2011-04-20 21:35:58 Graphics card upgrade time?

So since around 2008 my PC has been rocking a NVidia GeForce 512MB 9600 GT card and by and large it has done me well.

Only thing is I have noticed a heck of a lot of talk in the forums with games such as BF3 and the like of graphics cards which I have never heard of and I'm starting to wonder if mine will stand up to third and fourth quarter 2011 releases.

Just out of interest who of you would recommend an upgrade for titles such as the afformentioned BF3 or Skyrim?

List of PC games I'm looking to get are Skyrim and Rage and maybe BF3.

2011-04-20 21:43:35

9600GT? UPGRADE! Just a heads up: GTX600 series will probably ship by the end of the year. As is, the GT5xx and HD6xxx series GPU's are both eons beyond what you're using :D

2011-04-20 22:04:57

Ahh, will have to dip into my pockets then before the end of the year then =)

Cheers Grift.

2011-04-20 22:10:21

Try to be mindful of what CPU you're pairing with your new GPU too. If you're using an older processor, it won't make a ton of sense to reach for the highest of the high end..

2011-04-20 23:31:40

I was looking at the GTX 590, have to admit that Dabs.com built my PC so I'm unsure if my PSU and processor could handle it.

2011-05-02 01:46:25

I still have a GTX 275.. Will probably upgrade if BF3 is worth it.. No hurry though, BF3 won't be out until October this year.. Gives me time to see if a new line of topend graphics cards will be released, or to see the current topend have a nice drop in price..

2011-06-05 21:59:36

Quote from review:

"700 watt psu is recommended"

The 9600GT was a respectable gpu and a good all round single-slot-solution gpu. My old 9800GT gave up the ghost a few weeks back and I opted to replace it with an ATI Radeon HD 6970 which suits all of my current needs.

The GTX 590 is a great card, but the cost of it would give anybody nightmares lol! To be honest, how old is your current rig? I opted for the gpu I`ve gone for purely to get me by for the next year or so, in order to take full advantage of DDR3 RAM, USB 3 and SSD hard drives when I next build a new machine.

I run my games at 1920x1200 resolution, so something quite hefty was needed in order to fulfill the next 12-18 months of pc game-age, but compared to your older 9600GT, anything more up to date than that would give a noticeable difference in performance.

I`d probably go with something mid-range and save the cash for when you next build a new beast in a year or so`s time.

If however your current pc is fine, then it`s entirely up to you and you could get anything in there that you liked, as long as you take into consideration the size of the card, as well as the power connectors that you`ve got available.

If you psu hasn`t got any 8-pin psu connectors, then remember that nVidia usually give you 2x6-pin to 1x8-pin in the box, so any card that has one of each to power it up is no issue.

Bare in mind too, that not so long ago, the older cards were deemed as `the best thing since sliced bread`, so if you were stuck for power or connections, then any of those `older` models would do just as good.

My current rig only has 3 gig of DDR-2 RAM, an AMD duel core cpu and my Radeon HD 6970 inside it and to be honest, if that didn`t run Skyrim at full res etc with good settings, then I`d throw it through the window lol.

Save your cash, and buy an older card, as the performance will be great, and your wallett will love you long time! ;0)

2011-07-02 07:08:24 In reply to fr0sty (2011-06-05 21:59:36)

Thanks fr0sty for the info, really appreciate it. I won't go into specifics but my rig is now 4-5 years old and beginning to feel a little creaky so will definitely need an upgrade but maybe I will hold off on the £600 GPU for the moment and do as you said get one which will cope with DDR3 RAM, USB 3 and SSD hard drives.

2011-07-03 19:00:53

I'm not really worried right now myself. I've got a GTX 470 with an i7 Core and 16gigs DDR3 and I'm doing Crysis 2 on Ultra DX11 at (something)X900 (haven't tied higher, and to be honest, I think it looks incredible as it is) with a super smooth frame-rate (I don't track frame-rates so I don't know the specifics). After running that, I'm not too worried about running BF3 or something similar.

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Oooh, Profound, isn't it?

2011-07-07 01:06:30 In reply to Frozpot (2011-07-03 19:00:53)

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Oooh, Profound, isn't it?

2011-07-07 07:16:34 In reply to Frozpot (2011-07-07 01:06:30)

I quite like the 1440x900.

Less head movement (doesn't matter what size it is, I'm still only two feet from it), and plenty of performance room for the almighty AA or, if the game is demanding enough, low enough of a resolution to give negligible hits without it.

I'm interested in a beefed up 560, but should wait for the new class of card, for the price drop.


edit oh yeah, I tried out the equivalent 16:9 to 1440x900, and didn't like it as much for activities other than gaming.
It's nice for TV's but with a multi-use machine, I'd want something a lot larger in that ratio.

2011-07-07 15:48:18 In reply to PlumbDrumb (2011-07-07 07:16:34)

I tried to do it 1080, but the only option with it was 4x3, which doesn't fit my monitor size, lol. 1440x900 looks phenomenal though. I seriously have zero slowdown too. I just downloaded the demo for Metro 2033, and it was really sweet lookin' too.

I use my PC mainly for graphic design/editing stuff and 3d modeling/animation (hence the desire to even have 16gigs of RAM). I've also got a dual screen set up, so I'm used to the unconventional aspect ratios. It just took me a while to adapt using my Wacom with the set up...

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Oooh, Profound, isn't it?

2011-07-08 16:33:10

Those new ATI 7000 series cards sound fantastic!! It seems they have a built in processor in them?!

2011-07-25 11:03:31

So continuing from the Diablo III thread:

I would like to upgrade in the next couple of weeks.
I've got an 4870x2 at the moment. It has done great over the last 2-3 years, but I want to go for a DX11 card which I can get me through BF3/Crysis 2/ETC on highest settings.
I've got an budget limit of 450 Euro's (about 646 US Dollars).

Looks like nowadays most go for a dual card setup but as long as it get's me what I want I don't care if it's one beastly card or 2 separate cards...

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"First come smiles, then comes lies. Last is gunfire"

2011-07-25 11:06:01

Ohh looks like a nice deal:

XFX HD 6950 830M 1024 MB DDR5 Dual Mini-DisplayPort (HD-695X-ZNDC)

GPU Clock MHz:
800 MHz
Bus Type:
PCI-E 2.1
Performance:
Standard
Memory Interface Bus (bit):
256
Memory Type:
DDR5
Memory Size (MB):
2048 MB
Memory Clock (MHz):
5000 MHz
Minimum Power Requirement (Watt):
XFX 650W XXX edt PSU

159 Euro's a piece, so I could get 2 of those ;-)

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"First come smiles, then comes lies. Last is gunfire"

2011-07-25 11:09:03

Oh, right.. here we are ;)

What resolution do you play at? Get the 2GB cards. MSI's Twin Frozr kicks ass (GTX570 and 6950 versions) but it comes with a premium price. You could probably score a couple of reference boards a lot cheaper.

I was set on 2x6950's for a while.. ultimately I settled on a single GTX570 until I could gauge BF3's performance. It whups BC2.

2011-07-25 11:18:06

I play all of my games (if possible) at 1920×1200.

MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition/OC looks like a beast as well..
250 Euro's per card...

2 of those in a Crossfire setup? :P
I think I'll be done for the time being!

The only problem is, how much of overclocking would I need to do? I'm still kind of an overclock noob :P

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"First come smiles, then comes lies. Last is gunfire"

2011-07-25 11:37:00

I doubt you'd need to do much. That's a beastly solution any way you look at it.. and I'm not positive, but you may be able to unlock the extra shaders, and if you wanted, you could probably approach 6970 clock speeds too.

Those MSI coolers are great.

2011-08-16 02:33:01

What kinda setup are we looking at to run BF3 full settings DX11? That is what I'm after. I'm still rockin my 8800 GTS.

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Wandering Bear cures vaginas

2011-08-16 06:18:17

There's not really a definitive answer to that question yet.

2011-08-16 06:33:00 In reply to GriftGFX (2011-07-25 11:37:00)

It's getting to be that time again, isn't it?

I'll probably go with a GTX560Ti, preferably with MSI's Twin Frozr cooling, as Grift mentioned.
They really keep stuff cool.

I'm not about to bust out a fortune for a 570/80/90

2011-08-16 06:36:34

They do. I have their GTX 570 and the cooling is great. You can really overclock the crap out of it, above the default OC.

And yeah, it is, but the alpha performance (and the upcoming beta) won't likely show us retail performance. The gap in BC2 (and in only a few weeks) between the beta and retail was pretty jarring stuff.

I imagine they'll announce specs soon.. but the only picture perfect picture of performance is going to come @ retail. And what kind of performance are people expecting that want to crank this thing up to 11 anyway? If you want to lock this thing down to a post-60fps framerate then you're asking quite a lot. The only sure-thing is SLI, which didn't work in the Alpha (and actually hurt performance).. but I'm pretty sure they're going to fix that.

Also worth mentioning: I still think nvidia wants to get Kepler out this year.

2011-08-16 06:45:56

Yeah, it could be worth waiting, but then, some people say going from the 260 to a 460 or even 560 isn't worth the investment, which is just wierd.
So, if I do wait for a price drop, the 570 or 80 should be more realistic here and hopefully a better use of my upgrade opportunity.

2011-08-16 23:02:51

Ugh. I want to play all these new games coming out towards the end of the year on PC. Seems like waiting til next year to upgrade would make more sense though. DILLEMA

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Wandering Bear cures vaginas

2011-08-22 23:39:18

I'll just wait how BF3 runs on my current GTX 275 (in 1920x1080).. If not good enough I'll probably upgrade to a 570 or 580..

I also hope the rest of my system is still good enough.. Intel Q9550 and 4GB DDR3..