Maximum Graphical Performance on a £300 budget.

[Chrisidas]

Hi,

I currently have £300 to upgrade my gaming rig + monitor (if necessary)

I currently have a:

• 
  21 inch LCD 720p monitor
  600w power supply
  Nvidea gtx 550 ti
  AMD Phenom II 3.4ghz quad core
  Asus AM5A97 motherboard

I'm guessing I'm going to have to buy a new monitor. I've found a few 24 inch 1080p LED monitors for around £120, leaving me £180.

From what I've seen the best possible GPU I could get for that price would be the gtx 660.

So I was thinking of getting the 24 inch 1080p LED monitor, plus the gtx 660.

Or would I be better getting maybe a gtx 660ti, or gtx 760, and a smaller monitor?

Or possibly splashing all of the money on a better GPU and getting no monitor.

Bear in mind I'm looking to get the best performance out of the newest games, with the best possible graphics for that budget.

I am able to stretch my budget slightly, but would have to wait a month or two, which I'd rather not do.

Maybe it would be better to purchase just one now, then another in a few months?

All suggestions are welcome.

 

[wdmfiber]

It's a tough call, kind of a "dammed if you do, dammed if you don't".

You need a better monitor, but it a lot harder to "push" 2.1 million pixels than 900 thousand.
But if you get a good GPU it's just wasted @720p.
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But personally I'd go for a good monitor(you'll have it much longer). Because the next-gen of GPU's will be released as early as March(Nvidia Maxwell), so you might as well cheap out on the GPU. Current 28nm tech dates to late 2011, so at this point it's not wise to inve$t much in a graphics card.

 

[Bassim Ansari]

Here's the deal. You want the best performance out of latest games.

If you go towards the route of 1080p screen you need minimum a Gtx 760-770 or an AMD radeon 270x for the best peformance in most games and even then the most intensive games like Crysis 3 won't give you ultra settings until you buy the Gtx 780 or R9 280.


For a 720p screen, you don't have to be that selective. You could easily upgrade to Gtx 660 ti and at 720p, it should scream through all the games without a problem with ultra settings.

If you chose to buy a full HD screen, you might have to compromise on some of the eye candy until and unless you get a GTx 770 or r9 280x.

 

[Chrisidas]

Cheers for the replies.

I think I might go for a gtx 770, then try and raise some more funds to upgrade to a 1080p monitor. At least then I know I'm going to be able to play everything on full, then when the time cones, I should still be good to go with a new monitor.

I only have 4gb of ram also, is it likely that I will have to upgrade my ram or CPU anytime soon?

 

[Bassim Ansari]

Cheers for the replies.

I think I might go for a gtx 770, then try and raise some more funds to upgrade to a 1080p monitor. At least then I know I'm going to be able to play everything on full, then when the time cones, I should still be good to go with a new monitor.

I only have 4gb of ram also, is it likely that I will have to upgrade my ram or CPU anytime soon?

I am no AMD CPU expert so can't help you on that one.

But you should be okay with 4 gb RAM, if you strictly just game. The trend is to go for 8gb nowadays just to be on the safe side, but I find, that 4gb is enough if you're just gaming.

 

[Chrisidas]

YeahYeah, I got 8gb originally, but one of the sticks was faulty and the manufacturer was really awkward about replacing it, so I just stuck with 4gb. Good to know its enough.

 

[Chrisidas]

After quite a bit of searching, I've decided to go with a GTX 760 (£199) and a 24 inch LED 1080p monitor (£118).


Would you guys say this is a sound investment?

 

[Shocking777]

Get the 770 first, the 760 is almost the same like the 660 ti and won't last you long.

 

[Chrisidas]

I would prefer the 770 yeah, but it would mean that I'd be stuck playing at 720p. It appears I've found myself in quite a pickle :-/