[SOLVED] Graphics card recommendation to replace 10 year old card

stebobibo

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I have a 10 year old NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti. Most of the games I play arn't so demanding and run just fine. The ones that are the most demanding (and I have crashes with) are Path of Exile, Divinity Original Sin 2, Age of Empires 2 DE, Civilization 6 (crashes more rarely and maybe just cause of mods). I also plan on geting these games in the near future: Baldur's Gate 3, Diablo 2:resurrected, Diablo 4, Age of Empires 4,Humankind. I paid around $300 for my graphics card 10 years ago. My budget is roughly the same now. I know graphics cards are really expensive right now. So also let me know if best thing to do is just wait. But I would like to get one right now. It doesn't have to be best of the best, just a significant upgrade over old one and able to play all the games mentioned without issue. Thanks so much for your help!
 

David Ralph

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I have a 10 year old NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti. Most of the games I play arn't so demanding and run just fine. The ones that are the most demanding (and I have crashes with) are Path of Exile, Divinity Original Sin 2, Age of Empires 2 DE, Civilization 6 (crashes more rarely and maybe just cause of mods). I also plan on geting these games in the near future: Baldur's Gate 3, Diablo 2:resurrected, Diablo 4, Age of Empires 4,Humankind. I paid around $300 for my graphics card 10 years ago. My budget is roughly the same now. I know graphics cards are really expensive right now. So also let me know if best thing to do is just wait. But I would like to get one right now. It doesn't have to be best of the best, just a significant upgrade over old one and able to play all the games mentioned without issue. Thanks so much for your help!
Obviously now is a terrible time to buy a card as larsv8 mentioned. With such times comes the fact that any card you purchase right now at that price point could be a very, very bad value proposition come 6 months to a year from now. That being said, I bought a 1050Ti new years ago and it’s been an incredible card ever since. I‘ve upgraded multiple times since then, but it has always found it’s way into family member’s rigs.
I will reiterate that I bought a 1050 Ti when they were NEW for less money than they’re going for now, but here’s a link to a Zotac 1050Ti from Walmart that’s going for $299.
If this is something that you can hold out on, I would highly recommend it, but I know how it is when you want to play a game and simply can’t because of hardware limitations.
Hope this helped.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Zotac-GeForce-GTX-1050-Ti-Mini-NVIDIA-4GB-GDDR5-Graphics-Card/130570779
 

JWNoctis

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The current graphic card of the same market segment as your old one is RTX 3060, which is more than emough to play those games you mentioned. Sadly, you won't get one anywhere near MSRP.

You might be able to get a GTX 1050Ti with your budget, but it would not be a significant improvement, and still way too expensive for what it gives you.

Current graphic cards also require UEFI boot, which your setup may or may not have, or support, given its presumed age.

As a matter of fact, it might not be your graphic card that's causing the crashes - I've played some of those you listed on less powerful cards, myself - given your system's age. But that's for another question to troubleshoot, and will need more details of your setup, as well as crashdump info.
 

JWNoctis

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stebobibo

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Thanks so much guys for all your helpful advice! I can wait a few months, but don't want to be waiting over a year for one. I know this is really hard to predict, but do you guys have any thoughts on when prices will go back to normal (or at least approach)?
Current graphic cards also require UEFI boot, which your setup may or may not have, or support, given its presumed age.
What is UEFI boot and how do I know if my system has it?
As a matter of fact, it might not be your graphic card that's causing the crashes - I've played some of those you listed on less powerful cards, myself - given your system's age. But that's for another question to troubleshoot, and will need more details of your setup, as well as crashdump info.
JWNoctis, would you be willing to troubleshoot for me? We could work out a price I could pay you for it. The graphics card does make noise, sometimes quite a lot, especially for POE and Divinity 2. It also can make this buzzing sound sometimes which doesn't sound like it should be making. This is what makes me think it's the main culprit. Also in the last 2 months, I've changed SSDs to a Samsung 870 EVO and fresh installed Windows 10 to it. These have helped my performance a lot, but still the issues with games mentioned (but less than before). Thanks again for all your help!
 

JWNoctis

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Thanks so much guys for all your helpful advice! I can wait a few months, but don't want to be waiting over a year for one. I know this is really hard to predict, but do you guys have any thoughts on when prices will go back to normal (or at least approach)? What is UEFI boot and how do I know if my system has it?
JWNoctis, would you be willing to troubleshoot for me? We could work out a price I could pay you for it. The graphics card does make noise, sometimes quite a lot, especially for POE and Divinity 2. It also can make this buzzing sound sometimes which doesn't sound like it should be making. This is what makes me think it's the main culprit. Also in the last 2 months, I've changed SSDs to a Samsung 870 EVO and fresh installed Windows 10 to it. These have helped my performance a lot, but still the issues with games mentioned (but less than before). Thanks again for all your help!

There are many here that knew much more about hardware problems than I do - Most of my experience in the last decade was with laptops.

I'd recommend posting another question with your full system spec, any crashdump info you may have from your system event viewer, as well as descriptions of any symptoms that may relate to your case.

That buzzing sound could be your graphic card's fan, or could be coil whine from the voltage regulator, which I heard can be normal, or can indicate a problem with your PSU, or could be something else altogether. Others would know more.

As for UEFI, your favourite search engine could explain it much better than I could. You could check for such info in your OS, and such guides are also easy to come by. It might limit your upgrade options if you are stuck with legacy BIOS for your current setup.
 

Karadjgne

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Anything pre-3rd gen intel will be legacy bios. Only a few Z77 and Z68 motherboards had made the move to uefi, anything Haswell or newer is uefi with rare exceptions in some prebuilts. Anything designed for Windows 10 will be uefi

As far as cards go, future games are going to have higher vram demands, it's really gotten to the point where it's not worth it to be looking at 6Gb cards or less, should be looking at 8Gb and better, with 8Gb being a low cost minimum. 3060/ti, 2070Super, 1080ti etc.

If really constrained to a closer $300 budget, the problem currently is you'll only get a fraction of the cards value. Even looking at a 1660/ti or 2060, newer games are going to drop them down to an equitable output like your current games on a 660ti. Playable, but not necessarily enjoyable, especially at higher frames/details.
 
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stebobibo

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Here are the specs, please let me know if I've missed anything
motherboard: ASUS P8z77-V
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570
GPU:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti
Power Supply: NZXT HALE82 750W
SSD: Samsung 870 EVO
RAM: 16 GB
Anything pre-3rd gen intel will be legacy bios. Only a few Z77 and Z68 motherboards had made the move to uefi, anything Haswell or newer is uefi with rare exceptions in some prebuilts. Anything designed for Windows 10 will be uefi
Can someone tell if my board is Uefi (I have no idea what gen it is)? When starting the comp up there is a screen with ASUS on it and it says uefi.
I'd recommend posting another question with your full system spec, any crashdump info you may have from your system event viewer, as well as descriptions of any symptoms that may relate to your case.
Okay, thanks for the suggestion, I'll post another thread if I don't get the help I need on this one.
Thanks again everyone!
 

TheOtherOne

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Since your MB has pcie 3.0 maybe try your luck with a 10XX series used card? ebay has plenty of those and chances are they were not used for mining since mid range 1060/1070 were not powerful enough and mining wasn't as crazy as it has been lately. Used card will always be a risk but that's pretty much the only option without upgrading your whole system and also prices for newer cards.

Just to give you an idea, I am selling my 1070 and hoping to get $400+ AUD for that, bidding will end in 3 days and looks like it will go near or over that amount.
 

Karadjgne

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The Asus P8Z77-V is a uefi enabled bios. The gtx660ti is a legacy card, uefi gpus weren't started until the maxwell gtx750/ti cards. So technically you can run anything using pcie Gen2 or Gen3 with no issue, a Gen4 card will need to be downgraded in bios to using Gen3 because that's the limits of your motherboard pcie.

Your biggest issue will be with that i5. Fps is a factor of the cpu, not the gpu, the gpu only tries to live upto what frames the cpu gives it. So if you play something like CSGO (cpu is capable of @ 200-250 fps) and get 150fps on screen with current detail settings and resolution out of that 660ti, a move to a gtx970 or gtx1070 will get you the full 200-250 fps. A move to a rtx3080 will get you the exact same 200-250 fps, no matter what, because the gpu is far stronger and more capable of fps output than the cpu can do.

A 970-2060/ 5700 is about as much as that cpu can handle, anything bigger is just wasted money unless you are using a 4k monitor.

A i7-3770k or Xeon 1270v2 will double your threads and that will mean a lot of fps gains and playability in games that use 4+ threads, like gtaV etc. Won't affect games like Rocket League or CSGO that only use 2-3 threads other than differences in clock speeds.
 
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stebobibo

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Thanks guys for your help! So would you guys recommend getting a new motherboard? Or can I get a good enough CPU without one? When looking at CPUs online, how can I tell what motherboards they will fit. Is there some spec that tells me?
a Gen4 card will need to be downgraded in bios to using Gen3 because that's the limits of your motherboard pcie.
is that a big deal when that happens? Is that a big drop in performance? So I should only use Gen4 with PCIE 4?
Thanks again.
 
This is a bit high, but within your budget, maybe something like this if you are ok with used. If you can spend a little more check on a gtx 1070.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/3246990758...8AAOSwpQ9g3kQ4&LH_BIN=1&LH_ItemCondition=3000

For the cpu, how about this.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/154552209935?hash=item23fc07920f:g:0Z4AAOSwflRglerS&LH_BIN=1

That should at least get you functioning and help with multithread games. Then you can rebuild as funds become available and carry over the card if you wanted, which something like a 1070, 1080 or a 1660 etc would be helpful so when you upgrade you aren't feeling the need to replace the gpu again right away.
 

JWNoctis

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is that a big deal when that happens? Is that a big drop in performance? So I should only use Gen4 with PCIE 4?
Thanks again.
It's not really a big deal for most games on all but the most powerful GPU's. Current generation AMD Zen 3 mobile APUs still had to live with PCIe 3.0 x8 for their GPU, and their performance is still good enough, even when paired with a high-end mobile GPU on the same performance level as a desktop 3060Ti/6700XT.
 

Endre

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I have a 10 year old NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti. Most of the games I play arn't so demanding and run just fine. The ones that are the most demanding (and I have crashes with) are Path of Exile, Divinity Original Sin 2, Age of Empires 2 DE, Civilization 6 (crashes more rarely and maybe just cause of mods). I also plan on geting these games in the near future: Baldur's Gate 3, Diablo 2:resurrected, Diablo 4, Age of Empires 4,Humankind. I paid around $300 for my graphics card 10 years ago. My budget is roughly the same now. I know graphics cards are really expensive right now. So also let me know if best thing to do is just wait. But I would like to get one right now. It doesn't have to be best of the best, just a significant upgrade over old one and able to play all the games mentioned without issue. Thanks so much for your help!

I’d wait until 2022!
But if you really need a newer GPU, then I advice you to buy something like a GTX 1080 / GTX 1080 Ti from the used market (but even those are pretty expensive right now).