Hello I found this site with a google search. I have an HD 5770 card that seems to struggle with the newest games like battlefield 4 and crysis 3. It's a great card is has served me well for 4 years now but I only have a 350W power supply not sure of the brand it came with the PC. I was wondering if I could get some advice about a better card for my new monitor which is a asus 1080p. I see lots of reviews but I can't afford too much I just need playable framerates. Thanks for any help in advance!

Depends on your system. I mean your processor, motherboard etc. In it's day the hd5770 was very good but getting old now for brand new games. If you have a decent quad core (AMD or Intel) with 4-8GB of memory you should be able to add something like and HD 7770-R7265 to get a 15 average FPS gain in most games. The R7 265 is the new version of the older hd 7850 but faster. That's for a budget as you said. Going up a bit more a GTX 660 or hd 7870, or R9 270/GTX 760 will do very well for playable frames @ 1080p.

 

Do be sure you upgrade your power supply though as the jump from an hd5770 to something more I would suggest a 500-620W quality power supply unit (PSU) of a known quality brand like Seasonic, or a Seasonic built unit (XFX,Antec HCG).

 

What are the rest of your specifications?

You should be able to upgrade the to a newer card as long as the motherboard supports newer models. Since video cards are in themselves mini computers with their own memory and processor it is the single best upgrade you can do to an older computer.

I could not agree more Bob and in my systems for sale the major difference in price and quality is video card vs onboard though I have to admit onboard becomes increasingly better in time, there is nothng like a decent video card and while I am not a gamer, I do some graphical intense projects as an ex-photographer. The Amd Apus are surprisingly competitive with lower end video cards.

Thanks for the help my motherboard is ASUS M5A78LM LX it has video onboard the motherboard but I never used it I have used the HD 5770 since I had this built for me. I have the AMD 720 model with 3 cores.I have done some things technically like add a second hard drive and installed a new CPU cooler with the help of a friend. I am pretty sure I can install a new video card and when I did a search I see people with my motherboard with various new video cards. ...

 

My budget is roughly $270.00 for a new video card and power supply if needed. I will look into Seasonic brands PSU and a new video card, though I am not sure with my budget what improvement would be there against the HD 5770 I have now I will do some searching but initially it appeared that a GTX 660 or GTX 650TI boost would be a good budget option. Do you guys have any brand recommendations.? The HD 5770 I have is HIS model and never had any issues. Again thanks for the help it is really appreciated!

As far as brands I would recommend eVGA or Asus or MSI for NVidia, and Sapphire, Asus, or MSI for an AMD based card. The gtx- 660 would give you a great bargain for very playable framerates if your gaming resolution will be 1680x1050 to 1920X1080. Though on a few games at the higher resolutions you might need to dial back a few settings to high or medium game depending to keep a minimum 30 FPS. Also taking your processor into account it was a very good one in it's day but will struggle with the newest games at high settings as the default clock is lower. For 'instant' budget gratification a GTX 660 or R9 270-270x would be what I would be looking at. Then when you can afford it after some savings, transition that GPU and memory over to a better processor and motherboard. You might even be able to find a used AMD Phenom 955/965 or something for a very reasonable cost until you could move to a new Intel or AMD platform.

Stick with Catch22 there he has all the brands spot on as I agree with every choice.

I just wanted to thank you both I got a XFX power supply, a 550 watt model....and a Sapphire R9 270 i got a deal by buying both! My friend installed the power supply i watched, and i installed the graphics card so far no issues in games or surfing the internet. I am in gaming heaven but now i want to upgrade the CPU but i think i am happy for now to just enjoy the games like it was not before... Thank you guys so much i will be coming here for advice in the future. Hopefully one day i can give someone advice.

Well we will look forward to both then!

Thanks! One thing I noticed is that I can play new games and there is no lag. Also the PC is much more snappy and responsive for everyday tasks. So now I am looking at the motherboard sections of online stores, and going to try and save my money which is tough because my job doesn't pay too much and I have lots of bills but I think I can do it. What sites do you recommend? My friend told me of newegg.com that's where he gets his stuff and I like it a lot but are there other sites that are reputable I can visit?

In addition to newegg, I also like Tiger Direct.

 

http://www.tigerdirect.com/

I had heard of that site before but I though it was mostly for TV's and things like that. I see it has a nice Asus selection I do like Asus because I have one and not any issues for years. I was thinking of getting an FX 6300 or even an FX 8350 like my friend and he has this motherboard I had looked at before my friend recommended me on newegg but I see it's also listed on the Tiger Direct site here. For now I am so happy but this is on my wish list.

 

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3858039&csid=_61&rrpl=item_page.content1&rrstr=ClickCP&rrindex=3

I use a wholesaler site called D&H Sales mostly but I also use Tiger Direct (Infotel Biz site) and grab bargains at Newegg.

Hello all! I ended up getting the FX 6300. I replaced my older motherboard with a new Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P AM3+ motherboard to give me more room for expansion and I got a bigger budget case made by Rosewill the Challenger mid-tower caser. It took me a while to get it going after 5 hours of troubleshooting I realized I had not fully plugged in my 24 pin ATX compliant power connector all the way. So far I am using the cooler that came in the box with the processor but it seems to run cool according to the Gigabyte bios readings and a program called hardware monitor that some one told me about. So now I have a complete nice gaming system that I can be proud of finally. The sound that comes from the one that's integrated sounds pretty good it's better than my older motherboard.

Wow 10 usb ports on that board....looks nice.

Yes much more than I need actually but i'll take it :big_grin: