Graphics Card Recommendation

I am currently working out an upgrade/replacement for my aging system, and am stuck on what graphics card I should get to compliment my needs.

I am thinking of purchasing the following:

Intel i5 570
ASUS P7P55D
Crucial DDR3-1333 4GB

I mostly play Football Manager in terms of games, so I don't need much in the way of graphical ability, however I don't want to limit my system and purchase a really cheap graphics card which would then cause the rest of my system to suffer as a result.

I currently have a 480W Tagan PSU, however this is about 6 years old and I have read somewhere that they lose their capacity over time, so would I perhaps need to look into purchasing a new PSU to cope with a modern graphics card?

What other games do you play? I notice you said "mostly" FM.

Getting a really cheap graphics card won't make the rest of your system suffer - if you don't need the power, there's no point having it. Football Manager doesn't need anything more than a 9500 GT or something to run, really basic graphics.

Whether they'll step it up next year remains to be seen, but even then I'm sure they'll keep backwards compatibility. And I doubt that they will.

Your socket 939 Athlon X2 4800 is worth a decent amount on Ebay.

Also, I would suggest going for a Phenom II X4 based system too. What is your budget for the computer?

Your PSU will laugh at pretty much anything you purchase, unless you start spending silly money.

What's your budget? £50-ish?

Ideally I want to keep the upgrade below the £500 mark. I have just finished Uni and yet to land myself a job so doing this on a slight budget. If possible, even less.

i5 750 - £155
P7P55D - £95
Crucial 4GB - £85
Total = £335

Leaves a possible £170 left for graphics, but that seems like a lot considering I won't be playing many graphically intense games. I was looking in the sub ~£100 range. Such as the 5570 which was given the best card for ~$70 on Tom's Hardware.

As for other games, to be honest that is it really at the moment. I tend to play most my games on XBOX 360, so a high-end graphics card isn't really neccessary. However I do want the option should a new title come out.


Having read a few reviews, the i5 seems to perform slightly better in cpu intensive applications than the AMD, so I though I would go down that path. Plus FM is optimized for Intel technology so I thought it wise to go that route.

Socket 1156 is EOL at the beginning of 2011 and many companies are already are showing prototypes of socket 1155 motherboards. The first iteration of AMD Bulldozer will also work on socket AM3 according to recent AMD roadmaps.

The AMD motherboards are also cheaper for a similar specification when compared to their AMD equivalents.

Also games are more GPU intensive than CPU intensive.

Most games are, however Football Manager requires more CPU power than GPU, and that is the game I mostly play on my desktop, saving the other games for my 360.

Coiming to the EOL isn't too much of a worry for me, as this will just mean I can't perform a direct upgrade, however going by my past track record, that would be unlikely to happen anyway. The i5 should be sufficient for at least another 3-4 years I would say for my needs.

I have mates who have Core2 quad and Phenom II X4 based computers and they are running more CPU intensive games like Supreme Commander,BFBC2,WoW and Dragonage Origins. If anything the more CPU intensive games require more cores which means that any quad core with a decent clockspeed will make such games run better.
Having said that a dual core is still fine with even these games as most gamers are still running dual cores.

TBH,another 1GB of RAM and a faster graphics card would be make your current system run newer games better.

If you are on a budget this would be the most cost effective upgrade.

If you've got £170 to spend then go for an ATI 5830. They're quite new to market and you can find them easily in your price range. Scan have an XFX for £164. They did have a Sapphire listed around that price but it's disappeared for some reason. OCUK have them still, never bothered ordering from there though.

Unless you buy second hand of course, you could get a 5850 for £175ish if you lurk around the classifieds forum, or if you're saving money pick up someone's old 4890 for about £100.

What on earth would he use a 5830 for?

If I really wanted a great FM system, I'd be getting a 6-core AMD with 4GB RAM and 5670 or something like that.

Ooo, I hadn't seen the X6. Only an extra £5 over the i5 750! Would this be the best option available to me? There are quite a few that say the i5 is still superior in some circumstances.

You could go:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H (£90.53) http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigab...-SATA-RAID-ATX
CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (£162.13) http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-P...he-125W-Retail
Cooler: Titan Fenrir (£29.95) http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Titan...366-K8-AM2-AM3)
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C7 1600MHz (£101) http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...L7D-4GBRM.html
GPU: 1GB Power Color HD 5670 (£84.37) http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-P...-DL-DVI-I-HDMI

That comes to approximately £467 delivered although I haven't looked closely at prices so may be able to shave a few £ off.

The X6 should clock nicely to 3.6GHz or so and the RAM has decently low latencies. It may be worth considering a replacement HDD as the old Raptors are quite comprehensively outperformed by the Samsung F3s (apart from seek time). The 500GB retails for about £35, so that would bring you up to your £500.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by abaddon

Ooo, I hadn't seen the X6. Only an extra £5 over the i5 750! Would this be the best option available to me? There are quite a few that say the i5 is still superior in some circumstances.

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In more lightly threaded apps the 750 will come out on top, especially when overlocked, but closer to stock the X6 should keep pace, and then exceed it once the threads pile up. Where there is a definite blur is with the hyper-threaded i7s where there is 4 cores but 8 threads - in those cases a 3.x GHz X6 will be beaten by a stock i7 920 or 860.

The HD5670 is overpriced and a 9800GT usually is faster and cheaper too at around £70 to £75. The HD5670 also is too slow to make use of any DX11 features. TBH, at around the £90 to £100 price level an HD4850,GTS250 or an HD5750 would be the best choices.

Here is a review comparing the graphics cards:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/M...70_1_GB/3.html

The following Asus motherboard is quite decent for the price:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/206151

It is an easy motherboard to overclock with and even has buttons to do this automatically on the motherboard. It also has a split 8 phase VRM which should help when overclocking too.

If you need an IGP and decent overclocking ability this motherboard is also worth looking at:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-SATA-RAID-ATX

Some of the Samsung F3 drives do have issues with the SB850 southbridge so it would be worth looking at one of the Western Digital Black drives.

Good find on the motherboard, the £20 saving there pushes the 5750 into reach, although the question remains as to whether it is really necessary.

A 9800GT or an HD4670 GDDR3 would probably be fine. The HD4670 is actually not a bad card for around £50 to £60 and is faster than an HD5570 too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skulltrail

Good find on the motherboard, the £20 saving there pushes the 5750 into reach, although the question remains as to whether it is really necessary.

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The HD5750 512MB can be had for around £90 to £95 which is around the same price as an HD4850 or GTS250.