Looking to upgrade graphics card from GTX 260

[jdbrenton128]

I'm looking to upgrade my GTX 260. My budget is $150 to 250. I'd like to be able to run games like dragon age inquisition and the witcher 3 on medium to high settings. I was looking at a refurbished GTX 660 listed for 160 on newegg, and a GTX 960 listed for 210.

Side note: my current system only has PCI Express 2.0, but I know that 3.0 will still run on it. I'm curious if that will cause a significant decrease in performance though.

 

[LucoTF]

Please tell me what CPU, ram and power supply you have.

PCIe 2.0 will not bottleneck a pcie 3.0 card.Like, zero real world difference between 2.0 and 3.0

 

[MeteorsRaining]

Go for the GTX 960, it will be a significant upgrade.

PCIe 2.0/3.0 have next to none performance differences.

http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Impact-of-PCI-E-Speed-on-Gaming-Performance-518/

PS. As mentioned above, list your other components.

 

[Matt Dobe]

You will be fine with PCI 2.0 as they are backwards compatible. I would recommend this r9 290 if you want ultra performance

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/his-video-card-h290qmc4gd

but you would need a decent 500-600W power supply and at least an i3/FX8350 CPU to keep it happy.
If you are fine with high settings then a GTX 960 would be perfect my friend

 

[jdbrenton128]

CPU:AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb
RAM: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (will be getting 4 more GB in near future)
Power: 650 W power supply.

I'll be upgrading the whole system in a year or two and I'd like this card to work with the new system for a couple years if possible.

 

[MeteorsRaining]

The CPU may bottleneck the GPU in high intensity scenes. OCing the CPU will reduce that, so that is a viable option.

Adding another 4GB makes sense. What specific model is your PSU?

 

[LucoTF]

GTX 960 (intel) or r9 280 (AMD) is the best for that sort of budget, your CPU should be mostly fine with either card too

+1 to MR, get 8gb ram and OC the CPU if you can and you're good to go

 

[jdbrenton128]

It came with my Antec Nine Hundred + EA650 computer case. My order history on new egg doesn't tell me the specific model.

 

[LucoTF]

EA650 is the PSU model, very nice PSU