Question System circa 2012 in need of GPU for gaming

Steve Brannon

Honorable
Aug 25, 2014
5
0
10,520
Approximate Purchase Date: Within the next month

Budget Range: $500 - $750?

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming – Photo Editing - Adobe CC

Parts to Upgrade: GPU (and power supply) – possibly RAM if necessary.

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Amazon – Newegg – Ebay - (open to used as this is an old system)

Location: US

Parts Preferences: none

Overclocking: No

SLI or Crossfire: Maybe (Is SLI/Crossfire worth bothering with or does that come with a lot of headaches?)

Your Monitor Resolution: 2560x1440 (Dell U2713HM 27in.) Display Port 1.2 60hz

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: I’d like to play around with some (somewhat) modern games. Interested in picking up a racing, maybe play Doom and MS Flight Simulator 2020 when it comes out. It's been 20 years since I played PC games! Also want to have a solid system for photo editing/Adobe products.

Additional Comments:

Hi folks,

I just resurrected a system I built in 2012! I never got around to adding a discreet GPU to it and am considering adding a graphics card (or two?) so I can do some light-to-moderate gaming (not necessarily the latest and greatest games at full tilt) and have a swift box for photo editing and working with Photoshop and other Adobe CC apps.

The current build consists of:

• Ausus P8Z68-M Pro motherboard (LGA1155 socket) (supports 2 PCI Express 2 x16 cards.)
• i7 2600K
• 16 GB DDR3 1600
• Samsung Evo 860 128gb SATA3 SSD (I’ve got a bunch of 2 TB spinny drives I can add for game storage, some 7200rpm)
• 450W PS

So, for what I’m interested in doing with this system, does it makes sense to add one or two graphics cards or are my core components as listed above simply too dated to bother? I’m very much not interested in building a new system from scratch at this time.

The mobo supports 2 PCI Express 2 x16 cards.

My main concern is I don’t want to buy too much graphics card such that my underlying hardware will become a bottleneck I realize I will need a new power supply. I’m willing to upgrade the ram to DDR3 2133 which is the max the mobo will handle. Would rather not replace HD as OS migration would be a pain.

Thanks so much for helping to get me up to speed!
 

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
2 GPU's are pointless even when it was first announced all these years ago. Stick with the single most powerful GPU your system, PSU and wallet can accommodate.

You forgot to include the make and model of the PSU. As for the ram, I'm worried about the sticks of ram on your build. I wouldn't mix and match.

I moved the thread to the appropriate section.
 

Steve Brannon

Honorable
Aug 25, 2014
5
0
10,520
Sorry for the redundant threads - not intentional!

So my current RAM is 4x4gb DDR3 1600. I should have clarified, I'd be willing to swap all that out for a fresh batch of (larger?) faster RAM if necessary.

Single card is fine by me.

The power supply is an Extreme ATX 450 - came with the case as I recall.