What graphics card and PSU should I buy for gaming? $300, Need to know what parts will fit.

ultpokemonfan

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Jun 23, 2011
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Approximate Purchase Date: e.g.: In time for Christmas

Budget Range: Tight $300 budget after shipping and taxes but before rebates.

System Usage from Most to Least Important:
Medium to low intensive gaming
Video editing, rendering, recording, and uploading
Web surfing

Are you buying a monitor: No

Parts to Upgrade: Graphics card and power supply. The computer I have now is a HP p7-1380t with 6GB ram, 1TB hard drive, and i5-3330 with HD Graphics.

Do you need to buy OS: No

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Amazon or newegg only.

Location: Bucks County PA

Parts Preferences: I want an NVIDIA graphics card, don't really have any preferences for power supply.

Overclocking: No. I'm newb so I'd probably screw it up

SLI or Crossfire: No. There's only one pci-e x16 slot anyway.

Your Monitor Resolution: Current is 1440x900 which may sound low, but I'm happy with it.

Additional Comments: I care a lot about performance and functionality. As long as it looks semi-decent and isn't terribly loud, its fine. Games I play: Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, Counter-Strike GO and Source, Half-LIfe 2, Smite, PAYDAY 2, ARMA II, GTA:San Andreas, Garry's Mod. I use bandicam for recording and camtasia for editing. I'm pretty sure the motherboard is only micro ATX so I have no idea how to find a PSU and GPU that will work.

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading:
I want to be able to record, play, and upload Lets Plays of games at medium settings on my PC. I've determined that the graphics card I have is simply not enough power. Also the PSU that came with my computer is only 300w.

Include a list of any parts you have already selected with descriptively labeled links for parts. Unfortunately, I'm pretty newbie and don't know where to start with picking parts, other than a NVIDIA gpu.

Please let me know if I did anything wrong or need to be more specific. Thanks.

 
A radeon 7870 should max out any game at your resolution [ and let you play most games on high even if you upgrade your monitor to a 1080p model ]

This HIS one has a blower cooler that will vent hot air out of your case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161404 $180
And includes two free games

CORSAIR CXM series CX500M 500W is a modular power supply so you wont have too many left over cables in your case . Its well matched to your processor and a 7870 graphics card $50 [ after rebate ]
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139050