Help picking graphics card please.

[DeltaViolet+]

I will start off by showing my specs:

Processer : AMD Phenom II X6 1055T
Ram : 6gb
Motherboard : AS rock? M3AUCC AMD 480X crossfire + SB 600 chipset
PSU : http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...ov-psu800.html
OS : Windows 7 ultimate
Also I should add that I use my 46inch HITACHI TV screen as my monitor.

My graphics card at the moment is an Nvidia geforce GT 220 2gb, It wont run battlefield 3 smoothly even in the lowest of settings. Can anyone suggest a graphics card that will work with all my specs and make it so i can play all the latest pc games in ultra/high settings. Id rather it was not in SLI that confuses me.

Thankyou in advance.

[Ark22]

Since I see no money limit, I recommend the most highest, expensive graphics card. That in which I don't know.

[Keilyn]

I will start off by showing my specs:

Processer : AMD Phenom II X6 1055T
Ram : 6gb
Motherboard : AS rock? M3AUCC AMD 480X crossfire + SB 600 chipset
PSU : Win power + plus 700w
OS : Windows 7 ultimate
Also I should add that I use my 46inch HITACHI TV screen as my monitor.

My graphics card at the moment is an Nvidia geforce GT 220 2gb, It wont run battlefield 3 smoothly even in the lowest of settings. Can anyone suggest a graphics card that will work with all my specs and make it so i can play all the latest pc games in ultra/high settings. Id rather it was not in SLI that confuses me.

Thankyou in advance.

Hi Delta.

I want you to tell me which games you wish to play and what do you feel like going through. This will allow me to let you know on what cards and setups you should get.

You see, there is no tactical value in paying spades for something expensive if you do not plan on tapping at least half of its full power. In PSU I use my 480 GTX setup to take video and play simultaneously, however I have other games I run SLI setups in.

If you are planning on only playing PSU and then going for PSO-2, I would wait on PSO-2 for the reasons that the last four major games released for PC have had to be patched for different video cards.

[Mantiskilla]

Yeah I would suggest any card that has GDDR5. Your card actually isn't all that bad just the problem is the fact that it has DDR3 instead of GDDR3 as that makes a HUGE difference. Most high end cards now though are GDDR5 so I would look at those and then decide on how much ram you want it to have

[DeltaViolet+]

@ keilyn hey its for BF3 and yeah pso2 ofcourse :P

@Mantiskilla this is the one I think im going to get

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=46143

[Ezodagrom]

@ keilyn hey its for BF3 and yeah pso2 ofcourse :P

@Mantiskilla this is the one I think im going to get

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=46143

If you go for that graphics card, it probably would be better to get a new power supply as well, something good from a known brand, like Corsair or Antec.
Otherwise I would get a graphics card with lower power consumption, like a Geforce GTX560 Ti, for example.

[Mantiskilla]

If you go for that graphics card, it probably would be better to get a new power supply as well, something good from a known brand, like Corsair or Antec.
Otherwise I would get a graphics card with lower power consumption, like a Geforce GTX560 Ti, for example.

Haha very good point my fellow PC game friend. Power supplies are very important and like Ezo said Antec or Corsair are some of the best one to look at. As for the card? Yeah not a bad choice

[DeltaViolet+]

If you go for that graphics card, it probably would be better to get a new power supply as well, something good from a known brand, like Corsair or Antec.
Otherwise I would get a graphics card with lower power consumption, like a Geforce GTX560 Ti, for example.

I was looking at the 560 Ti also

Would either of you be able to tell me why it is that this PSU wouldn't work well? and what kind of problems I would face?

I can buy another PSU but I don't really want to unless its totally necessary, I just recently bought that one because my other one fried ,could i not just put a fan facing my pc? lol XD

Also would two 560 Ti using SLI work better than using one 580? or would i have the same problem with my PSU? My friend has a GTX560 but he uses 600w PSU, mines a 700w so I thought it would work , what can of wattage will i need?

Well theres some more questions for you guys lol I appreciate your time though

[Ezodagrom]

I was looking at the 560 Ti also

Would either of you be able to tell me why it is that this PSU wouldn't work well? and what kind of problems I would face?

I can buy another PSU but I don't really want to unless its totally necessary, I just recently bought that one because my other one fried ,could i not just put a fan facing my pc? lol XD

Also would two 560 Ti using SLI work better than using one 580? or would i have the same problem with my PSU? My friend has a GTX560 but he uses 600w PSU, mines a 700w so I thought it would work , what can of wattage will i need?

Well theres some more questions for you guys lol I appreciate your time though

With it being from an unknown brand, it's likely that the 700W might be an exaggeration and it could not be able to handle such a load.
Putting a high consumption component with a weak power supply could result in not only frying the supply, but even frying other components of the PC.

Also, when it comes to power consumption, two GTX560 Ti would be worse than a single GTX580.

[Keilyn]

Hello Delta.

I would look at the eVGA 580 GTX card. The reason is that they have a Limited Lifetime Warranty on the cards that you buy. If you plan on spending a lot of money on a video card, see if the warranty applies outside of the United States.

As far as power supplies go, here are general guidelines:

1) Power Supplies have an Efficiency Rating. This is the amount of power the supply uses effectively. The remaining power drawn which is unused gets discharged upon the system as heat. Here is an example....

2) The best efficiency is achieved at load over 25% and under 75%. Also never should you go over 75% load on a power supply that you buy.

Here is an example on calculation and efficiency.

Suppose your system needs 500w of power and your power supply is 80% efficient. How much power will your system draw?

The answer is 500/.8 = 625w

This means that while your system needs 500W of power to operate, because the supply is 80% efficient, it means it draws 625w and those extra 125w are discharged upon the supply itself as heat.

3) Supplies give current to parts in the form of 3.3v, 5v, 12v and 20v currents with the 12v current being the greatest used. I dont recommend any power supply that has under 60a on 12v rails. The CPU and Video Card need a lot of power.

More Mathematics...

Amperes * Voltage = Wattage

so

60a * 12v = 720w

Remember a law of energy states you can never have 100% energy. You will lose some of it, hence why we deal with efficiency and Entropy.

4) Make sure the power supply you buy is certified for SLI/Crossfire and has 80 PLUS certification.

Here is a list of the supplies that have passed 80 PLUS certification. If its not on this site, it has not passed inspection:

http://www.plugloadsolutions.com/80P...rSupplies.aspx

A power supply capable of running SLI/Crossfire as well as being 80+ certified has better operating conditions on single cards too. They will last longer and sustain less wear. It will cost you more, but you won't get so many wide voltages or common problems systems deal with.

I am telling you this because when you play any of the latest games you will bring your power supply, Memory, Video Card and Processor all to load at the very same time and since all that power is floating around and you are dealing with tons of heat and tons of data transfers, stability is more important than pure speed.

The supply I have was expensive but it was back then and today still remains the supply with the best waveform possible. That 80 PLUS site has datasheets for supplies.

Within those data sheets you see to the right a Sine Wave. You see a second wave too. The idea is to have the drawn wave be as close as to the original Sine Wave as possible.

http://www.plugloadsolutions.com/psu...00W_Report.pdf

This is the power supply I use in my main gaming system.

I am not trying to show off and say "Go buy it" but this is one of your best bets out there when it comes to supplies if you plan on Going SLI with high end video cards.

This supply has by far the best waveform I have seen out of any power supply to date and that becomes very important because you want your voltages to remain as tight as possible specially when synchronization is your aim. This allows for good overclocking, preserves your computer because:

"what really shorts out comps the most are power supplies with +10% overvoltage protection. 10% is horrible. What it actually means is that your voltage can be off by positive or negative 10%. Below is an example:

If you have a device rated at 1v

It means the voltage is going to operate between 0.9v and 1.1v

Look at what happens:

at 0.9v the voltage may be so low that your system freezes since its not getting enough power.

at 1.1 the voltage may be so high that it DOES COUNT as an OVERCLOCK and the device is dealing with more heat being generated and 10% more power being used as well...But what if the device can't operate well at +10% voltage? You risk frying or damaging the hardware...

This is what tends to happen when you connect a STRONG VIDEO CARD and CPU to a weak power supply.

You play the latest cutting edge game. Your system is already at a high limit, using tons of power and generating tons of heat, but wouldn't you know it? the Overvoltage is WIDEST when you are gaming top games that give your hardware a workout...So some devices are at +10%, others are at -10% and all of a sudden you experience screen freezes, Errors and in the worse case scenario, your system blows out or shuts down.

This is why I am warning you as a friend to not skimp out on a power supply. I wouldn't have written this post if we weren't friends.

Remember that its even worse if you play networked multiplayer games.