Best graphics card(s) for a Core 2 Quad Q6600

[eyeforillustration]

Hi guys,

I have a Dell XPS 630i with a Core 2 Quad Q6600 and I would like some help picking a new graphics card.

It originally came with 2 GeForce 8800 GT cards which have since corrupted so I've put a GeForce GT 610 to get it going again but it runs like s**t.

I do not use this computer for gaming, only photo editing and photoshop/illustrator work.

I would love to buy a whole new setup but money does not allow at the moment unfortunately.

I have around £120 (gbp) to spend on the card(s) and would like to stick with Nvidia. If you think multiple cards would be better, I'm open to that too.

I'm not too knowledgable with this stuff so any help would be much apprecated! Cheers guys

 

[The Paladin]

1. What is the make and model of your power supply ? I ask because it will indicate the best possible video card we can provide.
2. NVidia cards will probably be at best GT1030, you would be getting a lot more power for photo editing if you use something like a XFX HD 7870 video card.

 

[imsqam]

Best pairing would be a GTX 1050 or GTX 1050 Ti. The "Ti" version will be a bit more than £120 but it comes with 4GB of VRAM vs 2GB on the plain 1050.
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#sort=price&X=0,23245&c=379,380&page=1

Update: Upon further review I would not recommend the 1050 Ti, the CPU will bottleneck it too much. The 1050 should still be okay.

 

[eyeforillustration]

Thanks for your suggestions guys.

The model of the power supply is a Dell H750E-01.

I've had a look at the XFX HD 7870 card and the GTX 1050 card, both sound good. Do you know of anywhere I can buy XFX HD 7870 card new, or would ebay be my best bet? Also, if I went with the GTX 1050 I've noticed ASUS, Gigabyte and Zotac all make variations on the same card, does it matter which I go with? I'm thinking of buying from here https://www.ebuyer.com/search?q=nvidia+gtx+1050&sort=price+ascending

Bottlenecking was a concern too, will either of these cards be a problem?

 

[imsqam]

The 7870 and 1050 are about the same power performance wise, you might see a small amount of bottlenecking but not enough to drop down to a GT 1030. I would prefer a 1050, 175W power draw for the 7870 vs 75W power draw for the 1050.

Just get the cheapest 1050, there is little performance difference between the models and the 1050 is already overpowering the CPU.