Advice on video card upgrade please

[volanis]

I am having so many heat related issues with my radeon x1950 and I'm sick of it. what would be a logical upgrade for me based on my specs. I dont have a ton of money to spend either.....

3.60 gigahertz AMD Athlon II X2 250
Biostar TA785G3 HD motherboard
4G ddr3 ram

I think that's all the info required. If not i'll post more details. thanks in advance

 

[GreenDutchAlien]

How small is your budget, what res do you play and what is your psu ?

 

[volanis]

PSU is a basic 500w. Res? Well Usually 1024x768. Budget? As low as possible lol

 

[GreenDutchAlien]

Maybe a hd6670, from 60$ up. You could also try a gtx460 or hd6850 but they're more expensive. ( 130$ and up )

Also depends what you do with it, is it for gaming, otherwise a cheaper card will do ?

 

[volanis]

Well, gaming yeah. For example I'm planning on playing BF3 quite a bit

 

[GreenDutchAlien]

Well, the 460/Hd 6850 will be better for bf3. ( still, no maxed out settings, but with the cpu that's not possible anyway, there might be just this litlle bit of a bottleneck allready with the 460/6850 )

 

[welshmousepk]

at that resolution and with a dual core i wouldn't go any higher than a 5770/6770. both should allow you to play BF3 fairly well at such a low resolution, but the processor will bottleneck that game quite a bit. its very multicore focussed.

 

[volanis]

ok thanks guys. I'll see what they have on newegg

 

[gnomio]

Stick a 9800Gt or a 6670 in it .

 

[volanis]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BFG-Nvidia-GeForce-9800-GT-1-GB-PCIe-Dual-DVI-Graphics-Card-FREE-SHIP-/150680644203?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item2315442a6b#ht_500wt_1156

What about this one? What specifications, apart from memory, should I look at to define how good a video card is. Sorry, I'm a bit of an amateur in this area.

 

[welshmousepk]

You can't really look at specifications at all, you need to know what architecture is better. if in doubt, ask.

the 9800gt isn't bad. probably a good choice if that's the most you want to spend.

 

[volanis]

thanks welsh, but 'how' much better is the 9800gt than the x1950? or should i just spend a little more?

 

[welshmousepk]

its a fair jump up, i would spend a little more though just to get better performance. a 5770 or 6770 is a great mid range card.

If you don't want to spend that much though, a 6670 would also be great. but performance wise it's very similar to a 9800gt, just more efficient.

 

[gnomio]

9800Gt and the 6670 will do the job at 1280 x 1024, 1440 x 900 and even 1680 x 1050 although you’ll most likely have to lower details in some games.

The 6770 going for 109 if you mail in the rebate you can get it for 89.99.

 

[volanis]

Best answer selected by volanis.