Best budget graphics card for 1080p gaming

[mrnawaz2050]

I am looking forward to upgrade my PC . My pc specs are:
1. cpu: amd phenom 2 x2 550 with Cooler Master Hyper TX3 EVO Cooler
2. 4 GB dual channel ddr2 ram , no unused slot left
3. Gigabyte M68M-S2P (Socket M2) motherboard
4.umax 600 W psu
5.ViewSonic VA2249s 22 inch LED Backlit LCD full HD Monitor
As of now i don't have a dedicated graphics card. My pc runs on the integreated nvidia geforce 7025/ nforce 630a which i think is the weakest part. I cannot afford to upgrage my pc in one go ,so i have decided to upgrade one or two compnents at a time starting with gpu. So i am thinking of buying nvidia gtx 960 asus model. Do u think the gpu will be compatible with my old pc ? will i be able to play AAA titles ? DO u think nvidia gtx 960 is the best budget gpu for 1080p gaming??
i will at a later time after buying gpu updrage the cpu +mobo+ ram ..any suggestions for that?

 

[davidarad02]

while the 960 is compatible with the system, it will be heavily bottlenecked by the slow CPU and RAM. while I know this is not the news you want to hear, if you want more performance, I would recommend getting an i3 with a h97 motherboard and new ram (with the new GPU), to truly get better performance. if you only have money for one upgrade (cpu+mobo+ram or GPU), I would get the GPU first, so you could do SOME gaming (but not much, I would say you could play games at 1080p low settings or 720p normal settings on somewhat new games, because of the heavy bottleneck), and then upgrade the rest of the system, and then you will see the real performance boost. also remember that your PSU is not a high quality one, and you should also replace it sometime soon.

 

[lipulipu]

For your rig I wouldn't think you can do 1080p gaming even after getting GTX 960.
Your system is so uncapable of running a highend card like 960.If you have to do 1080p gaming you have to upgrade your whole system,which is upto you.

If you want to stick to this rig then I would suggest a 750ti card.You can only enjoy 1366*768 res or 1600*900 res gaming after getting 750ti card.

 

[scharpshooter]

Give us a budget that we can put together a better upgrade path. You might actually be better off starting with a new mobo/ram and a CPU with integrated graphics.

I have seen a number of guides around the interwebs with builds in the $400 range that can run 1080p at decent settings.

This is an example:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2015/02/07/build-a-compact-1080p-gaming-pc-for-400-benchmarks-included/
Using your PSU (which should be upgraded at some point), case, hard drives, and optical drives, you should be close to $300 if you play your cards right.