Hi, upgrade vid card help please?

[Rerednaw]

MB: ASUS M3N78 PRO (Geforce 8300 chipset)
CPU: AMD Phenom X4 9500
HD: WD SATA-3
Mem: 2x 2048MB PC6400 DDR2 800Mhz
Edited: PS: 500w 28A at 12v (may have to upgrade this too)

Existing Video Card: Sparkle GeForce 9400GT PCIe with 1 GB.

Without something that will allow me to fry eggs on the case, what are some decent (doesn't have to be top top, as the rest of my system is pretty pedestrian) cards?

I figure I'm looking in the $200-300 range. Or if there's something less I'm on it.

I prefer ATi, but won't pass up a good NVidia chipset.

Thanks folks!

Edited: I currently use it for a few middle of the range games (WoW, Champions Online) and I use the system as my DVD player, eventually blu-ray on a 1080p.

So far I've been looking at 4850/4870 and GTX 275...

 

[crisium]

$200-$300 is pretty much top of the line nowadays. GPU prices are not frighteningly high anymore. Your CPU isn't the hottest piece of work, so I'd say get no higher than a Radeon 4870 1GB. That'll cost you only $145-$160. Behold:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...%20%2f%20Video%20Cards

That's a pretty fast card, don't let the low price scare you. Hell, you could probably just get a Radeon 4850 512MB for $100 if you game at 1680x1050 or lower. Prices are just that good for cards right now.

 

[happy medium]

Originally posted by: Rerednaw
MB: ASUS M3N78 PRO (Geforce 8300 chipset)
CPU: AMD Phenom X4 9500
HD: WD SATA-3
Mem: 2x 2048MB PC6400 DDR2 800Mhz

Existing Video Card: Sparkle GeForce 9400GT PCIe with 1 GB.

Without something that will allow me to fry eggs on the case, what are some decent (doesn't have to be top top, as the rest of my system is pretty pedestrian) cards?

I figure I'm looking in the $200-300 range. Or if there's something less I'm on it.

I prefer ATi, but won't pass up a good NVidia chipset.

Thanks folks!

Edited: I currently use it for a few middle of the range games (WoW, Champions Online) and I use the system as my DVD player, eventually blu-ray on a 1080p.

For these games and blueray a 4850 with a HDMI output is plenty and only about 100$

 

[Rerednaw]

Hey folks thanks for the speedy response, I was editing to add more info and once I was done poof! Now that's fast!

 

[cusideabelincoln]

What kind of power supply do you have (for example: Antec Earthwatts) and how old is it?

 

[faxon]

what resolution monitor? and how long are you willing to wait? cause AMD is launching new cards in a month, and the $130 part will be faster than a 4890 is now, running on PCI-e bus power. you could spend the extra $170 upgrading your CPU to a phenom 2 945 as well, which would give a significantly greater boost in WoW than your GPU, since MMORPGs tend to be extremely CPU bound. there are some fixes which allow the game to take advantage of more cores by editing .ini files or something to that extent, to the point that there are significant gains even on an i7 platform over CQ2 or PH2, so going from a 9500 to a 920 would be a big boost in terms of performance as well as a GPU upgrade.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819103696

and if you dont want to wait, get this GPU to go with it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814102825

 

[zCypher]

Originally posted by: Rerednaw
Hey folks thanks for the speedy response, I was editing to add more info and once I was done poof! Now that's fast!

Yes you can't go wrong with AT, there is always stupidly fast (and good) advice here.

I am also looking at similar video cards. From what I understand you'll want to go with the 1GB card if you'll be playing a lot in high resolution with high settings.

 

[Rerednaw]

Originally posted by: cusideabelincoln
What kind of power supply do you have (for example: Antec Earthwatts) and how old is it?

Good question. I did not realize how power hungry vid cards have become:

Ultra LS500 Lifetime Series 500W Power Supply
Form Factor: ATX
Wattage: 500-Watt
Modular Cabling: No
Special Features: Manual 130v & 220v Switching
Fan: 120 mm
Input Voltage: 115 ~ 230
+3.3V: 20 A
+5V: 32 A
+12V 1: 28 A
-12V: 0.6 A
+5VSB: 2 A
Motherboard Connector: 20+4 Pin
4-Pin/8-Pin EPS Connector: 1
6-Pin PCI-Express Connector: 1
4-Pin Floppy Connector: 1
4-Pin Peripheral Connector: 6
SATA Power Connector: 2

Looks like I may have issues with power as well as the cards that require 2x 6 pin connectors as I only have one.

Originally posted by: faxon
what resolution monitor? and how long are you willing to wait? cause AMD is launching new cards in a month, and the $130 part will be faster than a 4890 is now, running on PCI-e bus power. you could spend the extra $170 upgrading your CPU to a phenom 2 945...

I run stuff through my tv. 1920x1080 via the HDMI. I can wait a few weeks, my current card runs mostly okay, just when loaded things tend to chug. I ran a few tests and they all stated that my vid card was the current bottleneck. A distant second was the CPU and then MB memory.

Not sure what you mean by AMD cards.
I will take a look at the phenom 2 945 and see if it works with my current setup.

Again everyone thank for the help, this is all narrowing things down for me.

Excelsior!

 

[crisium]

AMD owns ATi, so AMD cards = ATi cards.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: faxon
cause AMD is launching new cards in a month, and the $130 part will be faster than a 4890 is now, running on PCI-e bus power.

As far as I recall reading it's the $189 part that may be faster than 4890 but I have no seen any rumours of a $130 part being as fast as a 4890. Do you have a linky?

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Well Ultra doesn't make the best power supplies (in fact I'd put them below average), and if you were to add a power hungry card you might be pushing it close to it's limit, which is something I don't recommend. In actuality that unit looks like it's overrated. According to those specs it's really more in line of a 400W power supply. The 380W Antec Earthwatts can deliver 27A on it's +12V rails, which are the most important.

I can't seem to find any details on that PSU, though, like how it handles high loads, ripple, voltage stability, and etc. But to be on the safe side, I definitely think you should pick up a quality unit, and you can easily find one for $80 or less, along with a video card purchase.

Oh and your motherboard does support Phenom II processors, but I don't think you really need to upgrade right away. Going from a 9400GT to an HD4850, HD4870, GTS250, or GTX260 will give you a huge boost in performance. And if you do the .ini tweak to WoW as suggested above, then you can take advantage of the quad core processor you already have.

 

[happy medium]

Your psu will easily handle the 4770 and it's only 3% slower then the 4850 and 4x faster then the 9400gt for $109.00. It also has a HDMI for blueray.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...r>Item=N82E16814121326

 

[Schmide]

Ultra LS500 is a not so sexy version of the V-Series

Hardware Canucks V-Series

That first generation Phenom is a bit power hungry 100w but you could get away with most mid-range single card solutions.

 

[Rerednaw]

Originally posted by: cusideabelincoln
Well Ultra doesn't make the...Oh and your motherboard does support Phenom II processors, but I don't think you really need to upgrade right away. Going from a 9400GT to an HD4850, HD4870, GTS250, or GTX260 will give you a huge boost in performance. And if you do the .ini tweak to WoW as suggested above, then you can take advantage of the quad core processor you already have.

Linky or quote?

Thanks.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Thread on AT where I saw it:
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...ght_key=y&keyword1=wow

Actual thread on what to do:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft....jhwnNYFhfHk&rhtml=true