Well, first I’d like to thank Shady for the recommendations. I’m looking to upgrade my PC to a more current video card for gaming. I’m trying to stay price concious, and I dont really want to spend more than $225 for a Power Supply and a Video card shipped. I know I need to upgrade the current PS to something that doesn’t suck.
Any other recommendations or is this the best I’m gonna get?
PS:
Card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127512&cm_re=nvidia_GTX--14-127-512--Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121390&cm_re=nvidia_GTX--14-121-390--Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133323&cm_re=nvidia_GTX--14-133-323--Product
for video cards. I H8T ati cards. 
the GTX460’s run awesome for the $$
That PSU is fine. You could run that pc and a decetn video card off a 400watt no problem.
Honestly dont spend any less than $50 on the psu, and get the best card for the money you can.
Dont cheap out on the psu, shitty ones will not keep up and will cause unstable systems.
video card:
Chipset
Chipset Manufacturer ATI
GPU Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT)
Core Clock 850MHz
Stream Processors 800 Stream Processing Units Memory
Effective Memory Clock 1200MHz (4.8Gbps)
Memory Size 1GB
Memory Interface 128-bit
Memory Type GDDR5
VS
Chipset
Chipset Manufacturer NVIDIA
GPU GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi)
Core Clock 675MHz (OC: 725MHz)
Shader Clock 1450MHz
Stream Processors 336 Processor Cores Memory
Effective Memory Clock 3600MHz
Memory Size 768MB
Memory Interface 192-bit
Memory Type GDDR5
On paper the ati should out perform the nvidia… but all the systems I build with ati’ the nvidia ones seem to run right next to or slightly better than the ati’s in the same price range, but a little more stable and have less software issues. Also the nvidia’s overclock like mad. I took my GTX280 well over 800mhz, and it started out at 6xx and it blew my friends ati card (what ever was $400 at the time) out of the water. The memory speeds are key I think. the proc is close the memory speeds are way faster with the nvidia.
I really like this one:
It’s a tad more than the ATi, but if its going to last longer…
I’m a nVidia fan. I have a GTX275 that I OC’d to outperform a GTX295, and it was half the cost. Been stable for over a year.
Also, from experience, ATI’s drivers and other software SUCKS. I’ve had more issues with ATI software than I care to remember. Once the software is figured out they run great…but its always a PITA to get them running right. Every nVidia I’ve owned I’ve been able to plug in, install the driver off the disc, and go.
yeah the new fermi cards are killers. As with any card, allways manually set the fan speed up when your running a game. on auto they never hit anything above 70% it seems and are allways around 80c or more… which is way too hot IMO. Example a GTX260 i took out of a box, ran it on a benchmarking tool, it was cooking aorund 78C, and never heard the fan come on very high at all. I changed the fan to 100% and it was down to under 60max. sure it wasnt silent but it will make it run alot longer that way.
and ATI cards seem to run the hotest, my friends ati on air was hittin over 100C! Nvidias would have crashed at 90C max!
Another idea would be to get a 8$ 120mm fan and put it in the middle of the case to redirect some cooler air from the front, under the hard drive cage towards the bottom of the video card. I droped some temps befor that way too.
Yeah I have an ATi in my laptop, runs hot always.
Hijacking thread: What is a good mobile vid card for Alienware m5500i-r3?
beats me, i dont dick with laptop gaming rigs. i dont even know if they are swappable or hard on the board.
I’d stick with an NVidia GTX2xx for now if you’re trying to stay on a budget. My GTX260 is doing just fine even with new releases such as Mafia II, etc.
No idea on the mobile ones either. Some are onboard, some are external. Never seen an external one with my own eyes though.
Yeah look for a GTX 260 or better. the GTX250 or lower are garbage.
I ran a GTX260 single for a while, played TF2 and what not on med-high settings 1900+ res well over 70fps. I SLI’d two of them and they would max the settings out and still run 80-90fps.
I play Battfield Bad Company 2 on full settings without a hiccup. Might not be crazy FPS for anyone who cares, but my human eye can’t see any imperfections or hiccups.
Okay hijacking again: Which one of you guys enjoys building PCs? I have a friend, wants a gaming desktop, but like $600 max.
I can build it, but I charge $100 flat rate fee for the job, so for $500, he’s not going to get much. PM with what he needs/wants (monitor? Keyboard/mouse?) and I can get you a shopping cart and go from there. $500 for a regular computer, can get you a nice rig, but for a gaming system? Your friend needs to decide what he’s looking to do.
Yeah $500 in parts wont cut it. Dual core $150, board $60, hard drive $50, DVD drive $20, case w-psu $50, ram $60. $390 just to get it going. and thats with bottom of the line parts. leaves you with $110 for a video card and shipping. A $70 video card isnt goigng to run anything over low - med settings on new games.
Now thats new. Personally, I would source out a used 2.8Ghz+ dual core (can be found for $50-70 max. And look for an older nvidia 8800, or a used GTX260. both can be found for around $80-130. buy the PSU, motherboard and RAM new. that could be done for around $500 and get you gaming halfway decent.
Krazy Kid, I just purchased the MSI N460 GTX card. Can you explain how overclocking it will be beneficial? Also, it says I need to use MSI’s Afterburner utility to do so?
Also it states it needs 2x 6 pin power connectors, will this be a problem with the power supply I just purchased with it? (Above)
You don’t need to over clock this card. Just leave it be. Only crazy mofo’s like KrazyKid OC :rofl. I’ve never OC’ed a thing in my life and I play some of the most intensive games out there.
As for the power supply, you’re fine as you have two 6-pin connectors according to the specs.
Overclocking can increase the performance of the card, but it can also damage it. It’s something that if you don’t know what it is, chances are you don’t need it.
I only overclocked mine cause I wanted to pull everything I could out of the computer. I built the computer to be a speed freak. It loads Windows 7 in roughly 2 seconds and plays just about any game I throw at it at 60 frame a second (max graphics, in HD) while running iTunes and a web browser on the 2nd monitor. I doubt you need that kind of performance all the time so the way the card is now should be fine.
^^ +1.
Watch the temps on the card first. put it in, fire up Everest and log the temps in the back ground as it plays a game or a graphics benchmarking tool. if you need a copy of everest I have one cracked. Leave the fan controll on auto and see what it does out of the box. on air I would want to see more than 75C for a stable nVidia card. I say nvidia card becasue they seem more heat sensitive as far as stability goes.
Then do another benchmark test with the fan controll on manuall 100%. not the differences.
Over clocking is a process where you bump the core speed, shader speeds & memory speeds up on the GPU a little at a time and test for stability. I use 3dMark 06 to test. if it completes without error or hanging, it will give you a score and some FPS information. then I slowly bump the core up until it fails or freezes or artifacts the video play back. document the speeds each time in excel… pass/fail ave FPS per test, test score, and max temp recorded.
once it fails, I go back to stock clocks and then repeat the process on the memory speeds. go until it fails, document everything and roll it back.
repeat processes ont he shader.
once you find the roof for each component on the card cranked up and running stable, I usually set all 3 to about 85% of the max value for each. you will never get a card to run stable with all three cranked to THEIR max. then if it passes at all three set at about 85% of their max values I found in the beginning, I slowly bump them up all at the same time, until it fails. then bump them back to the last known good and retest for stability again. Then its a cat and mouse game to adjust one then the other and find the best combo of settings.
document everything, and you will see the trend while you overclock, that way you can go back and find landmarks to work from when all hell breaks loose.
There are some very noticable gains from doing this. just watch your temps. you might be “stable” at a higher overclock, but prolonged use at high clocks and high temps will kill the card quicker.
My liquid cooled GTX285 started life out at 648Mhz Core, 1476mhz Shader & 2322mhz memory. They sell an overclocked one that hits 666mhz and what ever the shader and memory is. I maxed it out around 800mhz, 1800 shader, and 2600 memory… IRC, and it didnt break a sweat above 45C!!! It have been running like that for many months now, and my proc is running 4.55ghz on water too. took about 4 weeks of work to get them there but its retardedly fast and 100% stable.
So I installed my new card and power supply. Seems to be running good. I bumped the fan to 70 and cranked it a bit. My question now is can I replace the processor my PC has? Or am I stuck with what it came with? (My specs are above)
I think I’m really limited by my proc now, botteneck even,