’s just too expensive for what you get. It performs worse than the 5870, pulls significantly more power, and runs much hotter.

What he said ^^

The 5870 is a no-brainer in this category.

Christian Mitchell76 said:I'm putting a rig together and was thinking about pairing an AMD Athlon 64 X4 with a 5870, but then I stumbled onto this NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470... now I'm honestly not even sure anymore.

I honestly have no idea why everyone is obsessing over the Xeon, unless you're some kind of hardcore engineer working on NASA budgets or something. Just grab a Black Edition 965 and call it a day... or if you actually care about performance, maybe just snag a 1090 Ti from Micro Center. $800Look, you'll end up with everything you need, including those extra clock speeds for gaming. Just don't even think about touching NVIDIA—it’s honestly weaker. A 480 isn't even close, let alone a 470, when you compare it to anything from the 5800 or 5900 series.