Time for a new graphics card?

[Nooburn]

Hey guys

Bought this PC off the shelf three years ago, struggling to run things like Far Cry 3 at normal settings, friend suggested a graphics card upgrade. Did some Googling and didn't find good things about mine, NVIDIA GeForce GT 220.

Budget, maybe anything up to $250? Not sure what's reasonable. More is probably OK. Resolution 1920x1080, not sure if that is normal, my PC monitor broke a while back so I've been using an old TV. It's a bit weird but it works.

I really just use this PC to game, but have a bit of money at the moment. 4gb ram, though I have another 4gb through a USB with ReadyBoost.

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 750 @ 2.67GHz (4CPUs), ~2.7GHz.

Sorry if I've fucked this up or missed something - new at this. Thanks in advance!

[n0cturnal]

4gb ram, though I have another 4gb through a USB with ReadyBoost.

What? I'm not sure what this is but it can't be good. USB drives are incredibly slow.

What kind of power supply do you have in your computer?

[jholdaway]

You could get a nice GTX 660 for that price. What size of PSU do you have?

[Clampz]

Readyboost is this stupid thing where windows will use your flash drive as a glorified swap disk lol. It can increase speeds slightly if you're using a slow HDD and have little RAM, but not sure it's going to give any sort of noticeable performance increase in modern systems.

[prankstar]

as n0cturnal said usb drives are very slow. as for the graphics card i would go for either a radeon hd 7870 or an invidia GTX 660TI but do check your power supply as many prebuilt computers come with very low end power supply they will say they have 450w or 500w but you be lucky if they can produce a half of that last thing look into adding another 4gb of ram.seasonic power supply are great http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817151094

[Nooburn]

350W. That sounds bad.

Readyboost is this stupid thing where windows will use your flash drive as a glorified swap disk lol. It can increase speeds slightly if you're using a slow HDD and have little RAM, but not sure it's going to give any sort of noticeable performance increase in modern systems.

Lol.

[n0cturnal]

350W. That sounds bad.

Can you provide us with a brand and model or perhaps what kind of Ampere it can deliver on the 12V rail?

[Nooburn]

HP Pavilion Elite HPE-170a. Not sure how to find out about the ampere, Googling now.

---------- Post added 2013-02-06 at 03:39 AM ----------

Hang on, the brand/model of the PC or the PSU? Sorry.

[prankstar]

would upgrade the psu first then it would not be able to run the likes of a hd7870 or 660ti if in doubt there are sites that allow you to enter your system setup and it will tell you what kind of wattage you need like http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine

[n0cturnal]

HP Pavilion Elite HPE-170a. Not sure how to find out about the ampere, Googling now.

---------- Post added 2013-02-06 at 03:39 AM ----------

Hang on, the brand/model of the PC or the PSU? Sorry.

Just knowing that it is a 350W HP PSU is enough. I wouldn't put a more powerful GPU than a HD 7770 in unless you are up for changing the PSU.

If you are up for using MIR then this is what you could get:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card ($199.99 @ Microcenter)
Power Supply: Antec Neo Eco 520W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $239.98
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-05 22:52 EST-0500)

[Nooburn]

That's so helpful, thanks so much!