Graphics Card Recommendations?

[KittyLee]

I wish to turn my Windows 7 desktop computer into a bit of a gaming PC. Currently, it has an Intel Core i5-4460 processor and an Intel HD Graphics 4600 graphics card. I want to get a new graphics card first, but I don't know what to get. I want one that's good, but not too too expensive, but mainly I'm worried newer graphics cards won't be compatible with Win7 (Is this even an issue?). I want to be able to run Minecraft with shaders at 60fps.

 

[Hayato213]

I believe you can use up to like AMD 6900XT and Nvidia 3090.

 

[KittyLee]

I believe you can use up to like AMD 6900XT and Nvidia 3090.

That helps a lot! Thanks! Do you think AMD or Nvidia would be better?

 

[BigPanda]

You can install Windows 10 on your machine and purchase an pre-owned GeForce 1070 if you don't want to spend too much money.

 

[KittyLee]

You can install Windows 10 on your machine and purchase an pre-owned GeForce 1070 if you don't want to spend too much money.

I despise Win10. I went back to Win7 on purpose.

 

[Kazesama]

you can calculate the bottleneck (gpu vs your cpu) using website like this: https://pc-builds.com/bottleneck-calculator/result/0zY174/1/general-tasks/1920x1080/

my suggestion would be the RX580 8gb or a gtx 1080/ti. (you can grab these for cheap used)
https://pc-builds.com/bottleneck-calculator/result/0zY0Uu/1/general-tasks/1920x1080/

But if you plan on upgrading the rest of the system, then you could get a beefier GPU.

 

[Tenshi_Okami]

I wish to turn my Windows 7 desktop computer into a bit of a gaming PC. Currently, it has an Intel Core i5-4460 processor and an Intel HD Graphics 4600 graphics card. I want to get a new graphics card first, but I don't know what to get. I want one that's good, but not too too expensive, but mainly I'm worried newer graphics cards won't be compatible with Win7 (Is this even an issue?). I want to be able to run Minecraft with shaders at 60fps.

you got any idea on what you would be willing to spend?

 

[KittyLee]

you can calculate the bottleneck (gpu vs your cpu) using website like this: https://pc-builds.com/bottleneck-calculator/result/0zY174/1/general-tasks/1920x1080/

my suggestion would be the RX580 8gb or a gtx 1080/ti. (you can grab these for cheap used)
https://pc-builds.com/bottleneck-calculator/result/0zY0Uu/1/general-tasks/1920x1080/

But if you plan on upgrading the rest of the system, then you could get a beefier GPU.

Ooooh! That's really helpful! Thanks a lot! I guess I might need to get a better processor huh? Graphics card first though, I'll figure out the other stuff after.

Post automatically merged: Aug 27, 2023

you got any idea on what you would be willing to spend?

Less than $300 hopefully.

 

[Tenshi_Okami]

Less than $300 hopefully.

you don't mind used parts?

 

[KittyLee]

you don't mind used parts?

No I don't mind! Might even prefer to buy used.

 

[Tenshi_Okami]

No I don't mind! Might even prefer to buy used.

I went ahead and built a list with all new parts so you have an idea on how much it would be a fairly good upgrade on a budget: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/d7Kf89

This is basically the current rig I'm running, I've yet to run into any issues running a game at ~90 FPS on High, I even finished Cyberpunk 2077 on this with high graphics at ~90 fps (thanks to FSR)

Here's a video of someone benchmarking the same build on many different games:

I also added a SSD, you can definitely remove it, but if you can spare the 30$ for it, highly recommended

You can definitely consider getting the GPU first, but if I can recommend, get the PSU along with the GPU mainly because your rig seems to be a bit old, and the last thing you want is that you put the GPU in the rig, and the PSU gives and takes the GPU along with it

Post automatically merged: Aug 27, 2023

in relation with the Windows 7 issue, what makes you despise it? Overall, most new GPU drivers dont tend to support Windows 7 anymore sadly, and stuff like Shaders tend to like modern GPUs more than older ones, I could recommend a GPU that still works on windows 7, but it'll most probably end up going obselete sooner or later.

 

[thominho]

If you want AMD go for 6700 or 6750 XT or 7600 or 7700 if you want to wait about 2 weeks
If you want NVIDIA go for 3070 or 3070 ti or 4060

In my country they are both about 300-600 euros depending the fans and as you understand the cooling solution for the GPU. Running hotter due less fans means cheaper

EDIT: I have a previous of yous GEN pc with I5-3570K with an AMD 390X. I run Call of Duty MW2 at medium 1050p (not mistake here) over 60fps. So RX 67xx series and RTX 307x series may be perfect

 

[tech3475]

I despise Win10. I went back to Win7 on purpose.

Depending on the games you want to play or what you want to do, you may want to look at Linux, as such I've heard AMD can be better than Nvidia on the latter due to more open drivers.

 

[Deleted member 320071]

At most get something like a RX6650/RTX2060, the cpu will definitely be a bottleneck for current 1080p cards. It's a pretty old cpu and it wont meet the system requirements for newer games. Ryzen equivalent is the original Ryzen 5 1600. If looking for a cheap card then a RX6400 can do minecraft with shaders, maybe an RX580. You might want to get at least the RX6400 as the RDNA 2 cards are going to get frame generation soon for all DX11 DX12 games which will vastly improve framerate.

 

[Kazesama]

Ooooh! That's really helpful! Thanks a lot! I guess I might need to get a better processor huh? Graphics card first though, I'll figure out the other stuff after.

Yea the CPU is getting old now, but it really depends on the games you want to play. If your just wanting to play games maybe before 2020 or less demanding on hw specs, then a 1080 will do the job. I prefer nvidia in this case for their nvenc/nvdec for video playback/encoding.

 

[KittyLee]

I went ahead and built a list with all new parts so you have an idea on how much it would be a fairly good upgrade on a budget: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/d7Kf89

This is basically the current rig I'm running, I've yet to run into any issues running a game at ~90 FPS on High, I even finished Cyberpunk 2077 on this with high graphics at ~90 fps (thanks to FSR)

Here's a video of someone benchmarking the same build on many different games:

I also added a SSD, you can definitely remove it, but if you can spare the 30$ for it, highly recommended

You can definitely consider getting the GPU first, but if I can recommend, get the PSU along with the GPU mainly because your rig seems to be a bit old, and the last thing you want is that you put the GPU in the rig, and the PSU gives and takes the GPU along with it

Post automatically merged: Aug 27, 2023

in relation with the Windows 7 issue, what makes you despise it? Overall, most new GPU drivers dont tend to support Windows 7 anymore sadly, and stuff like Shaders tend to like modern GPUs more than older ones, I could recommend a GPU that still works on windows 7, but it'll most probably end up going obselete sooner or later.

ooh wow! That's so nice of you! Yeah I did a bit of research and heard I might need to upgrade the power supply, so I will do that at the same time as the graphics card.
As for Win10, I have it on my laptop and it feels like I have to fight it every step of the way to make it do basic things. I'm not allowed to uninstall useless stuff like Microsoft Edge and Cortana, there's telemetry everywhere, the web search in the search bar, and so on. I've had to go out of my way messing around in the registry and command box to disable and uninstall things. It sucks.

Post automatically merged: Aug 27, 2023

Depending on the games you want to play or what you want to do, you may want to look at Linux, as such I've heard AMD can be better than Nvidia on the latter due to more open drivers.

I did try Linux a while back. I dual-booted Linux Mint with Win7 (and broke it in the process due to a stupid mistake. I actually found it really amusing that I managed to break it so bad, and it was ok since there wasn't anything important on it.). Once I got it working, I immediately tried to download Portal. The download speeds from Steam were agonizingly slow no matter what I tried, and when it finally finished downloading, the textures were all messed up (probably because I was restarting the PC over and over while trying to fix the download speeds). The experience was so frustrating that I undid the dual-boot and went back to Win7. I may be willing to try Linux again in the future (I'm guessing it's only Steam that has this DNS issue, maybe if I had tried to get a game from a different source I would've had a better experience.), but not right now; I think dual-boot was a bit of a chore to set up and Linux was confusing.

 

[Tenshi_Okami]

As for Win10, I have it on my laptop and it feels like I have to fight it every step of the way to make it do basic things. I'm not allowed to uninstall useless stuff like Microsoft Edge and Cortana, there's telemetry everywhere, the web search in the search bar, and so on. I've had to go out of my way messing around in the registry and command box to disable and uninstall things. It sucks.

I'll be fully honest, there's a ton of ways you can remove a lot of stuff like telemetry like O&O ShutUp10, or windows 10 installations like LTSC where you would have less bloatware, and on W11 if you put your region as English/World, it will not install any bloatware that it brings(video attatched of what I'm talking about). In my opinion, W11 English/World mixed with O&O ShutUp11 seems like what you would want in your gaming setup

 

[AkikoKumagara]

you can calculate the bottleneck (gpu vs your cpu) using website like this: https://pc-builds.com/bottleneck-calculator/result/0zY174/1/general-tasks/1920x1080/

my suggestion would be the RX580 8gb or a gtx 1080/ti. (you can grab these for cheap used)
https://pc-builds.com/bottleneck-calculator/result/0zY0Uu/1/general-tasks/1920x1080/

But if you plan on upgrading the rest of the system, then you could get a beefier GPU.

I agree with this. Most of the modern GPUs (even at the mid-range) are going to bottleneck pretty hard on the Intel Core 4th-gen CPU, best to not leave performance on the table and just get something that pairs well with it and save some money in the process.

Otherwise, start funding for a whole system upgrade, imo. You're going to feel like you're gaming on a 10 year old computer as long as you're using that CPU, that's the truth of the matter. No GPU can fully make up for that.

 

[KittyLee]

I agree with this. Most of the modern GPUs (even at the mid-range) are going to bottleneck pretty hard on the Intel Core 4th-gen CPU, best to not leave performance on the table and just get something that pairs well with it and save some money in the process.

Otherwise, start funding for a whole system upgrade, imo. You're going to feel like you're gaming on a 10 year old computer as long as you're using that CPU, that's the truth of the matter. No GPU can fully make up for that.

Okie dokie!

 

[Murazik]

3090 is enough for all games, especially if you don't bother with 4k textures. Everything else will be more than enough for the next decade.