Hardware Need a new GPU

[Tom Bombadildo]

If we're going for value, what about those AMD APUs?

APUs are nice for low budget rigs and laptops, but not really for gaming.

 

[Apache Thunder]

I've only built Intel/Nvidia PCs so I can't really say from experience what AMD/ATi card/CPU you should get but for $50 Facebook games is pretty much the only thing you'll be doing if you get a card in that price range.

I used to own a Nvidia GT 240 (which now resides in my mother's computer) and that thing couldn't run BF4 past 10 FPS at any resolution/quality level. I just got a GTX 650 which I think cost only $20-$30 more then what the GT240 was when I bought it and it performs a ton better. I'd recommend you wait till you get at least $100 for your video card as all the half way decent cards start out in that price range. As for the CPU...yes definitely sounds obsolete, so you will have to upgrade it. This probably means having to upgrade to newer RAM as well (I would happen to bet your machine uses DDR1 or DDR2 ram). DDR3 is what all the modern mobo's use now and are not backwards compatible. DDR4 is already on the horizon too.

So you might as well just build a new computer at this point. $50 will get you nowhere fast.

 

[Originality]

I find that if you're going to get a graphics card for less than $100, you're better off just using the Intel or AMD integrated graphics (the graphics in AMD APUs are about twice as good as Intels) and saving up until you can get a better graphics card. Personally I wouldn't get anything lower than a GTX 650 or Radeon HD7770. That's why I got the GTX 750 Ti for the build I made today.

Now for the promised review (albeit briefly):
Intel Core i5-4670K is nearly identical to my i5-2500K, which is to say it's about as good as it gets without HyperThreading. Does fairly well in my benchmarks, although I've yet to see if AMD Mantle is worth its hype.
EVGA GTX 750 Ti (SuperClocked) managed around 20fps in 3DMark's benchmark, which isn't amazing but good enough. Shows that it will play most games at high settings at playable speeds. Pretty good for a card that doesn't need any extra power from the PSU. A long way from the GTX 770 in my main PC, but considering this new system is for someone who doesn't play much games (instead does video editing), it'll do well.
Kingston V300 SSD: It's no Samsung 840 EVO, but still better than a HDD by a long shot.
Windows 8.1: Not nearly as obtuse as Windows 8. It doesn't get in my way (except for Skype not accepting my Skype ID), so I'll forgive its rocky start.
Aerocool Dead Silence Orange case: It's orange. Not my first choice of colours. Interesting how it keeps the motherboard horizantal instead of vertical, although I worry that the RAM will block the airflow to the CPU. Also the PSU compartment was cramped, but I could get my fingers behind it to get the modular ports, so I'll forgive it.

Since you have a WiiU (me too), you can just get Watchdogs on that when it's out. WiiU is supposed to be the "definitive version" or so the hype goes, due to the gamepad. That allows you to only get parts you really need/can afford.

 

[Jiehfeng]

Well I've decided to get a CPU and GPU each for around $200-$300.
I bet that's good yeah.
The CPU will be Intel Core i5-4670. I don't know what GPU to get, it needs to match the CPU properly without that bottleneck shit. ;o;
I saw people having GTX 660 with this CPU. Is that good? And later I'll get the rest of the components for a new PC.
1TB HDD, 8GB RAM (I'll need to ask what Ram should I get) and GIGABYTE GA-Z87X-UD3H as a motherboard. Does this sound good?

 

[Originality]

With nVidia, x20-40 is low end, x50-60 is mid-range, and x70-80 is high end. GTX 690 is dual-GPU (two graphics chips in one card). Ti versions are always better than non-Ti versions.
With AMD, R7 260X is low end mid-range, R9 270X is mid-range, and R9 280X and 290X are high end. The X versions indicate that they're designed for gaming.

Get 1600Mhz RAM minimum. Haswell gains a 5-15% boost in performance from higher RAM speeds (e.g. over 2000Mhz), but it's not important.
Your choice in motherboard is good. For slightly more, you can get an Asus Z87-PRO which has a slightly better feature set (including WiFi), if you care about such things.
EDIT: Slight correction. R7 260 is low end, 260X is mid-range (modded for gaming), and everything below is low end and shouldn't be touched with a barge pole.

 

[ElYubiYubi]

APUs are nice for low budget rigs and laptops, but not really for gaming.

I have been relying only on my A10-6800K for Gaming, Video Editing, etc and it works perfectly. And there's the new one.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

For a bit more, you could go with the GTX 760 instead of the 660. But yeah, Originality's post pretty much sums up choosing GPUs/RAM.

 

[Jiehfeng]

I think I'll go with AMD R9 260X since that's the max I can afford for a GPU.
Oh yeah, btw, how is the i5-4670's HD Graphics 4600? Just curious. Could I get a comparison table with other GPU's or something?

 

[ElYubiYubi]

I think I'll go with AMD R9 260X since that's the max I can afford for a GPU.
Oh yeah, btw, how is the i5-4670's HD Graphics 4600? Just curious. Could I get a comparison table with other GPU's or something?

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=HD+Graphics+4600

But if you really are interested in a On Board Graphic I suggest you the latest AMD APU
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=a10-7850k&sm=1

 

[Jiehfeng]

I'm gonna try to find the i5 in China, original. Some of the stuff on the net though, anyone know a online shopping site which sells these stuff and has international shipping? (excluding ebay)

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

Video Card Benchmark has a very nice list of Passmark scores for just about every GPU out there, so give that a look if you ever want to compare GPUs.

You could also use http://www.gpuboss.com/ to compare 2 GPUs to eachother as well.


EDIT: As for online stores that ship to Sri Lanka, I tried googling around but wow is it difficult to find a store that will...

 

[Apache Thunder]

Don't worry too much about the RAM speeds (not the video ram, the motherboard ram. ). From what I hear, only servers and APUs (computers with integrated graphics instead of the normal add-on card) really benefit from having faster ram. Though 1600Mhz ram isn't much different then 1333 when it comes to price so if you can afford it, go for it. Just don't waste your money on getting the ultra fast 2.4Ghz+ ram. You won't gain much from doing so and the faster ram you get the worse the latency for that ram will be. It's the unavoidable trade off. Unless you are into using Photoshop with very large images or something. Then at which case having faster ram might make those large images load faster.

The reason video cards have really fast ram compared to motharboard ram is that video cards today typically need a lot more bandwidth to load a large amount of textures, polygon data, and what not for the video games and so the latency of the ram isn't quite as important. Though I don't know if GDDR5 ram has the same latency slowdowns that normal ram does when at higher speeds. On that note, do NOT buy any video card that has DDR3 ram. It will only be a disappointment. GDDR5 is in all the good cards, so a card having DDR3 is a definite red flag.

 

[Originality]

Servers, APUs, and Haswell. As mentioned.

 

[Jiehfeng]

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

Video Card Benchmark has a very nice list of Passmark scores for just about every GPU out there, so give that a look if you ever want to compare GPUs.

You could also use http://www.gpuboss.com/ to compare 2 GPUs to eachother as well.


EDIT: As for online stores that ship to Sri Lanka, I tried googling around but wow is it difficult to find a store that will...

Ah that's very helpful. Thanks. It seems R9 270X is high end according to the first site u gave, yay!

Don't worry too much about the RAM speeds (not the video ram, the motherboard ram. ). From what I hear, only servers and APUs (computers with integrated graphics instead of the normal add-on card) really benefit from having faster ram. Though 1600Mhz ram isn't much different then 1333 when it comes to price so if you can afford it, go for it. Just don't waste your money on getting the ultra fast 2.4Ghz+ ram. You won't gain much from doing so and the faster ram you get the worse the latency for that ram will be. It's the unavoidable trade off. Unless you are into using Photoshop with very large images or something. Then at which case having faster ram might make those large images load faster.

The reason video cards have really fast ram compared to motharboard ram is that video cards today typically need a lot more bandwidth to load a large amount of textures, polygon data, and what not for the video games and so the latency of the ram isn't quite as important. Though I don't know if GDDR5 ram has the same latency slowdowns that normal ram does when at higher speeds. On that note, do NOT buy any video card that has DDR3 ram. It will only be a disappointment. GDDR5 is in all the good cards, so a card having DDR3 is a definite red flag.

I'm gonna get DDR3 1600MHZ (RAM, not GPU RAM). But what Brand?

 

[Originality]

Corsair, G.Skill, Crucial, Patriot, just about any RAM brand is fine. I get Corsair since they're the most well known, and the cheapest in my local market.

 

[Apache Thunder]

I use Corsair 1333 and had no issues at all with them. Kingston might be good too for budget. Branding isn't quite as hit and miss like it was back in the days of DDR1/DDR2, so it won't be make or break for you.

 

[Jiehfeng]

Welp, I can't find AMD R9 270X on ebay. Can someone give me a link to a good GPU for the i5-4670 which is below $150?