What Graphics card should i get?

[L3Gend]

My PC is going to get a little upgrade, but im not sure what graphic card i should get?

Specs:
Windows Vista 32-bit Home Premium
4GB Ram (32-bit can only use 3GB of some reason)
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.40Ghz 4 Processors (Should i also get a new Cpu?)

And the card i have now is: Ati Radeon HD 3870 (NOT x2!!!)

PS: My motherboard doesnt support SLI or CrossfireX

[Goldkills]

How much are you willing to spend and what sorta PSU do you have?

[iKissedABoomer]

get a big one

[L3Gend]

I acutally dont care about the price, but how do i found out what PSU i have??

I have also thinking getting a Nvidia GTX 295 as they kinda rule xD

[Goldkills]

lol u can check by looking at the sticker on the PSU but the 295 uses a lot of power close to 800W.

[L3Gend]

Is the sticker inside the PC or outside?
It may sound a bit dumb, but i suck when things come to power supplys...

[Halfeatendonkey]

Windows Vista 32-bit Home Premium

Change to 64. Its worth the time taken reformating.

4GB Ram (32-bit can only use 3GB of some reason)

I also just bought 4gigs of ram, and i also had Vista 32-bit. I changed to 64 and it is worth it. It gives you some more "space". As i have around 1gig ram over when playing, so i can tab out to my desktop in 1 sec and do whatever you know. Its awesome.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.40Ghz 4 Processors (Should i also get a new Cpu?)

Why would you ? The Ghz is not all that counts you know. Its aa awesome CPU (I would know, i have the same, and its good in many ways. For example, its a very clockable CPU) and it have 4 cores (Not processors as you said). With that you're "future-safe".


What i would buy is the GeForce 9800gtx. My brother have it and it is really great. It also have in-built Phys-X which is a nice little feature in some games (Such as Mirror's Edge).


but the 295 uses a lot of power close to 800W.

Err what ? Are you saying that 1 graphics card use close to 800W ? Because then you really should study some more on PSUs and computers.


The rig i have now uses around 380-420W, and i have a 500W PSU (I have a 580W PSU but im giving it a break right now) so if you're cheap and want a PSU that'll run your rig i'd go with a 500W+ PSU. But if you got the money and want to be future-safe (again) i would go with a 550-580W+ as i have. Choice is yours.

[L3Gend]

Wow, ty halfeatendonkey.

I have heard that my Processor is quite good, but i was also a bit unsure if it will work good with another graphics card.

The reason why i think the Gtx is using 800W is because it is such a powerful card containing two 200 series cards in one.

Oh and one more thing. Is there some changes that needs to be done if i want to change to 64-Bit? Like Motherboard, because i heard some "Rumors" about that you will need a 64-bit supported mboard to be able to get 64-Bit going?

[Goldkills]

o shit sorry thats for quad SLI of 295 the single 295 only requires about 550W at load but most people say that you should not have less then 700W with the card it gets sorta crazy when it does not get its power.

the sticker on your PSU will be on the box part of the PSU on one of the sides of it.

for most people the GTX295 is really overkill a GTX260 or GTX280/85 are fine for 90% of games out now.

and yes 64-bit is way better then 32-bit the extra ram useage is nice and most new things run better on it.

[L3Gend]

What if i know buy 2gb*3 instead of having my 1gb*4? Then i would have a lot of ram for gaming, and isnt it cheaper than buying a new OS?

[Goldkills]

32-bit OS cant use more then 3.8gb of ram this includes your video cards vram with a 64-bit os your computer can use almost a unlimited amount of ram and your video cards ram is not counted to your systems ram.

[Halfeatendonkey]

o shit sorry thats for quad SLI of 295 the single 295 only requires about 550W at load but most people say that you should not have less then 700W with the card it gets sorta crazy when it does not get its power.

Is there something im missing here ? Are we even talking about W as in Watts ? Because i mean, a graphics card requiring 550W sounds like jibberish to me. My whole computer doesn't even use that much Watt.

<div class="quote"><div class="quoting">Quoting: L3Gend</div>
Oh and one more thing. Is there some changes that needs to be done if i want to change to 64-Bit? Like Motherboard, because i heard some &quot;Rumors&quot; about that you will need a 64-bit supported mboard to be able to get 64-Bit going?</div>

Nope, the only thing you would want to do is format you're computer and start up clean.

<div class="quote"><div class="quoting">Quoting: L3Gend;]
What if i know buy 2gb*3 instead of having my 1gb*4? Then i would have a lot of ram for gaming, and isnt it cheaper than buying a new OS?
[/QUOTE]

As stated, 32-bits vista can only use ~3 Gig RAM. So if you want to use all of your 4gig, the only way is to upgrade to 64.

with a 64-bit os your computer can use almost a unlimited amount of ram and your video cards ram is not counted to your systems ram.

64-bits vista can use up to 16 Gigabyte (Max) of RAM if im not totally wrong.

[Goldkills]

the card uses in tests over 450W but the card maker says you should have a 700W PSU but it needs a huge amount of amps(50) on the rail/s to work right so your best bet is to get a 700W+ PSU to power it http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-geforce-gtx-295 -review-engtx295/5 (http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-geforce-gtx-295-review-engtx295/5)

[Halfeatendonkey]

the card uses in tests over 450W

Ah okay, well that explains it.

And that is for sure a hella lot of watts.

Brutal card indeed

[L3Gend]

Sure it is xD

[SlainPwner666]

There is a 500 dolla Video Card out there that can play crysis on high settings at 51 fps, and maxed out at 20 FPS. I think the info is at PC gamer.com, but be aware, this bitch requires alot of power to run

[Goldkills]

lol i think your talking about the GTX295 but with the right computer at 1920x1200 res the GTX295 gets about 30-40fps on max crysis with 2xaa

[l4dfan]

your q6600 will bottleneck a gtx 295 on games that don't utilize all those cores. it's an amazing cpu for the future as more things start to support quad cores, but until then it's still only clocked at 2.4ghz. you should overclock it as high as you can push it, and i hear they're very overclockable.

ram is fine though. most games aren't that ram intensive anyways. i don't think 64-bit is worth adopting just for higher ram limits just yet...

[Halfeatendonkey]

your q6600 will bottleneck a gtx 295 on games that don't utilize all those cores. it's an amazing cpu for the future as more things start to support quad cores, but until then it's still only clocked at 2.4ghz. you should overclock it as high as you can push it, and i hear they're very overclockable.

It sure will bottleneck the card, and that card is such an overkill. A cheaper one like the one i mentioned, the 9800gtx is a good bet as its atleast 1-2 year future-safe (I feel like im saying that alot in this thread...).

The Q6600 is as i also mentioned, very overclockable. And you might not have seen my &quot;Overclocking&quot; thread but i posted there my &quot;overclocks&quot;. I clocked my CPU from 2.4 --> 3.0Ghz (for now, i didnt have time to continue testing) and i also overclocked my graphics card &quot;alot&quot;.

ram is fine though. most games aren't that ram intensive anyways. i don't think 64-bit is worth adopting just for higher ram limits just yet...

Thats where you're wrong. Alot of games nowadays requiers about 2gig of RAM on &quot;recommended&quot;, and i dont think people would like to go with the &quot;minimum&quot;. And there's no reason not to upgrade to 64-bit vista, because i mean come on, 1 more gig RAM can never hurt and it will just make things alot smoother.

[ZiggY]

I got me an ASUS nVidia 9600GT and don't regret it one bit.
Even better, if you plan on using an HDTV as a monitor in the future for any reason, it comes with a free HDMI adapter which I found to be very cool! (Using it right now actually)

Supports a ton of resolutions, and I can play pretty much any game maxed out. Only one I can only play on a medocre setting is Crysis.

Once I get paid I'm going to buy a second one and possibly upgrade to an i7 CPU which would kick a ton of ass.

[L3Gend]

The Q6600 is as i also mentioned, very overclockable. And you might not have seen my &quot;Overclocking&quot; thread but i posted there my &quot;overclocks&quot;. I clocked my CPU from 2.4 --> 3.0Ghz (for now, i didnt have time to continue testing) and i also overclocked my graphics card &quot;alot&quot;.

Uhm, how do i overclock my Cpu? Just Wonderin...

[l4dfan]

Uhm, how do i overclock my Cpu? Just Wonderin...
google is your friend, find a good overclocking guide. it's too complicated to explain in a post, but easily mastered once you get the hang of it.

[L3Gend]

k. thanks, ill go google