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Forums - PC Discussion - Should I get the nVidia GTX 560 ti?

So im planning to upgrade my graphics card to enjoy the newer PC games this summer, I currently have a 8800 GT nVidia card.. I want to buy a card which gives me bang for buck. I am considering buying an nVidia GTX 560 Ti which is relatively cheap. My budget to upgrade my PC system is 300$. I will be using the left over bucks to buy a new 600 Watt power supply since I currently have a 250 Watt supply which definitely won't be enough.

My Current PC Specs are:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00 Ghz

Ram: 4 GB

Graphics Card: nVidia 8800 GT 1 GB Vram

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So what do you recommend? Are there any better cards out there?? Also, is my current system (with a gtx 560 ti or 560 graphics card) enough for me to be able to play most of today's games at high settings at 1440 x 900 resolution??



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Anyone?



You should buy Radeon HD 6950 is cheaper and needs less power, and is as good as the nvidia if not a bit better.



AndrewWK said:
You should buy Radeon HD 6950 is cheaper and needs less power, and is as good as the nvidia if not a bit better.


Is the difference in price minor?? because if it is, I may buy the nVidia due to the Physx feature. Are the rest of my PC specs enough to play most of today's games at high settings?

 

Sorry Im a bit of a noob here :b



esssam said:
AndrewWK said:
You should buy Radeon HD 6950 is cheaper and needs less power, and is as good as the nvidia if not a bit better.

 

Is the difference in price minor?? because if it is, I may buy the nVidia due to the Physx feature. Are the rest of my PC specs enough to play most of today's games at high settings?

 

Sorry Im a bit of a noob here :b

 

its about 70€ and for the nvidia you a 600W power supply for the radeon 550 is enough and thats about 20€ difference as well.

You could play some games on the highest resolution (Mass Effect, Call of Duty, Assassins Creed) that I know for sure, but games like The Witcher 2 or Crysis you can play on medium.



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Your in a tough position. You cant realistically upgrade your CPU but I think it may limit a 560ti even at 1440x900.



esssam said:
AndrewWK said:
You should buy Radeon HD 6950 is cheaper and needs less power, and is as good as the nvidia if not a bit better.

 

Is the difference in price minor?? because if it is, I may buy the nVidia due to the Physx feature. Are the rest of my PC specs enough to play most of today's games at high settings?

 

Sorry Im a bit of a noob here :b

 

Hi Esssam

The gtx560ti is a great card, and will definately meet your needs for high settings and 1440 x 900 resolutions in most newer games.

The only issue that you need to consider is the rest of your components and how they will perform with your new gpu. You seem to be only upgrading the gpu...which might be a mistake. Your current cpu was good back its time, but currently it will bottleneck your gtx560ti quite badly. The gtx560ti and Nvidia cards in general are more reliant on cpu power compared to radeon cards.

So you have some options here:

1. You should hold off the upgrade until you can atleast afford to get a new cpu and motherboard. This way you will be sure that you are getting every once of power out of all your new parts.

2. Buy the card now and upgrade the other parts later. While your cpu will bottleneck your gpu and quite heavily at that, it should still perform better than your current card. Given that your playing resolutions are not full hd and you plan to play games on high settings...this might be enough for you. I bolded might because it really is a gamble.

3. Get a radeon card. The radeon HD 6950 has been canceld as far as i know...but you should be able to get a 7870 or 7850 for a similar price and similar performance..not really sure on this. But it is an option. Radeon cards tend to be less reliant on the cpu.

My suggestion...hold off until you can afford a full upgrade, or atleast the core components (motherboard, cpu, and gpu). You dont need a hell of money to do this. So the wait shouldnt be too long!

The thing is someone who has a better cpu than you, say for example a new i5 cpu but has a significantly weaker gpu like the gtx550ti....could get better performance than your core 2 duo E8400 and gtx560ti combo!



Intel Core i7 3770K [3.5GHz]|MSI Big Bang Z77 Mpower|Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1866 2 x 4GB|MSI GeForce GTX 560 ti Twin Frozr 2|OCZ Vertex 4 128GB|Corsair HX750|Cooler Master CM 690II Advanced|

My 550 can play Crysis on high at around 50 fps, a 560 will do a little better



Andrespetmonkey said:
My 550 can play Crysis on high at around 50 fps, a 560 will do a little better

 

Esssam, this is precisely what i was refering to in my previous post. I have a gtx560ti (considerably better than a gtx550ti) yet im not sure i can get those fps at full HD resolutions. The major difference ? Check out Andrespetmonkey's cpu a monster i7 2600k ! My core 2 quad 9400 simply cant compete! And whats worse in your case is that you have a E8400 which is even worse than my cpu :/



Intel Core i7 3770K [3.5GHz]|MSI Big Bang Z77 Mpower|Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1866 2 x 4GB|MSI GeForce GTX 560 ti Twin Frozr 2|OCZ Vertex 4 128GB|Corsair HX750|Cooler Master CM 690II Advanced|

Tallgeese101 said:
Your in a tough position. You cant realistically upgrade your CPU but I think it may limit a 560ti even at 1440x900.


What do you mean I can't upgrade my CPU, can't I buy a new one and replace the old whenever I need to???