Need help with Choosing a new card.

[Ba!nesy]

hey people, i osted this exact text into the sticky thread "Looking for a NEW card? Need help?" thread, but after a few weeks and no replies i thought i might try my luck here.



Hey Guys, im looking into buying a whole new computer, and I have most things decided on, except the Graphics card. (man is this decision doing my head in)
I've spent a while looking at different cards and their specs, some are good one one area, bad in another, while other cards are opposite ARGH!.

Anyway firstly, i'd like to know what is more important:
Core Speed
Memory Speed
Bandwidth.

What is better DDR5, or GDDR3?

Now onto my Future Computer.
1) What are your system specifications? Give us full specs:

CPU = Core i5 750 or Core i7 860 (4 core, 4 threads? or 4 cores 8 threads? worth $100?)
Motherboard = not too sure, buying whole computer as a built unit.
PCI-E / AGP = same as above, although i believe most cards nowadays are PCI-E?
RAM = 4GB DDR3 (preferably 1333)
PSU = Not too sure
Current Video Card = what i'm trying to figure out.

2) What is your budget?
Based on some prices i've seen probably $250 Max.

3) For how long are you planning to have this new card?
Till this comp carks it. i'm not a big fan on upgrading an old system.

4) What will the new Video Card be used for?
Gaming mostly, some photoshop, minimal/basic video editing.
I do not want to play games stretched across 3 screens, with max resolution, max settings, max AA and all that jazz... 1 screen is enough for games. however, a dual screen with 1920 x 1080 resolution will be useful at times, not running a game on both, or a game on one and blu-ray movie the other. 1st screen for 'hard stuff' 2nd screen for 'easy stuff' (if that makes sense.)
I'm planning on hooking up my Full HD tv to the comp as the main screen, and if i want to watch tv at the same time, be able to switch to my lcd monitor.

5) If Gaming, please tells us the games you're planning to play.
Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 , Halflife franchise, possibly far cry, crysis, and future games.

Really, i'd like one that can comfortably play games at 1920 x 1080 resolution at high settings, not worried about AA, and one that can support 2 monitors at Full HD (Now that i think about it, both screens don't need to be full HD, but then i did say that both wont be doing anything tough at the same time. And would AA actually be of much use at Full HD Resolutions?).

I'm considering the following cards, but feel free to post you're suggestions.
ATI 5770
Nvidia GTS 250

And if it helps, i'm not planning on overclocking it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Ian



ive read some reviews about the 5770 and gts 250, and for crysis and Far cry the Frame rate is terrible at 1920 x 1200... is this the case or should these cards be much better than that?

[wickedout]

Hello there. First of all I'm a very proud owner of the i5 750 and the XFX 5850 GPU.

So far my rig is rock solid. I do little video encoding and video editing. So far my i5 750 has handled it very well. The only advantage you'll get from the i7 860 it has Hyper-threading which allows you to hammer out any project faster.

To me the i5 750 is the i7 920 without HT. Just my .02 cents.

Now for video cards. I've owned the EVGA GTS 250. I loved it. Just wanted a better card so I went with the XFX 5850. Very happy with it. The ATI 5770 might be a good call. This is the one I'd get on your budget XFX 5830 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150481)

Have fun putting your future rig together.

[mrjericho1991]

I am new to this community but not to gpus but problem is that i am confused to choose between 2 graphics cards,i am at a tight budget so cannot get amazing,stunning,awesome cards.i am very limited,but even i just play games at 800 x 600 or ocassionally at 1024 x 768.and i am not a serious gamer so help me to choose between these cards and but i cannot get any other card than these i hope you people will help me.
Nvidia geforce 9400gt 1gb
or
Ati Radeon hd 5450 1gb
In my opinion i think that hd 5450 is slightly better than 9400gt,and is built with industry's cutting 40nm technology and supports directx11 and shader model 5.0.
I have following pc:
Intel Pentium e2140
1gb ram(will be adding 1 more 1gb ram soon)
Mainboard Biostar 945gz micro775se

[Ba!nesy]

Well i have currently a 7300 LE, its quite an old card, heres some specs to put things into perspective.

I can run Half Life 2 (if you play that) comfortably at 1024 * 768 at high settings on everything, (if I remember correctly) only no AA, no HDR and runs pretty good.

it has 512 MB Memory, Core clock speed is 450mhz, Memory clock speed is 667 bandwidth is 5.33 (Gigabits per second i think) not sure, even $100 cards nowadays kick ass all over it. Hope that helps you

[CompuTamer]

Well i have currently a 7300 LE, its quite an old card, heres some specs to put things into perspective.

I can run Half Life 2 (if you play that) comfortably at 1024 * 768 at high settings on everything, (if I remember correctly) only no AA, no HDR and runs pretty good.

it has 512 MB Memory, Core clock speed is 450mhz, Memory clock speed is 667 bandwidth is 5.33 (Gigabits per second i think) not sure, even $100 cards nowadays kick ass all over it. Hope that helps you


My 4850 is an oldish card, and wasn't top of the line when it was released, and it still runs most games maxed out no problem. Crysis, yep. Mass Effect 2, yep. NFSPS, yep. Grid, mhmm.

So i'd think that anything in the 5 series would last a bit. Since you want the computer to last a while, i'd say look into the 58XX series. (Don't know specific performance of each card though)