Will this affordable GPU upgrade give me a noticeable boost?

[bobjones1010]

I was shopping for a cheap upgrade to a 3-year old rig and came across this on sale for $100:

GeForce GTX 650
2GB GDDR5
400MHz RAMDAC
PCI 3.0x16
1 Processor

Will this give me a substantial FPS and graphics boost for games like Skyrim? I was hoping to play it on High Settings at 50-60 FPS. Here are my current specs:

Processor
AMD Phenom II X4 955(3.2GHz)
64 bit Quad-Core Processor
4 x 512KB L2 Cache
L3 Cache Per CPU
6MB
CPU Socket Type
AM3

Memory
12GB DDR3 1333
DIMM 240-pin

Hard Drive
500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 7200RPM HDD

Graphics
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 1GB PCI Express Video Card
PCI Express 2.0 x16

Power Supply
700W

Operating System
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit

Motherboard Chipset
AMD 770

 

[deadmaufive]

You're probably not going to get Skyrim to play on highest settings with 60 FPS with it, but you'll definitely see a difference. If you can afford it, try to get a 650 ti boost or 660.

 

[lmaonade200]

Skyrim specifically is more CPU bound than most games so upgrading your GPU will help just not as much as you would hope,

I would recommend going just a tiny bit higher to the GTX 650 Ti, it is a decent card that will run most modern games very well, and it can often be found on sale for maybe 10 bucks higher than a GTX 650

Edit:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127663
go for this if you can, it's 110 after MIR and is a step up from the 650 Ti

 

[endeavour37a]

The 650 or 650 Ti will do little good, if you want to play Skyrim as high settings you will need a 650Ti Boost or 660, yes I know it is a CPU bound game.

 

[nikoli707]

still though... that 650 is much faster than a 9800gt... no less than 2 times faster in ANY game you throw at it and more like 3 times faster in modern games. but yes... go for a 650ti which the person above linked for you. you have a 955 quad core which isn't a wimpy cpu by no means... skyrim will run better on a more modern high end cpu for sure, but you should have no problem completely maxing out "vanilla" skyrim with 4xMSAA @ 1080p on a 955 and a 650ti. also overclock that 955 if you haven't already.

just make sure you head over to enbseries and install the stock enb as it tremendously helps skyrim. you dont have to use the graphics mods but you will get the build in memory and performance management.
http://enbdev.com/download_mod_tesskyrim.htm

 

[bobjones1010]

Skyrim specifically is more CPU bound than most games so upgrading your GPU will help just not as much as you would hope,

I would recommend going just a tiny bit higher to the GTX 650 Ti, it is a decent card that will run most modern games very well, and it can often be found on sale for maybe 10 bucks higher than a GTX 650

Edit:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127663
go for this if you can, it's 110 after MIR and is a step up from the 650 Ti

Will there be a major performance difference between these two cards?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127663

and

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125457

 

[nikoli707]

7850 is definitely faster than the 650ti and it would be noticeable. and those msi twin frozr designs are arguably the most popular and best all around rated cooler for the past 3 years.

this is an old skyrimbenchmark using pre amd 12.11beta drivers which saw remarkable improvement to all of amd video cards with skyrim see huge gains.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-650-ti-benchmark-gk106,3318-11.html

 

[deadmaufive]

I agree with Nikoli, the 7850 will be a much better choice than the 650TI Boost. It will perform somewhere in the range of 20-40% better. and the that cooler is great. 😛

 

[bobjones1010]

Thank you everyone!