Video Card Upgrade Advice Needed !!

I'm thinking of upgrading my video card for the Last time, getting to old, Have many health problems. Anyway, I currently have the EVGA GEFORCE 2 GB GDDR5 ACX2.0 GTX 960. Works good, Can't turn up the settings on high, most on Medium, field of 20 cars, except NR-2003, field of 40 cars. Don't know much about video cards & PC's. My budget range is $ 200.00 to $300.00. Like to stay in that range. I don't need or want the best & fastest card on the planet. Just want better FPS & maybe better & sharper graphics. With Nvidia Profile Inspector, I have the FPS set at 50 for all games & Durge Driven's settings he suggested once over at No-Grip. They all look clear, still have this old 720 P monitor. Can't afford better now, till I hit the lottery, LOL !! I'm more interested in FPS so the games run smooth, doesn't have to look perfect. I only buy Nvidia cards. Here's one I found on Amazon,https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IPVSLTC/ref=nav_timeline_asin?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 All good reviews. has a single fan, but all said no over heating problems. Most of the reviews, they said they love it, runs all games on Max settings & it still runs great. IN the first review, (He said he downloaded the "Precision X" Bios from EVGA and updated the card. It's now faster then ever. Even on stock tune and no overclocking the card is now peaking at 2012mhz, WAY higher than advertised and higher than any stock clocked 1060 on the market. I'm loving this card more every day ). Anyone have any advice on this card or any other better ones, If not I'll probably buy this one, Love the reviews & Love the price !!!!!!! Thanks for any Help !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Hi,
Honestly I wouldn't only upgrade from one gen's x60 to the next gen's x60. The fps boost isn't worth the amount of money.
Look at this benchmark.
You'd get 24 fps for 250$ and 24+34=58 fps for 350$.
That's more than double the fps increase for less than 50% more money.
Sure, 350 bucks do hurt but it's better than throwing 250 bucks out of the window :)
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  • Deleted member 197115

Either get 10th series or wait for the next gen. 20th series are not worth asking price.
 
Thanks Andrew_WOT, guess I'll just forget updating for now. Can't afford any of the high tech cards right now. Really thought the 1060 or 1070 would make a bigger difference, from a 960 !!!! Thanks everyone for your help & suggestions. !!!!!!l!!!!
 
Thanks Andrew_WOT, guess I'll just forget updating for now. Can't afford any of the high tech cards right now. Really thought the 1060 or 1070 would make a bigger difference, from a 960 !!!! Thanks everyone for your help & suggestions. !!!!!!l!!!!
Nah don't forget about it that quickly :)
Here's a comparison between 1070 and 2060.

Screenshot_20190210-145537.png

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2019-01-16-geforce-rtx-2060-benchmarks-7001

You saw the jump between 960 to 1060 to 2060 and looking at this Screenshot you'll see, when looking at the average fps (I think the minimum was due to a cpu limit btw), that the 2060 is quite a bit better than the 1070.

If it's worth the 350 dollars is your decision to make but you'll almost double your fps compared to now. As long as your graphics card stays to be the bottleneck, I'd say it's worth it :)
 
  • Deleted member 197115

Interesting article with tactically omitted 1080 and 1080Ti. Wonder why.
 
I think I'm going with one of the RTX 2060's, after reading the article, not sure which one yet. It will be a big step up from my 960 & a couple hundred bucks cheaper, than the crazy prices they want for the 1080's. I don't play any of the games they tested anyway. I only have Sim racing games on my desk top PC. Not sure how Sim racing games compare with those tested. I'm only guessing, Sim racing might not be so FPS stealing.
 
I don't play any of the games they tested anyway. I only have Sim racing games on my desk top PC. Not sure how Sim racing games compare with those tested. I'm only guessing, Sim racing might not be so FPS stealing.
Check the fps you are getting now with your Sims at your PC. Then do some calculations and you'll know the fps the other cards will be capable of :)
In my linked picture at the top (that I can't see on my phone... Somehow..), 960 achieves 30 fps in the unigine benchmark. The 2060 achieves 87 fps.
So if you're getting 50 fps right now, a 2060 will achieve:
87/30 = 2.9
2.9*50 = 145 fps :)
Should be enough of an upgrade in my opinion!
 
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There's important data missing here, though...

@bigfoothunter What CPU do you have and what is your target resolution/framerate? You mention a 720p monitor, so I'm guessing you're aiming at 720p/60? But what CPU?

It doesn't make sense to invest in some kind of overkill card if you pair it with a slow CPU and run it at 720p, you might just be wasting your money on that 2060 (or 1080). I mean...if we're really talking 720p, then even that 1060 is more than capable of running pretty much any sim you can throw at it currently at 60+ fps (and most even higher) at 1080p, provided the CPU is not the bottleneck. And it costs almost half of what that 2060 costs.

Honestly, I'd say even your current 960 should do fairly well at 720p if paired with a solid CPU. What framerates do you generally get in sims? You say you have all your games set at 50 with nVidia Inspector, which I don't quite understand what that means, do you mean they all run at 50 (that'd be weird for all of them to run at the same framerate) or you're aiming for 50 (and getting less) or are you limiting the framerate at 50 (quite an odd number)? Perhaps there's something to do about your current setup to give you more performance, provided we understand what you current situation is.
 
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+1 above

CPU, memory amount and speed
and sims .........I think GTR2 , GTL rFactor ?


With Nvidia Profile Inspector, I have the FPS set at 50 for all games & Durge Driven's settings he suggested once over at No-Grip. They all look clear, still have this old 720 P monitor.

Other thing I am not sure of, do you want more fps and quality in sims in my Inspector settings so would be GTL/GTR2/rFactor/Race as I never used for much else OR do you want to be able to run later sims

Can you get a loan of 1080p monitor to test anywhere ?

Failing that you can set Nvidia DSR in control panel to 1920 resolution and get a
good idea of frame rate....................plus it will look a whole lot nicer especially on
a small screen ;)

In games I mentioned you should be able to do 60fps with a GTX960
if you have a 2014 CPU as well ...even dual core

( My inspector settings were pretty high you may only have to drop the AA a notch in settings )
I last made those with either GTX670 OC or GTX970 OC maybe even my GTX1070 OC, can't remember sorry, but longtime before NoGrip shut I think

edit:
900 series support DSR and is easy to use, test on gmotor sims
GTR2 will look awesome you will freak out
I not sure of DSR limit with a 720p monitor but I think you can do 4K
 
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(Just fired up GTR2 to check the framerate, just for the heck of it. Yeah, I'm getting some 290 fps at 1900x1200 with Level 2 AA on my GTX 970 :D Using the 10th anniversary update, I should probably add.)
 
Thinking about this it indeed makes sense that the 960 isn't the limiting factor.
I was only focused at a 1060 being 250$ and a 2060 being 350$. That's not really half the price. I only clicked on his link for Amazon and got a 2060 suggested there.
Here in Germany it would be 415+ Euro and the tables would turn.
Anyway, point stands that 960 to 1060 isn't really worth 250$.
You are correct though, that it's odd for a 960 to not be able to run 60+ fps at 720p!

I'm playing the last 5 assassin's creeds at 50 fps hdmi vsync on my TV btw. Cpu can't hold a steady 60 and TVs have no problem with 50 Hz :)
 
old 720 P monitor could have a slow response time won't help either
modern cheap TV do 8ms or better no problem

I tested TCL 40" I have Low 4.0+ms High 8.0+ms average 6.0+ms
Still not great for fast 3d
 
Thank You Durge Driven, RasmasP, & others for the info. This is an antique PC. Bought back in July, 2010. Never knew anything about PC's, still don't. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to PC's. The PC i had built for gaming at a local PC shop, a few years before this one, costs the same as this did in 2010. I need to turn the settings down in all my games & I know the FPS will go up. I've decided to scrap the idea about upgrading the video card & just lower the settings. I remember back at NO-GRIP, someone posted a link for ISI? about what to set the settings to for lower end PC's. ( for RF2), I did exactly as they said, they were in the 20-30"s range, Now after turning down the settings, it still looks clear, & FPS are always around 50. Which brings me to that story, Read a post somewhere that capping the FPS at 50, helps the game run smoother, That's why the 50 limit i talked about. Although I updated the drivers for the card last week, & apparently it kills some of the settings in your Nvidia Inspector? Cause when I went into RF2 last week to play, I noticed the FPS were from 70-95?. Don't even understand what most of the settings are for in the programs, But following Durge's settings he posted as an example, It improved the Graphics greatly on all the games, even NR-2003, for the first time I have it is crystal clear, even with those add-ons I posted for it last year. Turns it into DX9. Here's my Info on the PC, at least all i could find. :
OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Version 6.1.7600 Build 7600
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name XXXXXXXXXX-PC
System Manufacturer Alienware
System Model Aurora
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz, 2668 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Alienware A04, 10/28/2009
SMBIOS Version 2.5
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume2
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.1.7600.16385"
User Name XXXXXXXXX-PC\XXXXXXXXXX
Time Zone Eastern Daylight Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 9.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 8.99 GB
Available Physical Memory 6.85 GB
Total Virtual Memory 18.0 GB
Available Virtual Memory 15.4 GB
Page File Space 8.99 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
I never did get my PC fixed for that Windows error I posted about the other week, so NR-2003 isn't working & only of all the DX9 games I have, only GTL works. P & G, GTR2, AMS all try & load for awhile, than all of a sudden it stops loading in the Task Manager. All the DX11 games work. Here's the games I have: GPL, NR-2003, Historic GT, RF1, Race 07, GTL, P & G, GTR2, GSCE, AMS, GTR, RF2, Race Room, AC, ACC, PCars, PCars2, & New Car Game/WreckFest. No games like Call of Duty or other high tech games. All that I checked of the DX11 games work great. It's the older games that aren't working. Thought maybe it was a virus? Or even an update from Windows7. I even turned the PC back a awhile back to an earlier date, when i was sure they were working, still get either errors or loads for awhile, than quits loading. Having a lot of back problems the past year, If & when it clears up, guess I'll take it over to the PC shop & see what they say. It needs a good virus cleaning anyway. I ran a Full Scan on my anti-virus, found 1 Trojan & a few Malware which it quaranteed. Ran a Full Scan on Windows Defender, nothing, Ran a full scan on Malwarebytes Premium, found some PUP's?. So I can't check the FPS on the older games. After this post, I'll be getting rid of the 50 FPS limit & lower the settings on all games & I'll try a few more games I didn't try lately. All the DX9 older games are on a separate hard drive. All the rest are on a different drive. I had it like this for about 2 years. All the DX11 games & AMS are thru Steam on a different drive. I purposely downloaded GTR2 thru Steam, & it gets an error, (Acess is denied) 0/5. Yet the other Steam games work OK. Tried installing DX9 again, said there's an up to date version already installed. Unless there's something missing from the main files in GTR2, etc. Totally confused!!!!!!!!!!!!! P.S.: Forgot to add, I ALWAYS turn off my Anti-Virus, ( Kaspersky ) before playing ANY games. So I know it's not the anti-virus.
 
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All the DX11 games & AMS are thru Steam on a different drive. I purposely downloaded GTR2 thru Steam, & it gets an error, (Acess is denied) 0/5. Yet the other Steam games work OK. Tried installing DX9 again, said there's an up to date version already installed. Unless there's something missing from the main files in GTR2, etc. Totally confused!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is likely a DirectX fault!
Goto Steam\Steamapps\Common\Automobilista\CommonRedist folder.
Run DxSetup.exe
That will install DirectX 9.0C from June 2010 which is the best for GTR2 and all other of the older Gmotor2 games.
Or just click on this link.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109
 
I'll post more later when I have time, but...9 GB of memory? :confused: That's kinda weird or at least quite unusual.

On the other hand, i7 920 is not nearly as bad as I was kinda expecting. Granted, it's not exactly a record breaker, but it can hold its own fairly well still. I don't think I would invest in 1080 or 2060 with i7 920 though.
 

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