Looking to upgrade card optimized for gaming

[Thoridus]

Ok I know it's not the most original title but suggestions would be helpful. I want to be able to play games like Rift and EQ landmark/next on high without a ton of lag and memory loss. Basically I want to be around other players and not have it bog down my PC. It really hurts in massive battles and pvp situations. But I digress,
My PC is fairly new still http://www.cnet.com/products/hp-envy-700-010-a-series-a10-6700-3-7-ghz-8-gb-1-tb/specs/. I have 8GB Ram
GPU is factory installed http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-8670D.96575.0.html.
So, hopefully that is enough info to get my question answered. If anything else is needed I can try to provide it, but everything is factory. I dont need 60FPS per se but smoother gameplay would be ace. I don't really have a budget either but lets just say 175 USD.
Thanks for the advice

 

[zoog18]

Ok, here are my thoughts, if your budget is 175$, I would go with the R9 265, its reasonably powerful, and its quite good for the price. If your willing to spend more, say around 250-300$, I would start looking at either an R9 270X or GTX 760, which are popular and perform very well. Above that, around 300-360$, you can get an R9 280X or GTX 770, which are both very powerful. Above this you will pay at least 400$+ and it doesn't seem like you want or need cards like that.

Also, as a side note, your game performance is subpar, sine your current GPU is an integrated one.

 

[Thoridus]

Yeah I had assumed that the integrated card was the issue and not the processor. So with the R9 265 I would see a bump in performance? Thanks for the info

 

[Thoridus]

Since my processor is an AMD does it matter at all whether I choose to go with Radeon or Nvidia? Also, if a game endorses a certain brand of GPU does using those cards have any advantage? Just curious

 

[shazzy182]

Since my processor is an AMD does it matter at all whether I choose to go with Radeon or Nvidia? Also, if a game endorses a certain brand of GPU does using those cards have any advantage? Just curious

I don't think so... physx is the only Nvidia exclusive if u dont mind abt that then.. Nope!.

 

[zoog18]

you are partly right, certain games are optimized for certain cards, Battlefield 4 being prime example, since it favours AMD cards, their is a performance advantage but its not huge, its actually quite marginal most of the time. As a side note the, high end and very high end Nvidia cards run cooler than their AMD counterparts, and yes the R7 265 will bring a noticeable performance improvement.

 

[Thoridus]

So I'm looking at the GTX 760 as a possibility but I was confused at first by all the manufacturers. I think i have that part figured out but 2 things...I believe that my board has PCIe 2.0 but the card is a PCIe 3.0. Is this a problem? The other thing is that it looks like my PC has a factory power supply of 300W but the card requires 500? Ugh can this be upgraded too? is it necessary? I know its noob stuff but this is my first card upgrade.

 

[zoog18]

Most graphics cards these days are PCI-E 3.0 cards, if you only have PCI-E 2.0 slots on your motherboard you'll need to change your motherboard to have the 760 work properly, also a 300 watt powerslupply isn't enough, you'll need to upgrade to a better higher watt power supply.