Advice needed for lower to mid range GPU

**Cyn** · 10-02-2012

Hi all. I have had a lot of computer issues over the past few years, mainly to do with being screwed by certain hardware suppliers. So I have been mainly out of the PC gaming circle for a while. I currently have a poxy little graphics card that is about 8 years old and was only ever meant to be be temporary but it has now been a year! So this must end

My CPU is nothing special, just a standard E4400 @ 2ghz. And I'm not interested in replacing that for now, it does its job. Might even overclock it. However I certainly do need a decent GPU and for a sensible price. I'm not looking to run BF3 on ultra high settings here, just have pretty entry level gaming setup.

So the main thing here is I want as good a card as I can get that will not be bottlenecked by the CPU. Been googling for a while and ATI/AMD certainly seems the way to go.

Radeon 6670 or 6770? Are these good choices for my situation? Would these be a little too powerful for the E4400? Or could I go a bit higher?

Another question will be compatibility. I think I am ok on that front but please do correct me if I'm not. I have an Antec 650W power supply and an ASUS P5N-D motherboard.

Any responses from the PC brains here will be appreciated

**Fijiandoce** · 10-02-2012

i was gunna recommend the 7750. cheaper than the 7770 and is powered by the motherboard.

very low power draw, and decent graphics performance.

**Cyn** · 10-02-2012

Yeah I was looking at that just now. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...56&subcat=1699 That seems a good deal to me and in the same price range as the better 6670's

So would these cards not be limited by the CPU?

**keefy** · 10-02-2012

I would just save my money towards a better computer.

**Fijiandoce** · 10-02-2012

Originally Posted by Cyn

Yeah I was looking at that just now. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...56&subcat=1699 That seems a good deal to me and in the same price range as the better 6670's

So would these cards not be limited by the CPU?

firstly, im with keefy on buying a whole new PC. especially with the next gen coming around, a 4 core CPU (or more) is definitely going to come in handy

that being said, the 7750 shouldn't limit your E4400....for most games. if you're going to overclock it then thats all the more better. (though you'll still need to turn down some of the CPU related settings)
and like i said, all you need to do is plug this thing into your PCI slot and your off gaming. it draws its power from the motherboard.

however, it really comes down to the games you're going to play.

Fallout 3 and Skyrim are heavily CPU bound. Fallout in particular barely registers on my GPU. even at max settings. so my CPU is holding it back (i have it vsynced at 60 so im not too bothered)

**MATRIX 2** · 10-02-2012

Originally Posted by Cyn

Hi all. I have had a lot of computer issues over the past few years, mainly to do with being screwed by certain hardware suppliers. So I have been mainly out of the PC gaming circle for a while. I currently have a poxy little graphics card that is about 8 years old and was only ever meant to be be temporary but it has now been a year! So this must end

My CPU is nothing special, just a standard E4400 @ 2ghz. And I'm not interested in replacing that for now, it does its job. Might even overclock it. However I certainly do need a decent GPU and for a sensible price. I'm not looking to run BF3 on ultra high settings here, just have pretty entry level gaming setup.

So the main thing here is I want as good a card as I can get that will not be bottlenecked by the CPU. Been googling for a while and ATI/AMD certainly seems the way to go.

Radeon 6670 or 6770? Are these good choices for my situation? Would these be a little too powerful for the E4400? Or could I go a bit higher?

Another question will be compatibility. I think I am ok on that front but please do correct me if I'm not. I have an Antec 650W power supply and an ASUS P5N-D motherboard.

Any responses from the PC brains here will be appreciated

Pretty sure your cpu will bottleneck pretty much any recent gpu to the point that you wouldn't benefit from it.

Time to build a new computer.

**Cyn** · 10-02-2012

Thanks for input. Like I said I'm currently alright with my PC minus the graphics card. I'm not interested in playing the newest games at max settings nor am I going to pay the money for state of the art tech, just want to play games. I probably will look into getting a new CPU in another year or 2 but it's not a concern of mine at the minute. I played over 100 hours of Skyrim and around 80 hours of Fallout 3 fine on it, with a worse gfx card set up.

I have a good mobo, perfectly fine power supply, good case & cooling, 8 gig of RAM and a big ol heatsink, I don't need a whole new PC

If there's no bottleneck worries then good news. I realise that different games behave uniquely so it's horses for courses, like you say Skyrim and other large open games are CPU intensive so I have no doubt there will be a CPU bottleneck there, but that's expected. As long as I can run that at at least 30 fps I'm easy

Currently looking on novatech http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...750series/?o=0 There's just a 4 quid difference between the XFX and the Gigabyte, so is the XFX here the clear choice? I've no experience with them however, but I know Gigabyte have good build quality

**Fijiandoce** · 10-02-2012

Originally Posted by Cyn

Thanks for input. Like I said I'm currently alright with my PC minus the graphics card. I'm not interested in playing the newest games at max settings nor am I going to pay the money for state of the art tech, just want to play games. I probably will look into getting a new CPU in another year or 2 but it's not a concern of mine at the minute. I played over 100 hours of Skyrim and around 80 hours of Fallout 3 fine on it, with a worse gfx card set up.

I have a good mobo, perfectly fine power supply, good case & cooling, 8 gig of RAM and a big ol heatsink, I don't need a whole new PC

If there's no bottleneck worries then good news. I realise that different games behave uniquely so it's horses for courses, like you say Skyrim and other large open games are CPU intensive so I have no doubt there will be a CPU bottleneck there, but that's expected. As long as I can run that at at least 30 fps I'm easy

Currently looking on novatech http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...750series/?o=0 There's just a 4 quid difference between the XFX and the Gigabyte, so is the XFX here the clear choice? I've no experience with them however, but I know Gigabyte have good build quality

i believe the XFX needs a power connector. if this isn't a problem for you then its definitely the better choice.
i know that the gigabyte 7750 and 7770 aren't reference cards though. as a result they are a lot smaller in size to other manufactures.
i'd recommend the Gigabyte card....but i know keefy said he had/has an XFX card. you might want to check with him for noise, heat, reliability etc.

**PS3!!!!!** · 10-02-2012

Id say invest 400-450. New cpu and videocard.

**Rekmon** · 10-03-2012

Originally Posted by Cyn

Yeah I was looking at that just now. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...56&subcat=1699 That seems a good deal to me and in the same price range as the better 6670's

So would these cards not be limited by the CPU?

That's because the 7750 performs very closely to the 6750. On the plus side it draws less power.

Personally for what you're looking at I'd roll with the 7770 (well TBH I'd personally upgrade everything else and go higher but that's irrelevant

)

**Cyn** · 10-03-2012

Originally Posted by Rekmon

That's because the 7750 performs very closely to the 6750. On the plus side it draws less power.

Personally for what you're looking at I'd roll with the 7770 (well TBH I'd personally upgrade everything else and go higher but that's irrelevant

)

I'll check out the 7770's but I'm not sure they offer as good value for money

Please guys, I'm not going to go and spunk half a grand on a new rig. This is entirely about getting back into a semi-decent level of gaming for as little money as possible. If I had £500 to spare do you think I'd have made this thread lol ?

**Fijiandoce** · 10-03-2012

Originally Posted by Cyn

I'll check out the 7770's but I'm not sure they offer as good value for money

Please guys, I'm not going to go and spunk half a grand on a new rig. This is entirely about getting back into a semi-decent level of gaming for as little money as possible. If I had £500 to spare do you think I'd have made this thread lol ?

7750 offers better performance per pound.

however, if you are making the choice and its not too much expensive, you should get the 7770.

**keefy** · 10-03-2012

Originally Posted by Cyn

I'll check out the 7770's but I'm not sure they offer as good value for money

Please guys, I'm not going to go and spunk half a grand on a new rig. This is entirely about getting back into a semi-decent level of gaming for as little money as possible. If I had £500 to spare do you think I'd have made this thread lol ?

But spending £80 on a mid ranged GPU on a low end CPU is a waste of money and £80 more you have to save up.

**Cyn** · 10-03-2012

Originally Posted by Fijiandoce

7750 offers better performance per pound.

however, if you are making the choice and its not too much expensive, you should get the 7770.

You may be right. Could be the better choice in the long run. Would have a higher ceiling to OC it further to in a couple years time.

Originally Posted by keefy

But spending £80 on a mid ranged GPU on a low end CPU is a waste of money and £80 more you have to save up.

And in the mean time...? Keefy I am fully aware that the CPU is average at best but my current graphics card is terrible (Radeon X1650) which I pulled out of my friends 8 year old PC and was only meant to be a short term thing but it has become a year.

So I've waited long enough. I have many games just sitting on my shelf that I'd love to get back to, that my CPU can handle fine, but my graphics card cannot.

You see where I'm coming from?

**guitarguy** · 10-03-2012

Like the others said grab a 7750 or 7770. That core2duo is really old and slow though. You will definitely need to build a whole new pc if you want to get back into pc gaming properly.

**Cyn** · 10-03-2012

Ordered the 7770 couple hours ago, so case closed on that one. Was £20 more than I intended on spending so I hope it proves to be worth it over the next few years.

And yes, again, shit cpu. Duly noted.

**Rekmon** · 10-03-2012

Originally Posted by Cyn

I'll check out the 7770's but I'm not sure they offer as good value for money

Please guys, I'm not going to go and spunk half a grand on a new rig. This is entirely about getting back into a semi-decent level of gaming for as little money as possible. If I had £500 to spare do you think I'd have made this thread lol ?

Yeah I'm not too up on currency and pricing in your part of the world, so I can't really offer price/performance advice (too tired to really check it out)

Do keep in note that if you do decide to upgrade the whole pc later on (as in sometime soon after you upgrade the GPU) at least you'll already have a matching video card, rather than updating that again as well.

Eh...at the end of the day either of those cards should work fairly well for you.