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Discussion looking to upgrade graphics card

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speedy11131

speedy11131

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One of my machines currently has

Phenom II X4 955
4GB RAM
Radeon HD 6870

looking to upgrade the video card, willing to spend about $400 - $500.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371016
^ That is the power supply I currently have, would I have enough on the 12V rails for a new one?
I was considering either a GTX 580 or an HD5970.
 
dMDzn

oRushez

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The minimum to run a GTX 580 is 600W PSU with 42A on the +12V rail. So, you will need an upgrade.
 
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ShadowZ

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I would advise against the hd 5970. It only has 1 gb of effective VRAM and this lack of VRAM really makes it FPS stutter. Right now, a gtx 580 would be your best best but the new HD 79xx series is released on January 9th. The HD7950 should retail around $449 while the HD7970 will retail around $550. These cards look like they will be super fast with a lot more ROPs (doubled from hd 6970) and TMUs (%30 increase from hd 6970) which should in theory, allow them to render frames even faster. HD 7970 also comes with 3 GB of VRAM which should be plenty to allow these cards to last a few years before becoming dated.

You may just be able to get by with a 550w psu with the HD79xx series as its power consumption is supposed to be under 300 W.
 
Shatter

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Before you get a better gpu upgrade that ram, its going to get capped on games 8gb will do for a few years.
 
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ShadowZ

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4 GB of ram will do fine for at least another year. The consoles don't even have anywhere near 2 GB of ram and more and more games are being ported from the console to PC now so we won't really see any games utilize over 2 GB that often. I don't think I have ever seen my computer use over 4 GB of ram. Ram is also dirt cheap nowadays.
 
Shatter

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4 GB of ram will do fine for at least another year. The consoles don't even have anywhere near 2 GB of ram and more and more games are being ported from the console to PC now so we won't really see any games utilize over 2 GB that often. I don't think I have ever seen my computer use over 4 GB of ram. Ram is also dirt cheap nowadays.
The xbox has like 500mb of ram 0.0. PC games require more ram then the xbox btw, minimum is usually 2gb recommended is usually 8, to run on max settings without fps drop some require more then 8 thow.
 
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ShadowZ

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The xbox has like 500mb of ram 0.0. PC games require more ram then the xbox btw, minimum is usually 2gb recommended is usually 8, to run on max settings without fps drop some require more then 8 thow.

The only game I have seen that recommends 8 GB of ram is Metro 2033 and there is little chance of it ever using that much. Most game executables are 32-bit and thus can only really make use of 2 GB of ram. On 64 bit systems, Large Address Aware can be used to increase that to 4 GB I believe, it may be higher. Right now, an extra 4 GB isn't absolutely needed. I don't think I have ever seen myself hit 5 GB with like 30 tabs in firefox, a couple in chrome along with a game.
 
Shatter

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The only game I have seen that recommends 8 GB of ram is Metro 2033 and there is little chance of it ever using that much. Most game executables are 32-bit and thus can only really make use of 2 GB of ram. On 64 bit systems, Large Address Aware can be used to increase that to 4 GB I believe, it may be higher. Right now, an extra 4 GB isn't absolutely needed. I don't think I have ever seen myself hit 5 GB with like 30 tabs in firefox, a couple in chrome along with a game.
Wait till the xbox 360 gets an upgrade, games are usually made with running it on the ****** xbox hardware, the next gen consoles should be sata 3, 64bit, bluray, bigger hds, better gpus, more ram (probably 8gb), direct x11, just get ready to be forced to upgrade your pc when they come out to run games smoothly.
 
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