Hello 3D Gurus, I want to upgrade my graphic card. I currently have Radeon HD 3650 (512mb) and it just doesn't cut it anymore. I can't play any of the latest games. I'm looking to spend around $100-120, but 120 is definitely my maximum. I'm fine with purchasing online, from trusted sources of course like Newegg and etc. I have an ATI chipset with a Pentium D 820 (2.8Ghz, dual-core) with plenty of HD space connected through SATA and 2GB of RAM. I also have a pretty decent power-supply, so no reason to really consider the power consumption of the graphic card. I can also handle one that takes up two slots. I want to be able to play latest games with no problems, preferably on highest settings. My favorite game at this moment is FIFA 11, and it barely works with the card I have now. Help me buy the right card..
what power supply are you using? and what country are you in? theres a big difference between $120US and $120HK so its important to know what country you are in. also what motherboard are you using? which pcie revision? to be honest, i dont think you'd be able to play many of the latest games very well with that setup as it seems quite old. and even with $120US, you wont be able to find much better than the 3650. if your board supports pcie, maybe a 4770 or second hand 4850/4870 if you look around.
I think the OP needs a major rig overhaul. Spending money on such an old system is not worth it. deltatux
Agreed, that cpu is limiting him a lot, and having only 2gb ram is probably not very good for recent games either. cheapest i've found is this 5770 for $120 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131330&cm_re=5770-_-14-131-330-_-Product this would only be a very small patch on the system though, it would give better performance for a while, but you will be seriously lacking in the cpu power department and memory. You ought to consider moving up to a newer cpu, 2 cores is fine, but its quite old, and you might see some improvement from either a newer 2core or better yet a quad core cpu. and 2gb just isnt enough for new games, 3-4gb would do wonders for you machine i'd think.
Yeah, your rig is a little slow. I know how it is to upgrade one chunk at a time. Games are getting more and more processor centric, listing the min requirements as 256 meg for a card. Personally my one gig 9800 gt has failed to satisfy. If I were to go back in time I could have gotten a 512 meg card with much faster clocks for the same price and would have probably been better off. A straight answer. I see Geforce 450 and 460 everywhere in the 1 gig range for 100-120 USD. I would go that route if your PSU will support it. I always say to avoid overclocks and just pay for the extra speed, your parts will live longer. This is exactly what my next upgrade will be, especially since my 9800 gt is proving to be a nightmare lately. Asfar as buying a gt 250, You may be better off in the long run just spending the extra on a 450 unless you have another machine that inherits those parts. Otherwise your going to see a 350 now for $50 and then a year from now a 450 for $50, the difference being a year of reduced performance for $50.
Either a 9800GTX+, GT 250, HD 5770, maybe GT 440. Anything more will be either too expensive for $120.0 USD budget or your system will have problems running it, such as low watt PSU. Good luck!
I have been considering this for some time now, and now that three people responded with the exact same thing will be enough of a push I need to wait a month or so and completely build a new computer. I'll probably keep the hard-drive, optical drives, and what-not. The problem that I have with this system is the fact that I have completely maxed it out. The CPU I upgraded last year was the best this motherboard would take, the memory is also maxed at 2GB. It is actually a very old computer, I just upgraded every single piece of it over time. Nothing is on it is as I bought, including the HDD and the optical drives. I have some money coming in next month, specifically a fixed rate bank loan for my school expenses. I would think a new built computer would fall under school expenses as I will be doing a lot of work on it. I do have a laptop but that's going to be only for use in classes. I will probably end up spending a good $600-700 and build a solid computer. Thanks for the advice, Gurus. By the way, the chances are I will still need some advice when I do decide to build the computer from scratch so you'll see me around.
