Whats a GOOD Graphics Card

Darren Jason O'Brien · Sep 27, 2011

Just wondering whats a GOOD Graphics Card,

I have a ATI Radeon HD5450 512MB, ive been told this may not be the best for gaming . Im having issues with FPS and stutter on Race 07/Evo but with MOD Cars and Tracks, but im looking at a few things as well.

What would be a better Graphics card to replace this..?

Thanx

Darren

Péter Bártfai · Sep 27, 2011

What are the specs of your PC? (especially CPU)
It depends a lot on that!

Peter · Sep 27, 2011

If you want AMD a 68xx or 69xx
For Nvidia a GTX 460 and up.

With a minimum of 1gb memory

Péter Bártfai · Sep 27, 2011

Yes, but if the CPU is not fast enough there is no point in buying an expensive card like those, unless you want to upgrade the PC completely.

Edit: I found your other thread Darren, so I see you have a single core P4 3,0GHz CPU. That's the problem. You could get a bit better performance from it with a HD5550 (not a huge improvement though), but over that card there's not really a point in buying anything for that CPU as it won't be powerful enough to get the maximum performance out of them. So if you really want to upgrade your performance, you should consider getting a new CPU and graphics card as well. From the price of a 69xx video card you can easily do that

Only if you really don't have much money to spend on your PC and you don't want to really upgrade the whole thing, buy a new graphics card. (but again it won't increase your performance much)

Edit 2: and at this point of course it's very important what motherboard you have? If it supports LGA775 Core 2 Duo processors you might be able to upgrade cheaply, but otherwise you might need to get a new motherboard as well.

BTW I had a feeling the CPU will be your problem as my current graphics card is weaker than yours (7600GS 128MB), and I only have problem on really long tracks with it.

Mike Sterckx · Sep 27, 2011

Péter Bártfai said:
Yes, but if the CPU is not fast enough there is no point in buying an expensive card like those, unless he wants to upgrade the PC completely.

Edit: I found your other thread, so I see you have a single core P4 3,0GHz CPU. That's the problem. You could get a bit better performance from it with a HD5550, but over that card there's not really a point in buying anything for that CPU as it won't be powerful enough to get the maximum performance out of them. So if you really want to upgrade your performance, you should consider getting a new CPU and graphics card both. From the price of a 69xx video card you can easily do that Only if you really don't have much money to spend on your PC and you don't want to really upgrade the whole thing, buy a new graphics card.

Edit 2: and at this point of course it's very important what motherboard you have? If it supports LGA775 Core 2 Duo processors you might be able to upgrade cheaply, but otherwise you might need to get a new motherboard as well.

BTW I had a feeling the CPU will be your problem as my current graphics card is weaker than yours (7600GS 128MB), and I only have problem on really long tracks with it.

Race 07 uses 1 core anyway as far as i know so in his case i think the gpu is the bottleneck rather then the cpu. I remember when i played race07 the first time in late 2007, i was running a pentium 4 - 2.8ghz with a 8800tgs 512mb and i had no problems running the game.

Mike Sterckx · Sep 27, 2011

As for a new graphics cards, it depends what your budget is. A good mainstream gaming graphics card today is either the Nvidia 560ti or an ATI 6950. They both cost arround 220€. But in your case i think upgrading the whole pc would be advisable.

Jim Cole · Sep 27, 2011

Race07 actually uses 2 of my 3 cores when I play, so I don't think that staying with a single core is going to do you any good. The CPU is definitely the bottleneck as the video card you have is fully capable of displaying 1680 X 1050 with all options turned up.

The art of system building is compromise and balance. If your system isn't balanced, then you suffer performance. This doesn't just cover CPU and GPU, it also covers ram, chipsets and OS too. You will definitely get more performance boost on your system by upgrading the motherboard and CPU before you upgrade your video card.

BTW, the best place that I have found to look at graphics cards and what is better than what is www.tomshardware.com
If you are in the market to purchase, find the articles titles "Best graphics card for the money" as they have reviews of the best bang for the buck in several price ranges. At the end of each article is a hierarchy chart showing the best to worst in performance, split with nVidia on the left and ATI on the right.

Darren Jason O'Brien · Sep 28, 2011

Thanx guys for all your advice, ill have to see what the wife says. I think she will go with what eva to hear me stop complaining about the Computer. lol.

Ill let u know in the future what i end up doing and what the outcome performance wise is..

Thanx

Darren

Amblin · Sep 28, 2011

Hi

The ATI 6950 (any make) is huge bang for the buck. Take on board what has been said about an adequate CPU, MOBO and RAM.

With any of these newer cards always remember to make sure that you have the space in case for them (as most are double height cards now and take up 2 slots and can run up to 30cm long) and that your PCie slot is 16x rated on the motherboard.

Also, always make sure your PC's PSU (power supply) will be able to deliver adequate power as the new cards like some electricity!

Good luck and game on!

Amblin

Darren Jason O'Brien · Oct 4, 2011

What im getting

Hey guys, ive taken on your suggestions and this is what im deciding to get.

CPU: CORE i7-2600 3.4GHZ X4 QUAD CORE, EIGHT THREAD, 8MB CHACHE TURBO BOOST TECHNOLOGY (BOOSTS SPEED UP TO 3.8GHZ PER CORE ON ITS OWN) (LATEST CORE i7 CHIP)

MOTHERBOARD: Gigabyte GA-H67MA-USB3B3 SATA3 (6GPS) DUAL PHASE POWER HD AUDIO 7.1CH Intel Mainboard (B3 Stepping)

RAM: G-SKILL RIPJAWS 16GB (4X4GB) GIG DDR3 RAM 1333MHZ SUPER FAST (HUGE 16GB DDR3)

HARD DRIVES: 2X SEAGATE 2TB SATA HARD DISK DRIVE (MASSIVE 4TB STORAGE)

CASE: Coolermaster Elite RC-335 with FRONT AND Rear BLUE LED FANS AND GLASS WINDOW

GRAPHICS CARD: 1GB DDR3 ATI RADEON 6570 PCI-E VGA Card WITH HDMI DVI and VGA supports 3 monitors at once and is Super Fast designed for gaming, graphic design and state of the art video editing. Directx-11and dual Graphics card compatible

Hopefully I wont have any issues now, only issue I do have is our new house has no internet so its Wireless, Not happy about that after we were told there was ADSL. See how that goes, otherwise they can shove it..

Aaron DeMarre · Oct 4, 2011

Looks like a nice setup, you will want to run a 64-bit OS else you won't be able to take advantage of all that RAM.

Kennett Ylitalo · Oct 4, 2011

And a landline, wireless is lousy for gaming. I think some have made it work but it suffers from lagspikes..

Darren Jason O'Brien · Oct 4, 2011

Yeah Im going to run Windows 7, 64bit. so should pur along nicely.

yeah not to keen on the wireless, Ill see how it goes, Im hoping with this new system that it can push the wireless a little, Time will tell..

Thank guys