Recomendation for Upgrade

[Brovane]

I have a older computer that is several years old. The system has ran fine for me until I purchased Hearts of Iron-4 and apparently my video card is well below specs.

Current Rig

CPU-i7 960 3.2 Ghz​

RAM-24GB DDR3-1600​

Crucial CT250M-SSD​

ATI RADEON HD5450 2GB DDR​

Motherboard P6X58 E-pro​

I am hoping that I can just upgrade the video card since the rest of system seems to work fine.

MB has 3xPCIe 2.0 X16 for expansion slots.

When I look at video cards there seems to be such a wide variety of video cards it is hard to tell what is what. The recommendation for the game is at least a ATI Radeon HD 6950 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX570 2GB VRAM.

I was hoping to avoid to a complete system re-build. If possible I wanted a video card that has a DVI and VGA output since that is what my older 24" LCD displays support.

Any recommendations as far as video card?

 

[Ken g6]

What's your budget? And what's your PSU? And do both your displays support DVI? (VGA is on its way out.)

Your CPU looks fine for now. If you want to upgrade it for even more resource-intensive games, consider a Xeon off Ebay.

 

[Brovane]

What's your budget? And what's your PSU? And do both your displays support DVI? (VGA is on its way out.)

Your CPU looks fine for now. If you want to upgrade it for even more resource-intensive games, consider a Xeon off Ebay.

Budget $200 for video card.

PS - Thermaltake TR-500 TR2 500W ATX12V v2.3 Power Supply

The monitors both support 1xDVI and 1xVGA. The challenge I have is that I also the dual 24" LCD's for my work laptop. I just use a simple KVM to switch the keyboard and mouse and then flip the monitor inputs when I am working. (Dual Monitor KVM's last time cost a lot more than i wanted to spend). The docking station I have only has 1xVGA output on the back in addition to dual DVI's on the back and display ports, a lot of good that does me. So what I currently do is have 1xVGA and 1xDVI plugged into the back of the docking station and 1xVGA and 1xDVI plugged into the back of the PC. If the docking station support dual VGA I wouldn't have a issue with ditching VGA on the back of my desktop. It wouldn't be a bad excuse to buy new monitors but my Dual Dell 24" LCD's are still rock solid after having them for 10-years. The other option is to use a converter for my docking station and convert one of the DVI's on the back to VGA and then just use the DVI's on my desktop PC.

 

[sm625]

Sounds like a perfect candidate for a RX480. I wouldnt even think of upgrading the CPU until after you see how the new card performs.

 

[Ken g6]

OK, options:

The cheap option: EVGA 950 SC + DisplayPort to DVI cable, ~$120 total after promo after $30 mail-in rebate.

The power option: R9 380X ($180 after mail-in $20 rebate) + maybe a $4 DVI to VGA dongle.

Both should work fine for this game. The 380X should work well for even more powerful games.

Or you could wait and see what a GTX 1060 or RX480 looks like in a month or two. (I imagine you don't want to wait that long to play this game, though.)

 

[Brovane]

Sounds like a perfect candidate for a RX480. I wouldnt even think of upgrading the CPU until after you see how the new card performs.

The new AMD RX 480? Will that work with my older MB?

 

[Brovane]

OK, options:

The cheap option: EVGA 950 SC + DisplayPort to DVI cable, ~$120 total after promo after $30 mail-in rebate.

The power option: R9 380X ($180 after mail-in $20 rebate) + maybe a $4 DVI to VGA dongle.

Both should work fine for this game. The 380X should work well for even more powerful games.

Or you could wait and see what a GTX 1060 or RX480 looks like in a month or two. (I imagine you don't want to wait that long to play this game, though.)

Thank you, so a card with PCI E 3.0 will work in a older PCI E 2.0 slot? I would hazard you just run the risk of saturation the older PCE slots.

 

[Ken g6]

I have a card with PCIe 3.0 in a 1.1 slot. You'll be fine.

Edit: Oh, I forgot the cheap power option. Try to find a GTX 970 (I wouldn't try a R9 290 or 390 on your power supply) for under $200 on Ebay.