Acquiring a new Video Cart: help welcome

[Yellena]

Hi there!
I am finally with the gold to change my broken HD. Along with it, I may change my defective Video Cart, that may be one of the things that helped screwing my HD up.
I was considering the cost/benefit of different carts, and the disponibility arround here (we lack a lot of options here).
One of the top choices I have access (again, best cost/benefit rate) is a GeForce GTX 650.
Anyone could give some insight on this?

Motherboard: WBIBX10j, PCIe 2.0.
Processor: Intel i5 750 @ 2,67gHz.



Thank you very much in advance!

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

This is the website I use when I'm researching new video cards- even if the technical specs don't mean anything specific to you (I suspect they do since you do technical work for the server, but for the reference of others), higher numbers mean better output, both on the technical performance end and on the dollar per output value table.

Something else good to do is to plug the EXACT name of the graphics card you're looking into into google, along with newegg.com. Usually on newegg there will be a specifications option, which you can compare to the requirements of future games you might be looking to play. On newegg it's also pretty common for people who buy to stress test their cards with certain games and tell you how well they work.

If all the extra footwork of research is tedious to you, the questions I would ask you for more feedback are:

1: What is your budget to spend on the video card (specifically just the card, not the rest of the computer, unless you're looking to sacrifice something somewhere else in exchange for more graphical oomph). When putting a new tower together, I always consider the graphics card a separate purchase, because a good one that will last you through gaming upgrades for a few years can sometimes cost as much as the rest of your machine combined.

2: What are the most advanced things you're looking to run, graphically? If you never play anything more advanced than NWN, for example, you could probably get away with an even cheaper card- assuming you don't use your computer for the purposes of high def movie watching.

[Cihparg]

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

This is the website I use when I'm researching new video cards- even if the technical specs don't mean anything specific to you (I suspect they do since you do technical work for the server, but for the reference of others), higher numbers mean better output, both on the technical performance end and on the dollar per output value table.

Something else good to do is to plug the EXACT name of the graphics card you're looking into into google, along with newegg.com. Usually on newegg there will be a specifications option, which you can compare to the requirements of future games you might be looking to play. On newegg it's also pretty common for people who buy to stress test their cards with certain games and tell you how well they work.

If all the extra footwork of research is tedious to you, the questions I would ask you for more feedback are:

1: What is your budget to spend on the video card (specifically just the card, not the rest of the computer, unless you're looking to sacrifice something somewhere else in exchange for more graphical oomph). When putting a new tower together, I always consider the graphics card a separate purchase, because a good one that will last you through gaming upgrades for a few years can sometimes cost as much as the rest of your machine combined.

2: What are the most advanced things you're looking to run, graphically? If you never play anything more advanced than NWN, for example, you could probably get away with an even cheaper card- assuming you don't use your computer for the purposes of high def movie watching.

A slight problem with your suggestions. They assume the person lives in US.
Which, could be the case, but preferably look towards Amazon rather than nation restricted websites, such as Newegg.

As for the GPU, I'd go for GTX 750 instead of 650 -- but it depends on where you live, ofcourse.
And I should ask this as well: What PSU do you have?

[Yellena]

*googles "PSU"...*

I got a slight better PSU to handle my old videocart (GeForce GT 450). It's not the base one.


As for the videocart, there is an EVGA GeForce GTX750Ti/ 2GB DDR5/ 128-bit/ PCIe 3.0 (02G-P4-3751-KR) in the store...
GTX 650 is arround US$ 215 and the GTX 750 arround US$ 265... if I gained in dollars I would surely go with the last, but the difference in my coin is arround 2~3 days of work. Everything is expensive here, too many importation taxes.

From my researches, GTX 650 often comes overcloaked from factory, what means it's not "powerful", just "buffed". That means I am paying for the buffs not the warrior.

That said, I think you are right. 750 may be more worth it. I may consider buying from internet too... I just fear buying falsified chips and such.

For now, I will install the new Seagate HD while I decide on the videocart. It may be more worth farming some more gold over the next month to get a 750 while also trying to find a cheaper one avaiable on internet.


@Aelryn Bloodmoon

I don't do tech support. =P
I just some calculations and a monkey job of editing 600+ blueprints manually.
I do plan on acquiring a cart able to handle newer games. I have LoL, Skyrim and maybe, maybe.... I may try ESO in the future to test.

[Cihparg]

I'd say you don't really need a 750 Ti -- plain 750 is by all means enough.
Sure, you won't be able to run something like Witcher 3 at ultra 1080p, but I don't think that was your goal here.
Cheapest 750 I could find is this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-NVIDIA ... 00IGQ4URO/

Ofcourse, always look to the closest Amazon to you to get the best price.
It'd be ridiculous for me to buy from US Amazon, for example; I'd end up paying about 50-100€ in customs.

I also have a spare 650 lying around, but depending on where you live, the posting could cost a plenty. And I'd rather not rid myself of it completely free, but rather for a fee.

[Yellena]

I also have a spare 650 lying around, but depending on where you live, the posting could cost a plenty. And I'd rather not rid myself of it completely free, but rather for a fee.

Thank you, but I live in Brazil... the country of taxes so it will cost a lot for sure.
And the fee would be completely understandable.

[Twily]

I highly recommend the GTX 750(normal or ti, I have the ti, both are good though). I use one in my new PC that I built in January, and I find I can do some pretty heavy gaming on it, and speeds do not disappoint me. It cost me 110 for it, and had a 20$ rebate I could fill out(but forgot to :\)

I can play Skyrim with graphics enhancers(and 50 other mods) on the highest settings with at least 50+ frame rate . Minecraft with the SEUS Shaders at 80+ FPS. It can run just about any modern un-modded game on max settings(as far as I've seen, it also runs many graphic enhancing mods pretty well).

If you're more the artsy person, I've run some pretty ridiculous things in Inkscape and GIMP(such as 10,000x8000 resolution at 300 DPI) as well as Adobe Flash CS6 and Synfig(animation programs). The average digital artist will know it takes at least a half decent computer to do big things.

PS: I also have a processor much like yours.

PS #2: Newegg is good most of the time, but my dad once ordered something new and received a product that was definitely used. While this can be a problem everywhere, make sure to check out return policies before ordering in case this happens to you.

PS #3: While likely a problem with most(if not all) new video cards, The GTX750 does cause some issues on many older games. As with all NVidia cards it has a control panel with enough settings to sort out every issue I've come across so far. It's just something to keep in mind. (I've successfully run Decent3, NWN, all Baulder's Gates, IcewindDale, Total Annihilation and Diablo 1 and 2.)