Gaming Help me pick out a new graphics card?

Bobbyloujo

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I've been having some trouble thinking of what to get for Christmas this year. The only thing on my list as of now is a few games and possibly a new DS Lite for my homebrewin' needs. So, I was playing Skyrim (my brother pirated bought it and installed it on my computer) and when it automatically chose graphics settings it put it on Ultra High. I noticed a bit of lag so I had to turn down the shadow quality. I still notice a little lag every now and again so I decided to look at better graphics cards.

My computer's current specs are:

AMD Athlon II 2.8 GHz Quad Core processor
4GB of RAM
Radeon HD 5570 with 1GB of VRAM

Unfortunately, this year's Christmas budget is probably pretty small so if I were to get a new graphics card it would have to be about $100 or less. I did some searching and I found this card. I'm not savvy enough with graphics cards to know if this is a good deal. I'm also a bit confused. I thought ATI made Radeon graphics cards, so what is this 'HIS' company about? Also, I thought the HD 6570 had 1GB of RAM so how can this have 2GB? Please do enlighten me with all your knowings of graphics cards :)

Anyway, if you have any suggestions as to what I should get, let me know. Also, it would need to have both a VGA and a DVI port because one of my monitors can only use a VGA port.
 

kevan

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Ok firstly ATI develop the cards and then other people sell them off (they also do some other work on the card itself I think :unsure:).
Secondly you can get higher GB cards within the same model.
 

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HIS are fairly good, I've worked with a few of them over the past. Sapphire tends to be the best, but are priced higher. ASUS graphics cards tend to have extra features when used with an ASUS motherboard. However in the end, they're all just design tweaks and factory over clocks from the basic design by ATI/AMD (ATI no longer exist, it's AMD now).

The more money you put into you graphics card, the better performance you get, regardless of third party branding. The most popular graphics card is the GTX 560 Ti.
 

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I dont think this card will bring you much performance over if any over your old card so I would save money to buy a better card later if I where you as this wont really help you much.
for example this card is in the end only 40$ and really is really a massive upgrade while the card you are looking at now is not much of an upgrade over your old card. alternatively you could look into this card, it is good enough for all games be it that you sometimes have to run them on medium like with battlefield 3 for example but other than that it will run everything perfectly fine, its only a little bit more expensive and still a huge improvement
 

marcus134

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Just pointing out that the 6570 is a 5570 +tweaks and 6k features. Your performance gain will be unnoticeable.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2011-entry-level-graphics/benchmarks,132.html
 

Zetta_x

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Make sure whatever you are upgrading to, the rest of your setup will support. If you don't have a decent case with decent cooling or airflow, don't get a good card.
 

Bobbyloujo

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HIS are fairly good, I've worked with a few of them over the past. Sapphire tends to be the best, but are priced higher. ASUS graphics cards tend to have extra features when used with an ASUS motherboard. However in the end, they're all just design tweaks and factory over clocks from the basic design by ATI/AMD (ATI no longer exist, it's AMD now).

The more money you put into you graphics card, the better performance you get, regardless of third party branding. The most popular graphics card is the GTX 560 Ti.
Thanks, good to know.

I dont think this card will bring you much performance over if any over your old card so I would save money to buy a better card later if I where you as this wont really help you much.
for example this card is in the end only 40$ and really is really a massive upgrade while the card you are looking at now is not much of an upgrade over your old card. alternatively you could look into this card, it is good enough for all games be it that you sometimes have to run them on medium like with battlefield 3 for example but other than that it will run everything perfectly fine, its only a little bit more expensive and still a huge improvement
Thanks for the suggestions. I'll have a look at these.

Just pointing out that the 6570 is a 5570 +tweaks and 6k features. Your performance gain will be unnoticeable.
http://www.tomshardw...hmarks,132.html
This is why I came to you guys for help. Good thing I didn't assume that a higher model number meant much better performance xD

Make sure whatever you are upgrading to, the rest of your setup will support. If you don't have a decent case with decent cooling or airflow, don't get a good card.
What would be considered good airflow? My machine's case has a fan in the back (duh) and a large area on one side is covered in holes. I feel cool air when I put my hand next to the holes.
 

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The cool air you are feeling would be air being sucked into the case. "good airflow" typically means at least one intake fan at the front and one exhaust fan at the back. This way, the air inside is constantly moving and there are no pockets of hot air generated by the graphics card. What you described would be a low budget case with only minimal cooling.

As an example, if you put a HD 6970 in there, it would likely become far too hot and eventually damage the components.

Additionally, computers with cheap cases tend to come with low wattage power supplies. When upgrading a graphics card to one a tier higher than your current one (e.g. 5570 to 5770) always check that your power supply can support a more powerful card.
 

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6850/6870 is your best bet right now dude. crossfire them and the performance increase is anywhere from 30%-120%. majority of games got atleast a 50% or more increase when crossfired in benchmarks, google for yourself.
 

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6850/6870 is your best bet right now dude. crossfire them and the performance increase is anywhere from 30%-120%. majority of games got atleast a 50% or more increase when crossfired in benchmarks, google for yourself.
No, just no, do not follow this advice.

One of those cards would be enough to play. Using two in CrossFire is the worst thing you can do. Firstly, your case would become an oven and the parts inside would melt. Secondly I doubt your PSU is strong enough to feed two graphics cards. Thirdly, multiGPU setups invite micro stuttering which is visually bad when playing games. Finally, it would be much more expensive than it's worth.
 

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When I upgraded my graphics card in an old HP case, on idle my temps were around 45C and reach 80+ while stress testing it. Now the temperatures are about 32C and get to at most 60C (gtx 460)
 

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Bah :/ Well, my temp right now is 58C and I'm just sitting here playing Minecraft... I guess I shouldn't get a new card then. Maybe I'll just ask for a Supercard DSTWO instead...
 

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6850/6870 is your best bet right now dude. crossfire them and the performance increase is anywhere from 30%-120%. majority of games got atleast a 50% or more increase when crossfired in benchmarks, google for yourself.
No, just no, do not follow this advice.

One of those cards would be enough to play. Using two in CrossFire is the worst thing you can do. Firstly, your case would become an oven and the parts inside would melt. Secondly I doubt your PSU is strong enough to feed two graphics cards. Thirdly, multiGPU setups invite micro stuttering which is visually bad when playing games. Finally, it would be much more expensive than it's worth.
No to this also. Get those 2 6850's.Do not fret.
 

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6850/6870 is your best bet right now dude. crossfire them and the performance increase is anywhere from 30%-120%. majority of games got atleast a 50% or more increase when crossfired in benchmarks, google for yourself.
No, just no, do not follow this advice.

One of those cards would be enough to play. Using two in CrossFire is the worst thing you can do. Firstly, your case would become an oven and the parts inside would melt. Secondly I doubt your PSU is strong enough to feed two graphics cards. Thirdly, multiGPU setups invite micro stuttering which is visually bad when playing games. Finally, it would be much more expensive than it's worth.
No to this also. Get those 2 6850's.Do not fret.
We get it, you're a proud user of a crossfire setup.

However this isn't for everyone, first, I have a hard time understanding how can you make such recommendation blindly, without knowing if the op's mobo support crossfire and the psu power rating. ( and the case)
secondly, the op was looking at a 6570, it should appear quite clearly that he doesn't want to spend 300/350$ on his computer.

Now, the cold truth about crossfire/sli, it isn't compatible with every game and will give you somewhere between 0-100% gain over a single card.(hard to predict)
http://www.tomshardw...,2671.html?prod[5072]=on&prod[4825]=on

the micro stuttering issue depend on the user's eye, the game, drivers and 3d-settings, which makes it pretty hard to qualify. some games (like BF3) are more known for this issue than other. But despite having high frame rate, micro stuttering will give the impression of playing with lower frame rate.
http://www.tomshardw...ire,2995-4.html
 
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