What is ENOUGH?

[Ashok80999]

Ok, just to make things easier for me. My pc specs as of now are:

Intel core i3-3210 processor
MSI h61m-p20 (g3) motherboard
G.Skill ripjawsX 4gb

and I'm currently using an old graphic card which is Nvidia Geforce 8400 GS.

My monitor's resolution is 1600x900 and I just want to know which graphic card till date is possibly good enough for me to run any game in max settings. As my resolution is 1600x900, i don't think that I need a graphic card which should be enough for 1080p. so Please help me which will suit best in low budget. I'm planning to go for gtx 760 or any other card which is priced around it. please keep in mind that my mobo has only one graphic card slot.

My power supply corsair cs750m. I think that's good enough to hold gtx 760 so I bought it recently and also I'm gonna get an 8 gigs of g.skill. so it's just the issue of the card itself which SHOULD MAX OUT GAMES in 1600x900.

So suggest me the good one.

 

[cst1992]

Why the capitals?
The GTX 960 should be good enough for you. What is your power supply?

 

[hamzahfelix]

What games are you looking forward to play? We could not recommend a gpu without knowing your psu would be able to run it or not. If this is a pre-built pc, then the psu included is probably the minimum required to run your current system, which isn't much to buy a decent gpu that won't need an upgrade in a year or two. Also you would need at least 8GB of ram to game these days.

 

[Pownderosa]

Go for the sapphire r9 280x it is on sale right now and is loads better than the 960 for only a 200 dollar price point if you look hard enough, this card maxes everything at 1080p and runs mostly every game with a minimum of 45 fps on a 1080p monitor but if you have a smaller resolution monitor your game will run even better!

 

[Ashok80999]

Why the capitals?
The GTX 960 should be good enough for you. What is your power supply?

My power supply corsair cs750m. I think that's good enough to hold gtx 760 so I bought it recently

 

[atheus]

960 is probably a good choice, though a 970 would definitely be worth considering for 1080p as well. Bottom line is you should check graphics card reviews, take a look at the games you play and the games you want to play, then decide based on the FPS figures at that resolution.

If your 4GB RAM module is a single slot, you would definitely want to try to grab a second 4GB stick and add that in. It should only be $25-30 or so, and would make your system much more enjoyable.

[strike]Regarding the PSU, if you get an Nvidia card you could get by with a 400-450W PSU. If you've got a 300W or something you could go with a GTX 750 Ti or something, though that wouldn't give you great gaming performance at 1080p compred to a 960 or 970. It's only $100-150 though, so you could just hold onto your money and pick up a SkyLake/Pascal system next year and get 10x more bang for your buck than anything you can make today.[/strike]

Looks like your PSU can handle any GPU config, including dual GPU, so no worries there. In that case, GTX 960 or 970. You would get more fps out of a 970, and wouldn't have to make many (any?) compromises on quality settings at 1080p.

 

[makkem]

Hi
The only problem I can see is that a number of new games will not run very well on that i3 two core CPU and would almost certainly bottleneck a 970.

 

[atheus]

Even when a GPU is bottlenecked in some situations by the CPU, you'll still see better performance in others. There is always a bottleneck of some kind that determines just how well your system will perform in a given situation, and it's normal to want your only bottleneck to be the GPU while gaming. Even so, if you decide you want even more performance at a later stage you can nab a higher end CPU and swap that part out too.

You have to be a bit careful, though, as once you start swapping more and more parts out, you may be wasting money you could be saving for a SkyLake build in the fall, etc. With that in mind, you might want to purchase a GPU you could imagine putting in your next computer too.

 

[maxalge]

Ok, just to make things easier for me. My pc specs as of now are:

Intel core i3-3210 processor
MSI h61m-p20 (g3) motherboard
G.Skill ripjawsX 4gb

and I'm currently using an old graphic card which is Nvidia Geforce 8400 GS.

My monitor's resolution is 1600x900 and I just want to know which graphic card till date is possibly good enough for me to run any game in max settings. As my resolution is 1600x900, i don't think that I need a graphic card which should be enough for 1080p. so Please help me which will suit best in low budget. I'm planning to go for gtx 760 or any other card which is priced around it. please keep in mind that my mobo has only one graphic card slot.

My power supply corsair cs750m. I think that's good enough to hold gtx 760 so I bought it recently and also I'm gonna get an 8 gigs of g.skill. so it's just the issue of the card itself which SHOULD MAX OUT GAMES in 1600x900.

So suggest me the good one.

an i5 3470 (make sure to update bios first) + gtx 960 2gb.

 

[Ashok80999]

I'm from India and in our region, 970 would cost about 420-430$ and gtx 760 is around 280$. That will make a much difference to me. and also everyone is considering 1080p but i need performance regarding only 1600x900, i dont need more than that. And for your concern, i just ordered g.skill ripjawsX 8gigs 1600mhz instead of 4. I just need that will 760 be good for my pc or is there any card around that price? not more than 300$.

If anyone is gonna help, please check www.amazon.in for prices of graphic cards in our region. because prices range a way more.

 

[cst1992]

On Flipkart, the 960 and 760 are the same price. You should not buy a 760 now, as it is worse than the 960 in every aspect - power consumption, performance, noise. Even the memory configuration is the same.
For graphics cards, Flipkart's prices are a bit lower than Amazon's.

 

[GObonzo]

is a 760 or 750ti compatible with DX12?

 

[Guest]

Even for 900p 2GB of gram won't be enough when it comes to the topic maxed out. I really suggest going with the r9 380 if it's in your budget. 380 has 4gb of vram. Check a bit on the Internet and decide. And it is DX12 compatible. You'll get a bottleneck with the i3 though.

Btw you will need 8gb of ram.

And as far as I know the best your cpu can handle is a r9 270x.

 

[atheus]

"Maxed out" is a little touchy when you're talking about lower resolution gaming, though. One of the main reasons that high resolution gaming requires so much video memory is because when you have 4x as many pixels on the screen, you need 4x as many pixels in your textures to the the same texture space to screen space ratio. If you're running textures that are designed for 4k on a 2k monitor, while you may see higher detail on certain elements that are temporarily closer than the game intended for you to see them from, you are really just shooting yourself in the foot performance wise.

It's like downloading a photo that's 16,000 pixels tall by 9000 pixels wide. Yes, you can zoom in and see the pores and razor burn on your favorite model, but you're going to lose 93% of all that detail when you scale it down far enough that you can see the whole thing on your monitor that's only 1080 pixels tall.

So long story short, using a mega sized texture set designed for 4k displays is something to be careful of in the coming years, especially if you're using a graphics card with limited video memory.

 

[cst1992]

That's quite a sensitive example you gave there. Remember that this forum has members of ages 13 and over.

 

[atheus]

That's quite a sensitive example you gave there. Remember that this forum has members of ages 13 and over.

I was not aware of that, but if we're being honest 13 is about the age when interest in that type of thing begins. I edited it anyway. It wasn't all that funny to begin with.

 

[cst1992]

Probably, well, better to let you know.