Looking for a cheap graphics card, in need of help

[Krazelol]

Hi, I'm looking for a graphics card that will be able to run WoW at medium-high settings with no lag in 25m raids. My computer is by no means top of the line, so I couldn't support a top tier card regardless. I'm looking for something around the $150 range and I've spotted this

Galaxy 65IGH8DL7AXX GeForce GTX 650 Ti GC 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

Can't post links =/

Was wondering if that would suffice?

Specs btw:
intel i7 quad core 2.80 ghz
9gb ram
500W psu

Unfortunately, I'm a bit computer illiterate, and in need of additional assistance. My mobo supports PCI Express but I'm not sure if it's 16 x 2.0 or not. I downloaded CPU-Z and it tells me the following

Version : PCI-Express
Link Width: x16
Max Supported: x16

Does this mean 16 x1.0 or 16 x 2.0? I'd really appreciate any input/assistance. Thanks!

[chazus]

The fact you have an i7 to me indicates you've got some form of PCI-E 2.0/3.0 board.

However it should be made clear that 25m on high settings with 'no lag' is probably just not possible for you. If you're upgrading to a 650ti, that means you've got some old or crappy card currently. Which is great that you're upgrading, but probably the bigger issue is that you're running on an i7-930 or 860. Either way, you might want to look into overclocking it some to account for that.

25m Raid performance is heavily weighted on CPU, not GPU.. but if you have something below a 650ti, that ought to be upgraded anyway. The CPU side of things, you're looking at a $300-$500 upgrade.

[Krazelol]

Alright, thanks for the response. I realize now that asking for high settings without lag was a bit ambitious with only a gpu upgrade. Really all I would like is to be able to have particle density and projected textures up enough to be able to see imperative mechanics on boss fights. For all I am concerned, the rest of the settings can be low. With that being said, can this be accomplished with just a new graphics card?

[Afrospinach]

You should look at the 650ti boost, it is 20$ more and a comparatively beasty card. I think you get considerably more for your money out of it.

[Deleted]

Definitely get a GTX650Ti BOOST. Most of them should be within the $150 price range, at which it's the best bang for the buck.

[chronia]

Don't let the age of your system fool you, those Nehalem i7's where well ahead of their time at their release point and can still be very competitive when paired with the x58 chipset. I'm still running a i7 920 (Stock 2.66Ghz) overclocked to 3.8Ghz and at that speed it is competitive with a i7 3770 on Stock Speeds. Which is one of the best CPÚ's money can buy at the moment. I run mine with a AMD HD7950 and it has no issues to play every game i throw at it at high or better settings at 1920x1200 (Do note i do not play Crysis), but i do run WoW at Ultra with no issues (10 man raiding, but also 25 man LFR is fine in terms of FPS). In terms of longlivety the i7 920 system has been the best system i ever assemmbled seeing its running from november 2008 till now without any hassle and any need to upgrade except for the fact that i replace my old GFX card with a AMD HD7950 and i added a SSD.

I think these boards are PCIE 2.0, they are definately not PCIE 3.0, then again PCIE 3.0 is not a real performance upgrade at this moment. A 650 Ti Boost would get you a nice performance boost, or if you have a little more to spare a HD7870 would also be a very nice card.

[Chickat]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202029

What about a 7790. it performs as well or even better then the 650 boost, and is cheaper.


Nvm it appears i was wrong about the 7790 being more powerful than the boost. I was looking at a comparison on a site, and since then ive seen multiple sites stating different, so go with the boost if you can.

[Deleted]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202029

What about a 7790. it performs as well or even better then the 650 boost, and is cheaper.

highly unlikely that'd be the case for wow.
also quite some performance to be gained from overclocking that cpu. (perhaps invest $20-25 for a evo 212 cpu , but maybe stock cooler can handle a minor overclock aswell)

[Chickat]

highly unlikely that'd be the case for wow.
also quite some performance to be gained from overclocking that cpu. (perhaps invest $20-25 for a evo 212 cpu , but maybe stock cooler can handle a minor overclock aswell)

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/artic...Review/1754/10

Is what i was using, but ive been to a lot more sites and read more reviews stating otherwise, so im not 100% sure what to believe.

[Killora]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202029

What about a 7790. it performs as well or even better then the 650 boost, and is cheaper.


Nvm it appears i was wrong about the 7790 being more powerful than the boost. I was looking at a comparison on a site, and since then ive seen multiple sites stating different, so go with the boost if you can.

Uhm, where does the 7790 outperform the 650 TI boost? i've done a TON of research on the differences as i've been looking into a new video card, and the 7790 just isn't up to par with the 650 TI boost.

650 TI boost review

7790 benchmarks are in there. Anandtech doesnt currently have the 7790 up on the comparison, so it was easier to reference to something i know already has both in their benchmarks ;P.

edit: Anandtech 650 TI boost review
Tomshardware 650 Ti boost review if i recall far cry 3 is AMD optimized.

[Deleted]

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/artic...Review/1754/10

Is what i was using, but ive been to a lot more sites and read more reviews stating otherwise, so im not 100% sure what to believe.

wow is impossible to bench, a flightpath benchmark is in no way comparable to raiding.
also since the wow engine favors nvidia it is more likely to have an overall better performance with less fps dips compared to a AMD card.

[Killora]

wow is impossible to bench, a flightpath benchmark is in no way comparable to raiding.
also since the wow engine favors nvidia it is more likely to have an overall better performance with less fps dips compared to a AMD card.

a flightpath works fine for GPU benchmarking. It illustrates the differences between cards, and is 100% repeatable, and that's what matters.

[Deleted]

a flightpath works fine for GPU benchmarking. It illustrates the differences between cards, and is 100% repeatable, and that's what matters.

yet it gives nothing on actual gameplay performance, hell i could get 100 fps on a FP but if that dips <50 during combat/raiding it's still useless comparison material.
if you want to illustrate direct gpu diffrences better to fire up a benchmark tool like 3dmark13.

[Killora]

yet it gives nothing on actual gameplay performance, hell i could get 100 fps on a FP but if that dips <50 during combat/raiding it's still useless comparison material.
if you want to illustrate direct gpu diffrences better to fire up a benchmark tool like 3dmark13.

flightpaths are standard gameplay. Raiding benchmarks are only really necessary for CPU benchmarks. Doing a benchmark in a raid to show GPU difference is... a bad idea. The main things that would effect GPU performance between two different cards exist in a flight path.

[zazazazazaza]

I got a ATI 6850 there about £80 in the uk never really had a problemb with it and if you need more power just get another

[chazus]

I got a ATI 6850 there about £80 in the uk never really had a problemb with it and if you need more power just get another

No. Simply no. There are better, faster, cheaper cards now. There's no reason to get a 6xxx anything anymore. It's 3 year old tech.

That's like saying "My 1998 car still runs okay so you should get one of those"

[Deleted]

flightpaths are standard gameplay. Raiding benchmarks are only really necessary for CPU benchmarks. Doing a benchmark in a raid to show GPU difference is... a bad idea. The main things that would effect GPU performance between two different cards exist in a flight path.

again a moot point if the card isn't being tested in the part where the performance matters aka in combat. (be it raiding/pvp/bg/alike)
there is a reason there isn't a proper wow benchmark due to there not being a way to duplicate a raid environment to directly compare performance. (because no raid is 100% the same due to timings of spells/events/latency and all the other usual clusterfuck going on)
only reason they picked a FP is because i can be reproduced and is "ingame" , this however does not make it usefull at all. ("ingame" because one does not play on a FP)

[chronia]

a flightpath works fine for GPU benchmarking. It illustrates the differences between cards, and is 100% repeatable, and that's what matters.

Sure it is for theoretical testing, but for WoW real world performance it is not really. When i'm into buying of upgradings components i want to know how they perform in a raid setting or in that action packed RBG setting. I'm not interested in how well my PC can handle flying from stormwind to Darkshire to get to my weekly karahzan mount run, since i prolly be alt tabbed during flying anyway. I've seen alot of ppl with limited hardware knowledge buy the wrong cards in my "wow career" due to them just looking at benchmarks and grab a cards that supposed to do 40-50 FPS at 1080P with ultra settings, just to see them whine that their FPS drops to sub 10 on action packed scenes like raid bosses, large AOE pulls or worldbosses.

Timed loop benchmarks work very well for games like shooters or racings games where you can create a loop trough a level or a circuit with all the GFX action you would also see while playing. In WoW this could also work, if they could create a repeatable timed loop in a Raid or a RBG it would give a much better reflection of the realworld performance of GPU's in WoW or other MMO's, but sadly this is not possible at the moment (atleast for WoW).

[chazus]

They need to make a benchmark cutscene/scenario, sort of like the Starcraft 2 preloader map, to be able to run a controlled, but busy environment.

[Krazelol]

Thanks for all the input, everyone. From what i've seen, it appears that the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 TI Boost would be the best fit for me. I can't seem to find it on newegg, where is the best place for ordering?