What is the best GPU i can buy without my system bottle-necking performance?

[thezeronumber]

Firstly, pleasure to be on these forums. Been meaning to join for a while and finally got round to it due to the following reason.

Onto business. As the title suggests, i am interested in purchasing a new Graphics Card but would like to buy the best possible without the rest of my system becoming a problem and stunting performance. All well and good buying an amazing GPU but if my specs aren't up to scratch then it's money wasted on a product which i cannot get the full use out of. My friend built this Desktop for me over a year ago and while i have single handedly gutted the thing out before in order to install a bracket to the rear of the Motherboard, i'm not an otherwise very experienced person when it comes to the internals; i can add and remove parts fairly easily but apart from that my knowledge is pretty limited!

I am a pretty big gamer but i don't really delve into a ton of ultra-realistic titles. I'd be happy to run Metro 2033 at decent settings and i'm looking into getting Bulletstorm, if that makes any difference. Please bear in mind i want to upgrade monitors in the near future (one that is 1600 x 900 at the very least but i won't go higher than a 1080p) so ignore the current resolution because it is pretty terrible, heh.


Win Power ATX 450W PSU
Details of which can be found here: http://i460.photobucket.com/albums/qq326/thezeronumber/DSC00712.jpg
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.00GHz
Room to Overclock because i have a brilliant Noctua CPU cooler. Not done so yet because i have no idea how to do it; not looked it up.
4GB DDR2 Ram @ 333MHz
512mb GeForce 9500 GT
Asus P5Q Pro Turbo Motherboard (LGA 775)
320GB HDD
Windows 7 Home Premium x64
1024 x 768 Resolution Monitor

I asked around before joining here and the GPU seemed to be needing a drastic upgrade, which is fair enough. I also asked around for some candidates and the GTX 460 series kept popping up and looked to be a decent set of cards, however i never got much help past that. Hunting the right GTX 460 brand out isn't the issue, it's just that i don't know if the 460 is even the best option for me, or should i say, will my system be able to handle it? If i were to go for a better Graphics Card would my system choke performance?

Ignoring the current Monitor:

1) Also ignoring the PSU (which might need an upgrade as i am not even sure if i have a 6 pin connector for the GTX cards), what would be the best Graphics Card for my system which would get the most performance possible without the rest of my Desktop stunting functionality?

2) Including the PSU, same question as above. I ask this out of sheer curiosity; i am able to buy a new Power Supply if needs be but i'm interested in the answers if i were to keep the current one.

I would like to add that ATI cards are not going to work well. One of the games i play (Monday Night Combat) has terrible issues with those GPUs and i'd rather avoid them if possible. Thanks in advance for any help i receive.

 

[Gin0rm0]

GTX460 sounds about right.

Would definitely be looking to upgrade the PSU though.

 

[95thrifles]

What sort of budget you looking at? I'd definitely recommend a new PSU, a 460 would be a great pairing with your current system, if you're looking to go to 1080p res in the near future then the 1 gig version would prob be a worthwhile investment
If you're asking if you can put a more powerful card than a 460 in then the answer is yes, your CPU is still a cracking chip and games are still massively GPU dependent, most games are still only coded to use dual core CPUs too, so for those your CPU wouldn't be an issue and you could put a 580 in if you wanted, lol, however more and more games are now starting to utilise the extra cores, and for these much above a 460 would start to get held back tbh, also there's now the new 560s out, these may not of been available when doing your first round of research, but it's dependent on your budget again, the 460 is a great value card still tbh, and you MUST buy a new PSU
Hope this helps

 

[Skellig]

Definitely overclock the E8400.

My E8500 is 4.02 and on a Noctua D14 out of choice. I could push it easily past 4.3 but I just don't want my vcore high.

Your E8400 should be able to do 3.8 easily and then some.

 

[thezeronumber]

What sort of budget you looking at?

Originally i was going up to £200 for the Graphics alone, but if i need a new Power Supply then i don't really want to spend more than £150 on a GPU, although i am open to going a little higher if it is really worth it. As for the Power Supply, would like to stay below the £75 mark if possible. As long as it's reliable and does what it should, i'm not too bothered about total wattage.

If you're asking if you can put a more powerful card than a 460 in then the answer is yes, your CPU is still a cracking chip and games are still massively GPU dependent, most games are still only coded to use dual core CPUs too, so for those your CPU wouldn't be an issue and you could put a 580 in if you wanted, lol, however more and more games are now starting to utilise the extra cores, and for these much above a 460 would start to get held back tbh

To clarify, you're saying that i could buy a better GPU than the GTX 460 and it would still increase performance with my other specifications, but you'd still recommend the GTX 460 as it's better suited and is more "bang for my buck"? I mean, it make more sense to buy a GTX 460 and upgrade the CPU later on than it would to buy an even better Graphics Card but keep the CPU altogether, right?

Definitely overclock the E8400.

Been meaning to, i just need to check out some tutorials first.

Thanks for the help so far.

 

[rolypolyman]

This and this, job done.

 

[man_from_uncle]

If you're still gaming at 1024x768, then you really won't see much of a performance gain from anything more than a GTX460. Even then, that's almost overkill. In fact I dare say, and i'm sure others will agree, the best way to spend your money would be to get at least a 19 inch wide screen (maybe £100), then spend the rest on a cheap GTX460.

Until you are gaming at a significantly higher resolution, then you don't need more graphical power than that, and that means you won't need a bigger PSU either.

That said, someone more worldly than me should cast their eye over those PSU specs as well. That looks like a generic 450w job, which might not be happy with a GTX460 for long.

 

[thezeronumber]

I was looking at that one a couple of hours ago, Corsair seems to be a good name when it comes to Power Supplies. I'm not adapt at telling which PSU is better than the other because i have no idea what to look out for, so this is all based on what i've heard rather than actually knowing if they are good!

As for the GTX 460 i need to do some research as there are 8 or so brands which have their own version of the card. I've heard Asus is one of the best but i would like to know about the other options too. I'm after a fairly quiet GPU as the Desktop is currently in the living room but i'm not afraid of a little noise, so finding a balance between that and performance will be brilliant. I know there a couple of group GTX 460 comparison sites out there so i will get stuck into them when i next have a few hours spare.

Thanks for the suggestions!

EDIT: As mentioned before, i plan to upgrade the Monitor when i come across a decent offer so the GPU/PSU replacement should ignore the current size and favour a soon-to-be 1600 x 900 or higher resolution. The only reason i've still got such a tiny screen is that my current Graphics Card is pathetic and going any higher before a GPU upgrade would completely decimate my frame-rates. I tried going up to a 22" Monitor round my friend's house but my FPS in L4D2 quite literally dropped by 50%, heh.

 

[man_from_uncle]

To be honest, while it makes some difference which brand you go for in terms of warranty, service and freebies, don't lose too much sleep over it.

Unless they are pre overclocked, they will all run the same. Anyone one on here, on any given day will be able to tell you which of the half dozen or so 460s is the best buy at the moment. And even when we don't agree, there really isn't a lot in it. My personal rule is to just go for the cheapest gpu that has the architecture you want. Everything else, including the cooler, can be changed at a later date.

 

[pastymuncher]

Before you do any clocking you really need to replace the crappy psu. If your ram is only PC2-667 (333mhz) then that will need replacing as well or is it faster stuff just slowed down to 333mhz? With a decent psu and ram, your motherboard should get that E8400 to 4Ghz quite easily.

 

[thezeronumber]

Replacing the PSU is understandable, that's why i've not looked into over-clocking yet (had no reason to really do it anyway with the current Graphics Card). According to Speccy the Ram are PC2-5300 @ 333mhz by default. Honestly, i have no idea what those numbers mean but i am aware they are hardly brilliant. Still, they've done me good so far and i cannot complain.

Fair do's about the GTX 460 brands. All i ever planned on doing was comparing game testing results and finding out how loud the cards are under load, then using that info against price to find a nice medium between all three factors. I'm not expecting the most reliable of results but an average from various sites should give me a decent enough idea, shouldn't take too long to fish out the cards better suited for my preferences.

 

[thezeronumber]

Been busy as of late, haven't had much time to deal with this stuff until now.

Anyway, i decided that i would keep my original GPU budget of around £200 instead of £150. Naturally my first place to look was the GTX 480 and my first impressions were very positive, but then i saw how noisy and hot it ran under load and was immediately disappointed. A shame really because i really loved the performance difference over my previously explored option (GTX 460). I'm now considering the GTX 560Ti; it isn't as good as the GTX 480 (closer to that of the 470) but it runs a lot quieter and doesn't heat up as much either.

Same price as the GTX 480, lower performance, better noise and heat reduction. What do you guys think, a good choice? Also can this card run in SLI? Just something i'm considering for the future when i upgrade the rest of the Desktop.

 

[xsistor]

Forget the GTX 480.

1. Buy GTX 560

2. Overclock it to 950MHz+/4400MHz+

3. profit

 

[JBod]

Forget the GTX 480.

1. Buy GTX 560

2. Overclock it to 950MHz+/4400MHz+

3. profit

But the 480GTX has more memory and can be overclocked to be as fast as the 580?

 

[thezeronumber]

The problem with the GTX 480 is that it's so damn noisy under load (gets pretty hot too) which is why it's unfortunately not an option. I'm after performance, yes, but i don't want the place to sound like a wind tunnel either! For that reason i am willing to take away a bit of performance in order to maintain a much quieter experience for myself and those around me (living room placement so it's not just me to think of).

I am going to look at the GTX 460 range again. Figured if i can find a quiet card that can almost perform to 560Ti standards, i might as well save some cash and go for that instead. If failing that, i will likely go for the 560Ti unless someone can change my mind.

Thanks for all the help so far, i appreciate the speed of replies and the amount of them too.

 

[LiamJ]

This is simple.

Buy a GTX460 now, along with a PSU good enough for SLI

Then buy a nice monitor.

In a year or two when it starts to struggle, update to SB or Bulldozer or whatever equivalent. If you still aren't happy, put in another 460.

Job done!

 

[thezeronumber]

I think i will go ahead and do that, thanks.

In the middle of researching noise v performance for various brands as i type this, so should have a result in the next hour or 2.

 

[Glenmoray]

I'm particularly interested in what you go for thezeronumber , as I'm pretty much in an identical situation with spec/budget /worries with regards to bottleneck.

The problem is you go for one card i.e GTX 460 1GB, and the 6870 is not much more expensive, but then again the 560 is not that more expensive..then theres the 480 etc etc.



AArgh!