Please help a noob.

C

CellBel

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Friend of mine asked me if this graphics card is good enough for his gaming pc, it's a GeForce GTX 550 Ti. He says this card is slowish. I know about lower end cards, but can't help him on these higher end products.
Well i have no idea and the forum is the only way to find out. His system is a i7 cpu & 8gig ram.
Can someone please give some advice here, will be very much appreciated.
What gaming card would you buy for a system like this?
 
A few questions first.
Budget for GPU?
Which i7 and PSU does he have?
 
Well he won't be using many high-end GPU options. The Odin 470W is fair as far as PSUs go, but its still serviceable in a gaming rig. Any GPU that uses a six-ping PEG power connector will fit in perfectly. In total, your friend's rig would draw around 300W from the wall with a discrete GPU, so he should be fine for now. If the PSU is more than two years old, he should start saving for one of a better quality at the 500W rating.

He won't be overclocking anytime soon, though. As for his options...

ASUS Direct CU II HD7770 2GB DDR5 @ R2053
PNY GTX650 Ti XLR8 1GB DDR5 w/ game bundle @ R1932
Sapphire HD7850 1GB DDR5 @ R2537

The next step up is a 2GB HD7850 or GTX660, both retailing for around R3000. You can run both cards off the Odin 470, but I'd be hesitant on running expensive hardware like that off a PSU with voltage ripples that could be better. The HD7770 and GTX650 Ti both will run most games at high settings and 1080p resolution, so they're good starting points for any gamer. I like the 2GB HD7770 because the vanilla 1GB versions do run into VRAM limitations with modern games and specific settings.
 
Last edited:
NAG - Wesley said:
Well he won't be using many high-end GPU options. The Odin 470W is fair as far as PSUs go, but its still serviceable in a gaming rig. Any GPU that uses a six-ping PEG power connector will fit in perfectly. In total, your friend's rig would draw around 300W from the wall with a discrete GPU, so he should be fine for now. If the PSU is more than two years old, he should start saving for one of a better quality at the 500W rating.

He won't be overclocking anytime soon, though. As for his options...

ASUS Direct CU II HD7770 2GB DDR5 @ R2053
PNY GTX650 Ti XLR8 1GB DDR5 w/ game bundle @ R1932
Sapphire HD7850 1GB DDR5 @ R2537

The next step up is a 2GB HD7850 or GTX660, both retailing for around R3000. You can run both cards off the Odin 470, but I'd be hesitant on running expensive hardware like that off a PSU with voltage ripples that could be better. The HD7770 and GTX650 Ti both will run most games at high settings and 1080p resolution, so they're good starting points for any gamer. I like the 2GB HD7770 because the vanilla 1GB versions do run into VRAM limitations with modern games and specific settings.
Click to expand...

Thx very much for this info, i'll copy this info and email it to him now.
Thx a lot for you help on this.
Regards.
 
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