New System/Fallout 3 & Dragon Age: Origins - Graphics Card help?

[Stansfield]

Hey there all, I'm have a new computer put together here soon with my final day of purchases set as tomorrow, 10/07/2012. I've already got a number of parts purchased with certain parts kinda vagu'ish, other's set, and some I'm REALLY vague on. The graphics card is one of them.
My initial build is set up with 3 things in mind: gaming, upgrade-ability, and sense of bling (last year or so was pretty rough when it came to nice stuff). Now, I've already played Fallout 3 and Dragon Age: Origins on a slightly older build that had an ATI Radeon 4870 (not x2). There were always some problems with Fallout 3 in the Windows 7 area, and so I'm looking for a card known to work with that game that's available for purchase, max budget of $400 for the card. The specs for the computer are below:

Case: COOLER MASTER COSMOS II RC-1200-KKN1 Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case (CHECK!)

PSU: COOLER MASTER RS-A50-SPHA-D3 Silent Pro Hybrid 1050W Intel ATX 12V V2.3 & SSI EPS 12V V2.92 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Panel Power Supply with Fan Control (CHECK!)

CPU / Processor: Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4 GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core (CHECK!)

Motherboard: Asus Maximus V Extreme LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel (CHECK!)

RAM: Nothing set here as yet but I’m looking at getting 8 – 16 GB of memory, currently thinking Corsair or Gskill

GPU / Videocard: Nothing here as yet, hoping there might be some recommendations based on my videogame choices

Solid-State Drive: SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC256B/WW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) Desktop Upgrade Kit (CHECK!)

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda or WD Black Edition 1 – 3 TB Cost: $90 - $150 max

Optical Drive: Blu-Ray Reader required, not gonna gripe over getting a Blu-Ray Burner - Cost: $110, best guess

Monitor: Dell UltraSharp U2410 24-inch Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor with PremierColor (CHECK!)

Mouse: Logitech Performance Black Tilt Wheel 2.4 GHz Wireless Laser Mouse MX (Darkfield Tech) (CHECK!)

Keyboard: Logitech Wireless K350 - Cost: $59.00

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium / Professional 64-bit OEM (not planning on upgrading to Windows 8 until I feel it’s been proven, personal prejudice - Cost: $99 Home Premium OEM

System Cooling: Any recommendations or real requirements to start off with?

Surge Protector: The Calamari Power Squid or Something (Belkin, APC, whatever) - Cost: $65~

Dragon Age: Origins, Ultimate Edition to be purchased - Cost: $33 online (I think). Already have pre-ordered (the Edge) Collectors Edition with already purchased DLC for Stone Prisoner, Warden's Keep, and Return to Ostagar, but want to complete my purchase as cheaply as possible.

 

[SlammerBurgr]

You don't need a killer card to run FO3 or DA😱rigins, I ran both on high settings on my alienware laptop with i7 740QM and radeon mobile 7870 ( mobile being the keyword there) with 4gig RAM. That was on Win 7 btw. So you should be set with a 660 or higher for intel, or a 7800 series or higher ATI card. As far as which brand its all preference my friend, you can look at benchmarks all day, but they both have their pros and cons. I like nvidia personally. If you want *bling* get SLI 670s or radeon 7950 crossfire, now thats gangsta.

As far as system cooling goes, if you aren't everclocking the stock heatsink is fine for CPU, just make sure that your fans are set up in a way that air is flowing through the case, so at least two fans in and two out. If overclocking you can't beat the value of Cooler Master 212 plus or EVO.

I think the issue with fallout was it only running on two cores or something, but if that is the case my mobile quad core did one helluva job, you will be golden with an ivy bridge CPU

hope this helps, good luck with your build!

 

[SlammerBurgr]

I meant to say Radeon mobile 5780 btw, my bad.

 

[davidstansfield]

Hi Stansfield. How about an entry into my guestbook on www.stansfields.org. Maybe we can chat.