Just got my old gaming rig running again, and looking to upgrade the current 7900gs to something a bit more capable. In catching up with the graphics card world, it appears that DX11 is now on the scene, and I'm not sure if I should be looking for a newer DX11 card, or be setting my sights a generation or two older, in search of more raw power. At the same time, I'm not a power user, and would like to keep my system as balanced and bottle-neck free as possible.
Rig is a Phenom x3 @ 2.1 ghz on a AM2+ mobo, 4gb DDR2 in Win7. 500 Watt psu. Current graphics is a 256-bit 7900gs with 256mb of gddr3.
I've been looking at the HD 5770, but I'm concerned about the slow memory bus. Additionally, I'm not really that concerned with DX11 anyways, as I probably won't be investing tons of money into this computer (I aim for $3-400 every couple years, always leaving me 2-3 generations behind on the GPU). This leaves me with thinking picking up a cheaper, more powerful DX10 card would produce the best results at the time, like a 4770 or similar.
Games I'd like to run are BFBC2, upcoming Witcher 2, Bioware rpgs, Shogun 2, GTA4... Don't need to max out Crysis, but I do want to be running at a resolution of *1050, which means more graphic memory.
So, based on the DX considerations, and the cpu bottleneck, what are my best options? I'm open to suggestions about the processor as well. Cheers.
Rig is a Phenom x3 @ 2.1 ghz on a AM2+ mobo, 4gb DDR2 in Win7. 500 Watt psu. Current graphics is a 256-bit 7900gs with 256mb of gddr3.
I've been looking at the HD 5770, but I'm concerned about the slow memory bus. Additionally, I'm not really that concerned with DX11 anyways, as I probably won't be investing tons of money into this computer (I aim for $3-400 every couple years, always leaving me 2-3 generations behind on the GPU). This leaves me with thinking picking up a cheaper, more powerful DX10 card would produce the best results at the time, like a 4770 or similar.
Games I'd like to run are BFBC2, upcoming Witcher 2, Bioware rpgs, Shogun 2, GTA4... Don't need to max out Crysis, but I do want to be running at a resolution of *1050, which means more graphic memory.
So, based on the DX considerations, and the cpu bottleneck, what are my best options? I'm open to suggestions about the processor as well. Cheers.