New to Gaming PC's. Need help with video card.

[BucWhite]

First off I'd like to say hello to all. Console gamer now switching to the pc after many years.

I recently ordered my first gaming pc. I ordered an alienware aurora r4 based on a couple recommendations from coworkers. I customized several of the options and got to the video card section. The system comes with a NVidia gtx 660 1.5 gb (OEM). I didn't upgrade it when I ordered it several days ago. I was looking around online and found several NVidia gtx 680 4gb cards for around 500. I was wondering a few things. Should I upgrade it when I receive the pc in the mail to the 680? worth it to do that?

Since I am such a rookie with pc's, can I purchase any brand of gtx 680 card? is it also plug and play or do I have to install software with the new card?

I appreciate any and all help, recomendations

 

[Ken g6]

I wouldn't make any rash decisions. See how your games play on the 660. (What games are you playing, anyway, and at what resolution?) Also, nVidia may be coming out with a rebranding soon that might lower prices a little.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Honestly if this is your first gaming PC, leave it alone for now. Try it out. Adjust the games to your liking and see if the performance is enough for you. Since PC games allow you to turn down some settings and improve performance you might find that you are happy with textures to say High instead of Ultra or shadows a tick lower than max.

What resolution is the monitor? I assume 1080p but you didn't specify. A GTX 660 should be ok at 1080p. A GTX 680 would be excellent but might not be necessary at all ($500 is expensive too IMO).

As for brand, you can buy any brand and model you want. Just uninstall the drivers from the old card and put the new card in, then install the proper drivers. You don't even have to buy another Nvidia card. You could get an AMD HD 7950 or 7970 for much less than the price of a GTX 680 and both would be faster than the 660 by a good margin.

Still, use it as it comes and see if you feel it doesn't run properly. Then you can make a decision based on experience.

 

[BucWhite]

I would be running in 1080p. playing starcraft II, diablo 3, planetside 2, far cry 3. my pc's specs are: intel I-7 3820 quad core 10mb cache 4.2ghz, 16gb quad core ddr3 memory, gtx 660 1tb hard drive, 128 GB ssd.

I'm not totally dumb when it come to pcs, but jumping into the gaming pc's I feel like a dummy. things that you didn't really have to worry about before become a big deal. I just want to do it right and leave it alone for alittle while.

I'm open to even going with the AMD if its an improvement.

 

[Greenlepricon]

I vote for the try it out first approach as well. We would also have to see some more specs and your resolution as well. Honestly I don't trust a lot of power supplies that come with pre-built pc's for handling much more than the components already added. Plus taking apart the computer will more than likely void your warranty were something to go wrong. That 660 should work for playing on high settings with a few turned down, which still looks better than a lot of games on consoles.

 

[Greenlepricon]

I would be running in 1080p. playing starcraft II, diablo 3, planetside 2, far cry 3. my pc's specs are: intel I-7 3820 quad core 10mb cache 4.2ghz, 16gb quad core ddr3 memory, gtx 660 1tb hard drive, 128 GB ssd.

I'm not totally dumb when it come to pcs, but jumping into the gaming pc's I feel like a dummy. things that you didn't really have to worry about before become a big deal. I just want to do it right and leave it alone for alittle while.

I'm open to even going with the AMD if its an improvement.

I posted a little too late Well a 7870/7950 or 660ti/670 are the gpu's I would take a look at if you want to max out settings. Still take a look at the power supply though. That can be really important.

 

[BucWhite]

875 watts on the power supply

 

[cmdrdredd]

at 1080p the 660 should be fine.

 

[tweakboy]

Nice rig bucwhite

 

[tweakboy]

Im waiting for Ivy Bridge E 4930k in October 2013. 6 core 12T monster then Im done no upgrading for me,, unless I need a new video card in 2 or 3 years tech from now.

 

[Stuka87]

I think you will be ok. You wont be able to run max settings on games like FarCry3, but high enough for it to look great and still play fine.

 

[djsb]

With regards to the amount of VRAM on the card: if you don't have enough, your experience will be terrible; but once you do have enough, the actual amount doesn't matter at all. So even if you are for some reason dead set on a GTX680, you can save yourself a chunk of change by getting the regular 2GB version and calling it a day. I think that maybe heavily modded Skyrim needs slightly more than 2GB of VRAM, and that's probably it the only use case for more.

(FYI, few things in computer hardware piss me off more than retail outlets hocking crappy cards with needlessly huge amounts of RAM onto unsuspecting customers for a higher price.)

 

[Greenlepricon]

875 watts on the power supply

Oh dang no problems there. Well run the 660 first and see how you like it. I would watch out for any good deals on cards if you're not satisfied, but there's no rush for upgrading. There are only a few games that will push my 7950 at that resolution, and you should be able to get at least 30fps on most games with quite a few settings turned up on the 660. Don't worry too much about it at the moment. My friend did the same thing but much worse. I didn't know he was buying a gaming pc and he got one with an i7 and a 6450 gpu (Extremely low end). Point is you at least have a gpu that can run games pretty well.

 

[FalseChristian]

I've never heard of a GTX 660 with only 1.5GB of vRAM. Is this a typo or do they exist in the OEM market?

 

[Kenmitch]

I've never heard of a GTX 660 with only 1.5GB of vRAM. Is this a typo or do they exist in the OEM market?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6181/nvidia-quietly-releases-oem-geforce-gtx-660

 

[BucWhite]

I figure I might as well get the gtx 680 while i have the money. i would rather have the extra power. which 680 do you guys recommend? i was looking at that asus direct CU II top.

 

[Kenmitch]

I figure I might as well get the gtx 680 while i have the money. i would rather have the extra power. which 680 do you guys recommend? i was looking at that asus direct CU II top.

If it was me I think I'd wait it out for the gtx780 or one of it's siblings if I wanted a NVidia card.

If it's one of those spend it while you STILL have the money things....Just buy yourself a newegg or amazon gift card then purchase the best option at that time.

 

[Greenlepricon]

I would recommend the 670 over the 680 for you. It's almost just as good and will save you quite a bit of money.

 

[desura]

You have a very good video card.

Keep it and forget about it.

Heck, IMO it would make more sense to downgrade your monitor to like 720p before spending money on a new card.

 

[24601]

Without significantly overclocking your CPU, I wouldn't get anything better than a 660 (retail) for the games you listed.

Make sure to turn off motion blur, depth of field, etc.

the worthless stuff that take lots of shader power to make your viewport look worse.

Your 660 OEM 1.5gb is actually overkill for that processor if you are running fully stock clocks on the processor.