Hardware & Technical New Graphics Card Help

shotbyadam

S
Hello all. I am currently running a custom-build machine that's about 5 years old. I've got an I7 quad core, 12gb of RAM, etc. My GPU is a Geforce GTX 460 which meets the bare minimum for Elite Dangerous. The game is quite playable with it but I'd like to start taking advantage a bit more of more modern game play so I want to get a new graphics card. Here's the deal though:

- Needs to be PCI Express
- Needs to have dual DVI outputs (I am a photographer and run a dual monitor system so this is a must)
- Would like to stick to around 200 bucks, or a little less if possible.

So what kind of cards would you recommend? I was looking at the Radeon R7 370 or the Geforce 750 TI as possible cards. Anything else should look at as having good bang for the buck in this price range with these requirements? Thanks!
 

relayer

relayer
shotbyadam said:
Hello all. I am currently running a custom-build machine that's about 5 years old. I've got an I7 quad core, 12gb of RAM, etc. ...

- Needs to be PCI Express
- Needs to have dual DVI outputs (I am a photographer and run a dual monitor system so this is a must)
- Would like to stick to around 200 bucks, or a little less if possible.

So what kind of cards would you recommend? I was looking at the Radeon R7 370 or the Geforce 750 TI as possible cards. Anything else should look at as having good bang for the buck in this price range with these requirements? Thanks!
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I just built a machine for ED and SC (if it ever gets finished lol) that has less memory than you and an i5-4690 (I'll get an i7 when they come down a bit in price). I've built maybe... 300 or so machines & specialize in hardware config.

I used to use all ATI cards (in the 90s & early 2000s) for their superior performance; the problem was that their drivers were a hot mess. There were 3rd party drivers that performed and were stable; so much so that after a couple years, ATI bought the drivers! Also, ATI has pitiful linux driver support... Other part of my intro is that I am working in virtual worlds & the underlying core software is optimized for Nvidia, so I've been using those cards for a few years.

To make a long story short, I investigated video cards for 2 months; performance, price, drivers, bugs, additional software, etc.
The clear winner for the under-$200 was the Nvidia 750ti. It even showed up a couple of the 900x series cards. It's very stable, overclockable (though I don't recommend it), runs even a bit on the cool side compared to the 900s, and if you poke around the net for awhile you should be able to find one for $130 or so. It has dual dv output, is PCIx and is a fine card; I've had absolutely no regrets & I've been running it since October 2014.

I've even thought of getting another to run it in SLI (over another single card). It handles ED like a charm, and many other modern games. I can run it full ultra settings without a glitch in any game I choose. Definitely recommended!
 
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shotbyadam

S
relayer said:
The clear winner for the under-$200 was the Nvidia 750ti.
Click to expand...

I posted this question in a gaming hardware forum and pretty much the consensus was that the 750ti was just not a significant increase in performance over the 460. Everyone pretty much recommended the R9 380 card as it costs right around $200 and is a big leap in performance over the 750ti. Thoughts on that?
 

xondk

X
shotbyadam said:
I posted this question in a gaming hardware forum and pretty much the consensus was that the 750ti was just not a significant increase in performance over the 460. Everyone pretty much recommended the R9 380 card as it costs right around $200 and is a big leap in performance over the 750ti. Thoughts on that?
Click to expand...
x50 series is not really a 'gaming' card, it all depends on the budget, nvidia 960 would be a significant boost in your gaming performance and isn't priced that much more then AMD 370, though your preference might vary, running a similar system myself, using a 970 gtx, i7 950 (first gen) 12gb og ram, on windows 10 and the game runs great, even if it doesn't take full advantage of my cpu or gpu.
 

Asp Explorer

Asp Explorer
Have a look on Ebay and see if you can find an old 7950 3Gb for cheap. They were midrange cards when new, but I've been extremely happy with mine (apart from dodgy HDMI BIOS entries)
 

shotbyadam

S
xondk said:
x50 series is not really a 'gaming' card, it all depends on the budget, nvidia 960 would be a significant boost in your gaming performance and isn't priced that much more then AMD 370, though your preference might vary, running a similar system myself, using a 970 gtx, i7 950 (first gen) 12gb og ram, on windows 10 and the game runs great, even if it doesn't take full advantage of my cpu or gpu.
Click to expand...

I looked at the Nvidia card but it only has one DVI output. I need two.
 

Asp Explorer

Asp Explorer
shotbyadam said:
I looked at the Nvidia card but it only has one DVI output. I need two.
Click to expand...

Urm, going by their site it offers this:


Dual Link DVI-I, HDMI 2.0, 3x DisplayPort 1.2 Standard Display Connectors

DisplayPort to DVI adapters are cheap. I'm not sure if Nvidia require active ones for multimonitor display though.
 
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