Looking for tips on video cards

[smagus02]

Hello all I'm looking to upgrade my video card pretty soon. I'm not really computer savvy so here's the specs of my computer copied straight off the manufacturer's site:


Processor
AMD Athlon™ II X2

Processor Speed
2.8GHz

RAM
4GB

Graphics (current)
ATI Radeon 3000

I have 2 PCI slots and 1 PCI-E x16 available. I'm not looking to spend more than about $100 if possible. If I have to dish out a little more then I guess I'll have to. Right now I use my computer for video games/movies/casual surfing.

[sef24]

on newegg, xfx 5770 is a decent card @ $124 being 99.99 after rebate.
Probably the best with a $100 limit

[sef24]

Or if you prefer Nvidia, a 460 would be a good choice, as the prices for them seem to be dropping all the time (and trust me when i say they're wolf in sheeps clothing).

agree, though atm i always stick with amd hehe

[Deleted]

the 5770 has alot of bugs, go on youtube and you can see the loads of videos of people struggling to run wow with it without crashing - typically wow has been kinder to nvidia cards, gts450 is cheap as chips and will give you a banging experience, but i beleive there are a fer models above it that have fallen in price aswel

[sef24]

the 5770 has alot of bugs, go on youtube and you can see the loads of videos of people struggling to run wow with it without crashing - typically wow has been kinder to nvidia cards, gts450 is cheap as chips and will give you a banging experience, but i beleive there are a fer models above it that have fallen in price aswel

I used to own a 5770, never had problems

[theddevilinme]

Im fortunate enough to be tech-savvy. I do say that the Radeon HD 5770 is a great card. So great in fact that I'm running 2 of them in crossfire.

Id say go with the order of importance : Manufacturer, RAM, Bus-type, and finally Price.

XFX > HiS > Sapphire > Diamond > ASUS , 1GB DDR5 min, 128-bit min, price is obviously your choice.

The order of Manufacturer is more or less preference but XFX has a 2-buyer warranty involved. Meaning, if you sell your computer or GPU to someone else, they are also covered for it's lifetime. I own 2x HiS 5770s and they are quiet, cool, and over-clock greatly =) Good luck to your needs !

and NEWEGG is your best buy. period.

[Xuvial]

the 5770 has alot of bugs, go on youtube and you can see the loads of videos of people struggling to run wow with it without crashing - typically wow has been kinder to nvidia cards, gts450 is cheap as chips and will give you a banging experience, but i beleive there are a fer models above it that have fallen in price aswel

nVidia bias much?
I've been running WoW on my 5770 since early 2010 on max settings (bar shadows because my CPU can't handle it) at 1920x1080 with ZERO issues and excellent performance, a lot of people run 5770's and have had little or no trouble. Also, 5770 is ahead of GTS450 by ~15% on average in performance and cheaper as well.

@ OP, first of all what resolution is your monitor? And what sort of games do you play (other than WoW)?

[smagus02]

1440 X 900

CoD, Starcraft, Warcraft, usually other RTS games.

[Xuvial]

Yeah 5770 will ace those games.

[smagus02]

Ok. My next concern. Since, again I'm not tech savvy person, but would I have to upgrade my power supply (sorry if that's the wrong term)?

[Jurwi]

Ok. My next concern. Since, again I'm not tech savvy person, but would I have to upgrade my power supply (sorry if that's the wrong term)?

That really depends what power supply you have currently. You propably won't experience that big of a performance upgrade from the new gfx card in most games though, since you're CPU is god awful.

[Reith]

That really depends what power supply you have currently. You propably won't experience that big of a performance upgrade from the new gfx card in most games though, since you're CPU is god awful.

His CPU is fine for a 5770.

[nwo]

A 5770 is not a huge power hog, it only uses ~100W at full load, but you should still check what PSU you have right now in order to make sure it will safely work once installed. Open up your case, hunt down your PSU, and read the information from the sticker located on one of the sides of the PSU. Look for total output or maximum output as well as how many amps it has on the 12v rail(s).

[Deleted]

400W power supply should do for Athlon II X2 and an HD5770 and I'm fairly sure the requirement for the 12V rail was 30amps.

[Jurwi]

His CPU is fine for a 5770.

Depends on the game. It is fine for gpu intensive games, but for CPU intensive, not so much.

[haxartus]

Depends on the game. It is fine for gpu intensive games, but for CPU intensive, not so much.

The CPU is fine if you overclock it. On default not so much.

[nwo]

400W power supply should do for Athlon II X2 and an HD5770 and I'm fairly sure the requirement for the 12V rail was 30amps.

Well, sure, a quality 400W PSU would be more than sufficient for that build. However, there are a lot of PSUs that cannot provide more than 50-70% of their total output.

[Thefishtank]

1440 X 900

CoD, Starcraft, Warcraft, usually other RTS games.

id save for a 6950 2gig, i play at the same resolution. just got metro2033 and im playing at max settings 4xmsaa 16xaa

[Deleted]

id save for a 6950 2gig, i play at the same resolution. just got metro2033 and im playing at max settings 4xmsaa 16xaa

Metro 2033 is a heavy duty DX11 game when maxed out, he says he plays WoW and a couple of RTS's, there's no need for a 6950..
As others have said, the 5770 is an exellent card. I run one at this very moment, WoW maxed at 1920x1200. Mine's OC'd a little though.