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Graphic cards and other hardware

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Pty James's picture
Pty James
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This was starting to take space from the Conviction topic so I decided to make a new topic just for this. Feel free to talk about whatever related to PC gaming hardware you want.

Back on topic, I took Asaic's advice and started browsing for graphic cards. For some reason, Radeon seemed like the way to go.
I found this Sapphire HD 6850 which isn't really that expensive, and seems like it can play most actual games without putting too much effort into it. Plus, it comes with a free digital copy of Deus Ex: Human Revolution Big smile
Then I went to compare it with what seemed like its counterpart, an nVidia GTX 570 which yielded these results. Now I don't have a single idea what most of those numbers mean, but it seems like the nVidia has some numbers over the Radeon, which I really doubt justifies the almost $200 difference.
The Radeon seems to be the winner then, which would also demand a new motherboard and processor to go with it, a new fan, and maybe a 3 GB RAM(?). But I'll look into that later.

So, did I do my homework good?

JoeyFogey wrote:
ROB_88 wrote:
[On the meaning of BAMF]i figured it was something similar to a MILF

Babes Await My..............Flap-a-doodle Laughing out loud

Asaic's picture
Asaic
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Pty James wrote:
I found this Sapphire HD 6850 which isn't really that expensive, and seems like it can play most actual games without putting too much effort into it. Plus, it comes with a free digital copy of Deus Ex: Human Revolution Big smile

The 6850 is an awesome card. I have a 6870, which is pretty much the same, and it will run every game I've played at max settings with very high framerates at 1920x1200, including using anti-aliasing. I don't think there's a game available right now that can stress that card. And that's a pretty good price!

In general, a Radeon HD x700 is about entry level with decent performance and the x800 is high performance. x900 models are overkill and cost far more, making them a waste. Especially the 6900 series, as no game can make that card work hard.

Pty James wrote:
Then I went to compare it with what seemed like its counterpart, an nVidia GTX 570 which yielded these results. Now I don't have a single idea what most of those numbers mean, but it seems like the nVidia has some numbers over the Radeon, which I really doubt justifies the almost $200 difference.

It doesn't. A 550 would probably give you reasonable enough performance and the 570 should kick just about every game's ass. But so will the HD 6850 and it's a lot cheaper.

Pty James wrote:
The Radeon seems to be the winner then, which would also demand a new motherboard and processor to go with it, a new fan, and maybe a 3 GB RAM(?).

It really depends on what you have in your current system. If you have a decent dual-core processor and a motherboard with a PCI-express slot, then all you might need to upgrade is the RAM. 3 or 4GB is sufficient. Don't waste money going over 4GB as no games use that much and you won't see any difference.

Pty James wrote:
So, did I do my homework good?

Definitely! I always learn a lot when I do research on something, much more than I expected to going in. That's always a good thing – you can never know too much IMO.

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Pty James
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What exactly could be defined as a decent dual-core. Is there an specific characteristic I should be looking for?

JoeyFogey wrote:
ROB_88 wrote:
[On the meaning of BAMF]i figured it was something similar to a MILF

Babes Await My..............Flap-a-doodle Laughing out loud

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Asaic
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Pty James wrote:
What exactly could be defined as a decent dual-core. Is there an specific characteristic I should be looking for?

It entirely depends on the generation. For example, a Core2Duo is fine in the 2.7 – 3.0GHz range, but an i5 or i7 would only need to be in the 1.8 – 2.0GHz range.

Do you know what processor you have right now?

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Pty James
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You don't want to know, believe me. Anyway, I understand what you're saying, basically, the older the generation, the more Ghz it would need. I'll start doing some research and see what I can find. Thanks for the help Asaic Laughing out loud

JoeyFogey wrote:
ROB_88 wrote:
[On the meaning of BAMF]i figured it was something similar to a MILF

Babes Await My..............Flap-a-doodle Laughing out loud