• Upgrading my graphics card.
    8 replies, posted
I'm trying to upgrade my graphics card on my computer, but I'm concerned about dropping several hundred dollars on a relatively high end card only for it to outpace the rest of my hardware and force my computer to run like a kid with progeria. Current specs: [t]http://puu.sh/etwJd/27e80284b4.png[/t] [t]http://puu.sh/etwLx/921abb7693.png[/t] Can any of you magical computer wizards help me out with upgrades? I'm looking at about a 300$ budget on a new card, but can go higher if I need to replace other parts to go with the card, or if I need to add a cooling system to keep the thing from burning my house to the ground. Thanks guys
[QUOTE=~Kiwi~v2;46920817]That Phenom 2 is getting a bit aged. But it's still good for what it is now. I'd possibly wait until the 960TI is out and spend a good $450 on a 960TI/970 TI + a motherboard and CPU upgrade.[/QUOTE] Not a 960Ti, perhaps, but a 960 would be fine with that budget
For $300 right now you can upgrade to a r9 290 card. That way, you'll be at the top of the line for radeon cards and won't have to upgrade for a while. I have the XFX r9 290 and it's been really good. What is your PSU spec right now? You may have to upgrade to a higher wattage. I also agree, you may want to upgrade you're cpu as well so you don't bottleneck your system. For gaming, multicore processing is less of an advantage over cpu core speed. Most games now recommend at least 3.7 - 4.0 GHz for cpu. Are you overclocking at all with the Phenom II? Are you using the stock cpu cooler? Also what is you Motherboard's make and model?
If you only want to do a video card upgrade, I think a GTX 670 would suite your computer well. I recently picked up a used one on eBay for $120. You would also want to make sure your PSU is powerful enough, that your case has good air flow. ThePanther; 3.3Ghz is the factory clock on his processor. I see some guides reporting a 4.0Ghz overclock on stock cooler. If I were him, I would get a nice CPU cooler (I have a SpinQ on my Phenom 2 x3 720 @3.4Ghz and love it), and overclock to about 3.8Ghz I was actually in the same situation as you about a month ago. My AM3 setup was getting too old, I ended up building an FM2 machine. It cost about $500 to build my entire FM2 machine, and it was worth it for sure. In your situation, you have a much better processor. You can overclock it and last a bit longer with a video card upgrade, which gives you more time to save up for an even better build.
a gtx 670? no, why would he buy a generation that old? pointless
You can find a GTX 970 for about, $300-$340 if you're willing. I'd search Amazon and eBay for something around $320. Certain models can take overclocking up to a GTX 980 at stock tier and it's a great card all around. Just my two cents but I'm far from an expert.
You've got a perfect CPU for overclocking - wack it up to 4GHz and you'll be set for a couple of years yet until AMD get their act together and catch up, then you can think about upgrading Main bad thing about the X6 phenoms is the terrible ram bandwidth - bit of stuttering in some recent titles as a result. When overclocking make sure you bump up the northbridge frequency generously and try bumping the ram frequency a bit (you might have gotten lucky with the IMC - some can hit 1600mhz or so)
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