Upgrading PC - Graphics card

UnitedBoy

Redcafe Yahoo Pool champion 2007
Joined
Mar 16, 2006
Messages
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decided to upgrade my pc in order to run games (especially the old republic). i bought it a couple of years back with a 22inch screen it also runs blu ray..

recently upgraded the ram from 1.8 to 4gb

have a raedon 3200 hd which i have read are crap..

So if anyone could recomend a new graphic card for gaming (also blu ray) for around 150£ or preferably under would be appreciated.
 
total output - 300 watts. does that sound alright ?
 
UnitedBoy said:
new power supply look fairly cheap, if i was to puchase a graphic card and new power would anything else need to be replaced? wires? processors?
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A new graphics card only handles a percentage of a games processes. It'll certainly help but your processor will need to take some of the grunt still.

4GB ram should be plenty, with that graphics card, if you had an i3 or an i5 processor you should run most things at least at medium settings, the only problem is, the chances are you'll need a new motherboard for the correct Processor socket... then it starts getting expensive.
 
i have an athlon II x2 215 processor.

Also a HEC power supply. Would i need to replace the supply with another HEC? how should i find out which supply fits my pc ?:devil:
 
To be honest buddy that's not a great processor nowadays, it sounds like your PC is dated and even getting a 450w PSU would be a bit risky, newer gfx cards like the one listed above are very power intensive and to be extra safe I'd go 550w or 600w.

Really though, if you have the case already there and your new RAM, and you're up to spending £150 on a gfx card anyway then I would recommend a new CPU and mobo as well.

Pexbo, ocuk are a rip off, don't go near that card.

So if you want to run TOE well (which after beta testing can be very intensive, especially with a lot of players in a single area), presuming you have:

RAM, case (although is it pre built or made by you?), HD, DVD/blu ray drive...

SAPPHIRE TECHNOLOGY RADEON HD 6850 - 1 GB GDDR5 - PCI-EXPRESS 2.1 (11180-00-20R) review cheap prices RADEON HD 6850 - 1 GB GDDR5 - PCI-EXPRESS 2.1 (11180-00-20R) SAPPHIRE TECHNOLOGY best buy discount online uk shop - £108
AMD PHENOM II X4 960T - 3 GHZ, 6 MB L3 CACHE, AM3 SOCKET - BLACK EDITION (HD96ZTWFGRBOX) review cheap prices PHENOM II X4 960T - 3 GHZ, 6 MB L3 CACHE, AM3 SOCKET - BLACK EDITION (HD96ZTWFGRBOX) AMD best buy discount online uk shop - £87
ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO - AM3 SOCKET - 785G CHIPSET - ATX review cheap prices M4A785TD-V EVO - AM3 SOCKET - 785G CHIPSET - ATX ASUS best buy discount online uk shop - £56
AKASA ES POWER - 600W POWER SUPPLY review cheap prices ES POWER - 600W POWER SUPPLY AKASA best buy discount online uk shop - £39

That's around £290 total and from my own experiences all modern games will run on max settings on that no problem.
 
I'd echo most of what has been said above, your setup in general could do with replacing and in particular, as Cina says the processor.

Cina's suggested setup is, in my opinion, a bit too bargain bucket but it depends heavily on what you will be playing now and until you wanted to spend again. If however, money is your primary driver then that setup is good at the cost.
Critical point to check is whether that 4gb of ram is going to fit, compare the specs from your old motherboard to any new one to make sure, otherwise you'll be buying it again (which might be unavoidable anyway).

Cina, why do you think Overclockers are a rip-off? The 560Ti Pexbo suggested is a very good card at the moment, certainly capable of playing the latest releases (MW3, BF3, Skyrim) very well and compared against Scan, Ebuyer, Dabs etc Overclockers are the cheapest for the stated Asus version.

I always shop around for my bits, as you can invariably find each retailer will have a deal on a certain part that's better than the others but ultimately they're all fairly close on price.

BTW, if you're considering any of those games I've just mentioned within your future plans the 6850 won't give you max settings performance (not at above 30fps, anyway). it will still play then well but expect mid'range gfx settings.
 
I actually meant to post a 5850, not a 6850 (strangely the 5850 is a better card). I got the extreme version of that for £110 on pixmania when on offer and it runs absolutely everything on full for me. I've Skyrim on full HD on my 40" TV and a great FPS rate.

The 460Ti is good but depends on personal preference I guess, I've found the latest range of ATIs for around that price to be better cards.

4GB of ram is perfectly ok for modern gaming, CPU is more important because most games nowadays are fully utilizing multiple cores (hence, get a quad core) where as they're capped on RAM (Skyrim itself never uses more than 2GB), so unless you plan on running loads of apps at once then there's not much need.

It's not really a bargain bucket PC, it'll run everything and games nowadays are not really advancing in quality, and won't for a while to come. I was also under the assumption he was on a budget given he was planning on an upgrade and the price point for his gfx card. By all means go and recommend him a rig for £1000 ;)

EDIT: rip off is a strong word but they're not cheap, they've a good reputation as a site and that's why. I mean for proper cheap, check out hardwareversand.de - Startseite
 
cina said:
I actually meant to post a 5850, not a 6850 (strangely the 5850 is a better card). I got the extreme version of that for £110 on pixmania when on offer and it runs absolutely everything on full for me. I've Skyrim on full HD on my 40" TV and a great FPS rate.

The 460Ti is good but depends on personal preference I guess, I've found the latest range of ATIs for around that price to be better cards.

4GB of ram is perfectly ok for modern gaming, CPU is more important because most games nowadays are fully utilizing multiple cores (hence, get a quad core) where as they're capped on RAM (Skyrim itself never uses more than 2GB), so unless you plan on running loads of apps at once then there's not much need.

It's not really a bargain bucket PC, it'll run everything and games nowadays are not really advancing in quality, and won't for a while to come. I was also under the assumption he was on a budget given he was planning on an upgrade and the price point for his gfx card. By all means go and recommend him a rig for £1000 ;)

EDIT: rip off is a strong word but they're not cheap, they've a good reputation as a site and that's why. I mean for proper cheap, check out hardwareversand.de - Startseite
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Not looking to get him to spend any more than he wants to, I'm a firm believer in budget builds myself: I've never bought the latest specs, always stayed a level or two below top, to get better prices. It's just that sometimes the desire to play the "latest games" doesn't match peoples ability to spend and clarification is key to avoiding disappointment.
My current mainstay game is BF3 and I'm playing on a 4870 which is giving me mid 30's fps and is smooth as silk. Then again, BF3 is probably the best optimised game I've seen in an age.

As for memory not sure if you've mis-read my comment. I wasn't suggesting more just to make sure it was compatable. Your mobo link ended up on a page telling me it was no longer an offered product so I couldn't see the spec but as an AM3 board it's quite possibly DDR2 ram, which is 240 pin DIMM's. His old board could be DDR1 which is 184 pin DIMM's so the old memory wouldn't fit. Mind you memory is still cheap at the mo, so 4gb of DDR2 would only be around another 50 quid.
 
thanks for the responses guys, i have reconsidered and will be starting from scratch.

However, i really want blu ray, isit as simple as removing the drive from my current pc and adding it to the new ?

Does it matter which case i buy ? there are some pretty cheap ones that can be found but i am really looking for something with a HDMI slot (or can i add a slot to any case?).
CIT Mars Midi Tower Gaming Case with 2 x Red LED Fans & LED Display CSCITMARSR
is there anything wrong with this case?

Would there be anything i should snatch from my current setup ?

am i right in thinking, certain graphic cards are only compatible with certain processors.

i am now looking to spend up to £150 on any/each major component such as graphic card.

Any help would greatly be appreciated, and links even more so.
 
UnitedBoy said:
thanks for the responses guys, i have reconsidered and will be starting from scratch.

However, i really want blu ray, isit as simple as removing the drive from my current pc and adding it to the new ?

Does it matter which case i buy ? there are some pretty cheap ones that can be found but i am really looking for something with a HDMI slot (or can i add a slot to any case?).
CIT Mars Midi Tower Gaming Case with 2 x Red LED Fans & LED Display CSCITMARSR
is there anything wrong with this case?

Would there be anything i should snatch from my current setup ?

am i right in thinking, certain graphic cards are only compatible with certain processors.

i am now looking to spend up to £150 on any/each major component such as graphic card.

Any help would greatly be appreciated, and links even more so.
Click to expand...

What is the total amount you are looking to spend?
 
Pexbo said:
You could probably do with getting at least a 450 if you want a good graphics card in the as well.

Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti DirectCU II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card []

I'd recommend this though.
Click to expand...

That is actually the exact same gfx card a good friend of mine (who knows his stuff about computers) recommended I should buy. Always nice to have two very independent recommendations. :)

I'll be monitoring this thread, as I might go for a full upgrade as well and not just a gfx card. I've got a Intel core 2 duo E6600 @ 2.4GHz, so it might be time for an upgrade. :p
 
Asking for PC build advice in here is opening a can of worms! Seriously though there is lots of good advice to be found however, to get the best of that there's a lot of info needed, as follows:

1. How much will you spend in total
2. Will you use existing screen, speakers, mouse, keyboard or do they have to be replaced
3. Exact spec of current parts to see what is transferable
4. What do you want from the new PC, what games etc

Point 3 will be the hardest to cover if your knowledge is limited but from what you have said so far the blue-ray drive, hard drive and RAM memory are the only likely contenders for transfer. The blue-ray and HDD can definitely be used, the memory comes down to pin compatibility.

Answer those 4 questions & you'll get a flurry of responses, including mine!

BTW, the HDMI feature is built into the graphics card not the case, so it will be a factor in specifying the gfx card.
 
UnitedBoy said:
thanks for the responses guys, i have reconsidered and will be starting from scratch.

However, i really want blu ray, isit as simple as removing the drive from my current pc and adding it to the new ?

Does it matter which case i buy ? there are some pretty cheap ones that can be found but i am really looking for something with a HDMI slot (or can i add a slot to any case?).
CIT Mars Midi Tower Gaming Case with 2 x Red LED Fans & LED Display CSCITMARSR
is there anything wrong with this case?

Would there be anything i should snatch from my current setup ?

am i right in thinking, certain graphic cards are only compatible with certain processors.

i am now looking to spend up to £150 on any/each major component such as graphic card.

Any help would greatly be appreciated, and links even more so.
Click to expand...

How old is it? And was it built yourself or did you buy it?

If you bought it off a manufacturer then there won't be much you can use, they custom build a lot of their own cases so that new parts can't be put in.

If you built it yourself; case, RAM, HD, DVD drive are your best bets.
 
thanks again. I bought the computer about 2 years ago from qvc (thought it was a good idea at the time.) Today's Special Value: MESH Windows 7 22" Widescreen 500GB HD Desktop w/ 2.1 Speakers & Blu-ray Drive

The 22 inch screen is very nice and wish to keep it, however i would really like to connect the new build to the tele (hence the hdmi slot required)

The wireless logtech mouse and keyboard work fine as do the hercules speakers but will probably change in time..
My budget to build the whole thing is 300-400 £.
Mostly games, internet surfing, university work. Probably be playing the old republic majority of the time but would like the option to be able to play others such as battlefield.



Processor
AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 215 Processor, 2700 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)

Installed Physical Memory
(RAM) 4.00 GB

Harddrive
Samsung 500GB SATA

Graphics
Radeon HD 3200

also says "high definition audio device"


All this can go into any medium sized case?
 
some good info in this thread for you to take but in my opinion everyone is being naive in suggesting you parts when to me, its obvious you would struggle to put those parts together. Building a computer is by no means impossible for you, but it does require yourself to gain some understanding of the parts inside. my advice to you would be go away, read up some more about the process involved and naturally through that you will learn roughly what ball park your parts should be, either that or buy a pre built but not from pc world/comet/currys/dell and the likes(dell not so bad but they are hard to upgrade in the future) i would suggest Overclockers.co.uk personally but there are many other online shops like that.
 
scottish_red said:
some good info in this thread for you to take but in my opinion everyone is being naive in suggesting you parts when to me, its obvious you would struggle to put those parts together. Building a computer is by no means impossible for you, but it does require yourself to gain some understanding of the parts inside. my advice to you would be go away, read up some more about the process involved and naturally through that you will learn roughly what ball park your parts should be, either that or buy a pre built but not from pc world/comet/currys/dell and the likes(dell not so bad but they are hard to upgrade in the future) i would suggest Overclockers.co.uk personally but there are many other online shops like that.
Click to expand...

Scottish has a point, no offence intended but your knowledge is limited so a self build might be daunting for you but it's not impossible. Follow the instructions that come with the motherboard and you can build a PC yourself. I was in your boat with my first and it went together well and more improtantly worked first time & never failed.

At your suggested budget a pre-build will be tight, just using Overclockers as an example this is their cheapest "gaming systems":

Titan Xenomorph at £446

The spec is okay but you can put together a better selection of parts if you're willing to get out the screwdriver!

I'll pull together a list of essential bits and see what the numbers add up to and post something up later on. Maybe Cina will finish off his earlier suggestion as that's a very good starting point.
 
Building the pc will be achieved, Of course i would like to attempt to do it myself but very unlikely. My father has alot of experience and made quite a number of them down the line. however this was over 3 years ago and is not in touch with the new updated systems, so is unsure of any decent components to reccomend. My cousin is a wiz kid, it is his job and his life. Hes one of those "nerdy fat blokes with glasses who sits on his computer all day" hes done this since..well as long as ive known him. He is always willing to help out and could probably build it in half hour.
He would reccomend many things to go inside, but is very busy and i basically would have to book an appointment to speak to him (or to help make the pc).

There is more a difficulty of knowing which parts is required for what i want from the pc, and the best options for my money.
 
It's absolutely cake to build a pc UnitedBhoy, don't be worried whatsoever. You just plug shit into where it's supposed to go. You can even Youtube it if you're unsure. There are only a few essentials to plug in, it will take you all of 5 minutes if you watch a Youtube vid. The only thing that you might be worried about is by the end of it you have some spare plugs knocking about inside your case and are worried you've missed something off. These are just extra wires in case you put in more than 1 graphics card, have more than 1 hard drive, etc etc.

Seriously, it's piss easy. You can even watch an instructional video on Youtube at the same time if you have a laptop.

Screw in PSU, connect the 8 pin plug onto the motherboard, connect the massive 24 pin plug onto the motherboard, then connect the leads coming out of your PSU to each drive you have, and your graphics card. It's all labelled so it goes with a corresponding slot on your motherboard.

Connect your CPU fan to the bit on the motherboard that says CPU_FAN

Connect your chassis fan to the bit on the motherboard that says CHA_FAN

Connect your front panel to the front panel bit in the bottom right hand corner of the motherboard.

Slot all your graphics cards etc into their slots.

It sounds like hard work, but all it is is plugging shit in. The parts on the motherboard are labelled to make it easy for you and there are videos online showing you how to do it. Don't panic or sweat it at all.
 
What he said.

Avoid static though, don't wear socks or rub balloons on your head, and tough something attached to the ground (radiator etc) every now and again. it's amazing how easily static can feck it up.
 
whilst i agree with zarlak that it is relatively easy to build a pc, for someone who has never built a pc before you can and you will encounter some hiccups along the way. Its not as cut and dry as zarlak has made out which is why i suggest you read up on the particular motherboard and case you choose or as zarlak has suggested, youtube.

For example most newer cases have the front panel headers in a convenient block but then there are still loads out there that have them split individually, get the + and - pin headers the wrong way around and when you press the power button nothing will happen. So you end up scratching your head, checking all power cables and even wondering if one your parts is dead on arrival when a simple switching of the pin headers is all thats required. Now thats just one example and even after the physical hardware side of things are done, there are bios settings you need to play with.

so by all means build the pc yourself, in fact i recommend it as its good practice and far more rewarding, whilst being cheaper but dont think its a case of bish bang bosh and viola.

in terms of parts wise, i always says this and i cant reiterate it enough, dont skimp on a cheapo power supply. Power supplies are the single most likely thing in your PC to pack up and with a cheap one, it could take other components with it.

Other points to note, that RAM you bought recently for your current pc, isnt likely going to be of any use in a newer build/motherboard so you will need to factor in a new set with your budget and if your getting a new CPU, dont forget to add another £5 for thermal paste.

£300 is optimistic at best even for a budget build, £400-500 is more about right considering what you would need.
 
Is the Saphire 5850 Xtreme better than the Saphire HD 6770? As I can get the 6770 for £94 on clearance whilst the 5850 Xtreme is about £10-£15 more. I don't mind spending the little extra if it's the better card.

**B Grade** Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6770 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE DIRT3 Game []

I always used Nvidea.



Infact scratch that, it looks like the 5850 Xtreme isn't sold anymore.
Sapphire 6850 for £99, vs Sapphire 6870 at £128 vs ASUS GTX 560Ti for £169.99.

Is the GTX that much better than the 6770/6850? If it's not really then I'll save the £70 and buy one of the 2 Radeons.
 
Don't be fooled by bigger numbers, the 5850 is a superior card.

I have the extreme, there's no game out there I haven't been able to run on highest in full HD yet.
 
Just updated, can't get the Xtreme anymore :( It's clearance so they apparantly don't make them anymore.

What about the other 3 I posted? I went looking about and found out the 5850 ran faster, had a bigger bus and had a much better power consumption but it's a shame they don't make it any more.

I'm using atm a new built

Windows 7 64 Bit Home
Corsair TX750M PSU
8GB Kingston HyperX RAM
Core i5 2500K
ASUS P8Z68 V-Pro
?? GPU

Want to run The Old Republic, BF3 and other up and coming releases on as high settings as possible with good FPS and not struggling. Just wondering which of the Sapphire 6850 for £99 / Sapphire 6870 at £128 / ASUS GTX 560Ti for £169.99 to get.
 
Just purchased an XFX 6870 HD. Lifetime warranty.

So hopefully this will do me for now...

Windows 7 64 Bit Home
Corsair TX750M PSU
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO GEN3
Intel Core i5 2500K
CoolerMaster HYPER 212 EVO
8GB Kingston HyperX RAM
XFX HD 6870 1GB
... for TOR, BF3 and any other up coming games without having to upgrade again.

Thanks to cina for the help.
 
Zarlak said:
Just updated, can't get the Xtreme anymore :( It's clearance so they apparantly don't make them anymore.

What about the other 3 I posted? I went looking about and found out the 5850 ran faster, had a bigger bus and had a much better power consumption but it's a shame they don't make it any more.

I'm using atm a new built

Windows 7 64 Bit Home
Corsair TX750M PSU
8GB Kingston HyperX RAM
Core i5 2500K
ASUS P8Z68 V-Pro
?? GPU

Want to run The Old Republic, BF3 and other up and coming releases on as high settings as possible with good FPS and not struggling. Just wondering which of the Sapphire 6850 for £99 / Sapphire 6870 at £128 / ASUS GTX 560Ti for £169.99 to get.
Click to expand...


i was about to post my new build which i plan to start buying today, then i noticed its nearly identical to yours.. However im looking to purchase the radeon 6950 2gb. and corsair vengence 8gb ram instead of kingston. Any suggestions on this ? How does your pc run most games? did you purchase a graphic card afterwards?
 
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