New Graphics Card Help!

[Taquito]

So I'm basically planing on buying a new Graphics Card for my PC and I have no clue where to start or what to buy. 0% Knowledge in this kind of stuff.

 

AMD Quad-Core A10-5700

10GB DDR3

2TB Hard Drive

AMD Radeon HD 7660D

 

My budget is around 300 cause I don't wanna go into the 400+ for a Card. Any tech savvy here can give me a hand? In potatoes and beans please?

 

 

Thank you in advance

[Oldjim]

I just bought a Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB and given your CPU that may well be a starting point as anything much more powerful may be CPU limited in games

You can get those for under £300

[lowenz]

GeForce 1060 is the sweet spot. 3 GB version is enough but if you want some more punch (and extra memory for hypaaaa-texture quality) go for the 6 GB.

[Bikerdude]

1. AMD Quad-Core A10-5700

AMD Radeon HD 7660D

My budget is around 300

1. unfortunately this is gonna bottleneck ANY gfx card you buy due to ist low floating point performance.

This is the on-board GPU built into the A10-5700, its perf is equivent tyo a Geforcve 840M = very low end so perf in The Darkmod isnt gonne be poor

Whats the full spec of your current system..?, case, motherboard, power supply, monitor size etc

[kingsal]

I'm not the most tech savvy, but I would say anything anything in the Nvidia 980 or 1060 range will work great.

I've been an AMD user for many years and recently switched over to a Nvidia GTX 980 (slightly older card) and I'm really happy with it. Runs BF1, Dishonored 2, all the latest really well.

[lowenz]

1060 6 GB = 970 (in the most of the situations) from a performance perspective.

Edited November 26, 2016 by lowenz

[Taquito]

 

1. unfortunately this is gonna bottleneck ANY gfx card you buy due to ist low floating point performance.
2. This is the on-board GPU built into the A10-5700, its perf is equivent tyo a Geforcve 840M = very low end so perf in The Darkmod isnt gonne be poor
3. Whats the full spec of your current system..?, case, motherboard, power supply, monitor size etc

 

 

 

Honestly I got no idea. I'm not tech savvy at all. It's a HP Pavilion p7-1451 If that's of any help. I got a really small monitor so I don't think that would be a problem.

Edited November 26, 2016 by Taquito

[Taquito]

Thanks for all of your advice. I already saw some demo videos and info about this Card and I think Ill go with the one all of you suggested (The 1060). I'm not a huge fan of super graphics and I mostly play old school games and help testing mods and such things. Mostly, I want no lag in Dark Mod cause lag really breaks the immersion in this game particularly. It does concern what Biker said tho.

[Bikerdude]

I'm not the most tech savvy, but I would say anything anything like the Nvidia 980

His system wont be able to take advantage of this kind of the 980, due to the CPU and the PSU.

 

• It's a HP Pavilion p7-1451 If that's of any help.
• I got a really small monitor so I don't think that would be a problem.

• Ok so pertinent facts are: Micro ATX case, single PCIe 2.0 x16 slot & 300W PSU - so this limits what you can fit physically & electrically.
• That helps keep the perf up due to lower screen resolution.

A GTX1060 is really, the only obvious option - its has a TDP of 120W (Watts), and along with your CPU which has a TDP of 100W - that leaves 80W for everything else etc. As you have a such a small case you will need to go for a short version of this card, see below. Just make sure the PSU has a PCIe 6pin connector or failing that 2x free 4pin molex connectors -

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487263&cm_re=GTX_1060-_-14-487-263-_-Product

 

[lowenz]

GeForce 1060 is, in both version, a lovely card

IMHO the 3 GB version is perfect if found @200$/E.

[s.urfer]

The questions are, while the GTX1060 is one of the best offers for 300, do you

a ) need it?

b ) have the means to use it?

How much of an improvement do you need? Two times, five times, ten times? Does your PSU offer the aforementioned additional power connectors?

When I converted my Fujitsu workstation to a playstation, I was confronted with an proprietary PSU, offering no additional power connectors whatsoever. I put in an Zotac GTX 750TI, which doesn't need any external power connectors and is relatively quiet. The Dark Mod runs smoothly, as do most current 3d titles, as long as I don't turn the eye candy to maximum.

Card was €115 and I'm happy with it.

Just another thought

Edited November 26, 2016 by s.urfer

[lowenz]

The 750 Ti was a great card (I have it), BUT its GPU is only DX12 feature level 11.1.....not real 12 You got DX12 basic improvements but not the perfect match to advanced features of those APIs.

Kind of a modern version of "GeForce 4 MX" cards (lol) a pumped GeForce 2 in disguise.

 

My old 7850 (GCN 1.0) is feature level 12.1.....

Edited November 26, 2016 by lowenz

[duzenko]

1060 is a perfect answer to the original answer but I too think that 750ti (or 7850 if your PSU can handle it) will be a reasonable upgrade from integrated HD 7660D.

If I had to do the same choice I would go with a 750Ti and spend the rest of the money on a SSD.

[Bikerdude]

1. While a nice card, the 750Ti has been superseded by the 1050Ti and the 4gb version can be found for 130
2. The 3gb version of the 1060 can be found for 200 and the 6Gb version 250.

So IMHO one of the best bang for buck option's is buy the 4GB GTX 1050ti and then buy a 256Gb Samsung 850 evo, this will give your whole system a boost. You still have plenty of money left over from your $300 budget.

[lowenz]

 

So IMHO one of the best bang for buck option's is buy the 4GB GTX 1050ti and then buy a 256Gb Samsung 850 evo, this will give your whole system a boost. You still have plenty of money left over from your $300 budget.

 

Exactly my choice Biker, but I can suggest a more affordable Crucial MX200 (256 or 512 GB). It's on this system I'm writing from and after some months I can't image a more suitable upgrade.

No particular problems found with the lastest firmware.

Edited November 26, 2016 by lowenz

[duzenko]

I did not know 1050ti is around already. Of course it's much more attractive.

[Bikerdude]

Exactly my choice Biker, but I can suggest a more affordable Crucial MX200 (256 or 512 GB).

The 850 Evo is on sale for 79 atm and it murders the MX200 on random read and writes.

[Taquito]

You guys are doing great at getting me confused. Please explain to me in potatoes and beans how the 1050Ti compares to the 1060 and why do I need to combine the 1050Ti with an SSD? I don't even know what an SSD is;

[Bikerdude]

1. You guys are doing great at getting me confused.

Please explain to me in potatoes and beans how the 1050Ti compares to the 1060

and why do I need to combine the 1050Ti with an SSD?

I don't even know what an SSD is;

1. Aplogies

The 1050Ti 2/3rds the performance of the 1060 and this is reflected in the price. The reason for recommanding it is due to the low screen resolution of your monitor and the fact you have an AMD CPU. After the 1050Ti was suggested I realised there wasent much point getting the 1060 over the 1050Ti because -

• Any Gfx card you upgrqade too ias going to be a vast improvement over the GPU built into the AMD processor.

Low Screen res = means less GPU (gfx card) processing power is required, so thew lower cost 1050Ti is more than adequate here.

AMD cpu = gfx cards dont scale well in term's of performance on current generation AMD CPU's due to lower floating point performance compared to Intel processors.

The idea was that, the money you saved on not buying the 1060 would be better spent on upgrading another part of your system - in thise case the hard drive for a much much faster one.

SSD =Solid State Drive versus HDD = Hard Disk Drive,

• An SSD is an order of magnitude faster than any HDD. In layman's terms your PC will boot from cold in 30-60 seconds, compared to 1-2mins. Doing things in windows will be much more responsive and zippier, programs and games will load faster.

Once you have an SSD you will NEVER go back to a old mechanical HDD for your main drive ever again.

What most people do is have an SSD for there C drive and thier old HDD as the D drive. I myself have my 256GB SSD as C: and E: (system, games) and a 1TB HDD for D: (documents, downloads, movies, pictures)

[s.urfer]

The 1050Ti looks very interesting indeed. So interesting, that I started contemplating replacing the Quadro 2000 in the other workstation with it Only worry would be the 75W, which is stretching the specification to the limit... (GTX750Ti is 60W)

 

Speaking of SSDs, I changed over to them a couple of years ago for the system drives and the only drawback I can see is the price. Most astonishing is, that they not only are much more responsive than an mechanical disk, they also stay that way over time.

[lowenz]

Over time but not when nearly-full

 

HDD responsiveness is not available space-dependent (if regularly defragmented).

Edited November 27, 2016 by lowenz

[Anderson]

 

HDD responsiveness is not available space-dependent (if regularly defragmented).

Could you please, kindly rephrase this sentence? Read it 10 times and can't quite get the message. I defragment often.

[lowenz]

Could you please, kindly rephrase this sentence? Read it 10 times and can't quite get the message. I defragment often.

HDD responsiveness is not ***available space***-dependent .

SDD is. Full SSD -> Slow SSD

 

HDD has always the same responsiveness, IF defragmented.

Edited November 27, 2016 by lowenz

[Bikerdude]

HDD responsiveness is not available space-dependent (if regularly defragmented).

HDD has always the same responsiveness, IF defragmented.

But even a nearly full SSD out perfs any mechanical HDD even on thier best day,

[lowenz]

But even a nearly full SSD out perfs any mechanical HDD even on thier best day,

Of course, just being clear