Video Card Experts - Need Help

[IndianaHoops]

I am not a good hardware guy and need help upgrading my current Video Card to play PS2.

Here is my current system:

Shuttle SX38P2-Pro Intel Core 2 Extreme / Quad / Core 2 Duo

8G RAM DDR2

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit

Current Card: VisionTek Radeon HD 4870 512MB

My budget is around 225$.

Would this be my best option? VisionTek 900505 Radeon HD 7850 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129230) ?

Ideas?

Thanks

[CaptainMaverik]

maybe, might wanna hold out for the nvidia 660's either plain or the ti version, out in about 2 weeks apparantly

[braydog]

A Nvidia 550ti is a pretty nice card for the price. I can't remember exactly the price but it might be around 225-250. Make sure you get the ti version! Also if you can get 1gb of graphics ram then even better. I have a 560ti and it runs Metro 2033 on high no problems. Same CPU pretty much as well.

To sum up: my suggestions are 2gb 550ti or 560ti.

[fod]

thats a pretty good card to play PS2 with it will run it well imo - the 7850 is a great card

[dafuq]

GTX 560 TI best bang for your buck

ATI got shitty driver problems again

[Absentis]

If you want Nvidia and you want to get a new card as soon as possible, go with a 560 Ti. The best place to get 560 Ti's by price would be through Newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709&IsNodeId=1&Description=nvidia%20560%20ti&name=Desktop%20Graphics%20Cards&Order=BESTMATCH#). Alternatively, you can wait a little while longer and go for a 660 once it comes out.

If you want AMD, either a 6870 or 7850 is in the same price range. These tend to be similarly priced all over, so you'll just have to browse around to find the best deal.

[morf]

NVidia 660 should be out sometime this summer if you can hold out. I'm waiting for the same.

[IndianaHoops]

Will my system support the NVidia 660?

[Kaotc]

you will need to check the space inside your case, Shuttles are not exactly the most roomy of places to be, you may have issues getting a full sized (and there for good) graphics card in there.

Will my system support the NVidia 660?

assuming it physically fits, yes

[morf]

Will my system support the NVidia 660?

main factor there will be your power supply - which isn't listed in your post, but the 6 series nvidia cards are currently using less than their 5 series counterparts. You have a 4870 now which requires a 500 watt power supply unit at minimum. The nvidia 670 requires a 500 watt also, so I would expect the 660 to be less than that - so you should be in the clear.

[Trolltaxi]

I'm not sure that your CPU won't limit a GTX660(ti)... I might be wrong with that, but check it before you buy a too powerful card into your rig!

Based on the date you provided, this barbebone config supports a wide array of CPU's (from core 2quad and extreme through core 2duo, Pentium Dual-Core, Pentium D, till Pentium 4) and that means a huge difference. That means that the best core2quad has more than 8 times higher score than the weakest Pentium 4 in Passmark benchmark.

Benchmarks mean nothing on their own, but this difference is damn big. There are multiple generations between the processors that may or may not be in your system. So check the CPU.

If you have a quad or an extreme, and have that spare money, go for the gtx660, otherwise your config will be imbalanced and some of your money will be spent without good reason.

[fb III IX ca IV]

A 4870 should still run the game fine, so it may be better to wait out this generation of video cards.

[lord of torture]

thats a nice card.

[Coreldan]

I recently got a 7850, great bang for the buck. Havnt had any driver issues yet, which I never had with my 5770 either in the 1½ years I used it.

[Solidblock]

I have the MSI6850 and I haven't gad any issues whatsoever yet, it seems incredibly fast and will do the job. I suspect PS2 will run at high with good fps, at worst medium.

[Avarice]

I just shelled out $175($149 after rebate) for a Geforce EVGA GTX 560. http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-560/specifications The Ti is more powerful, but comes in a little over $200 and is unnecessary. My research has led me to believe I will be at or above suggested spec for PS2 with a 560. Don't get the GTX 560 SE.

[OnexBigxHebrew]

Don't get a 550, there's an ubelievable difference between the 550 and 560, and the 560 is about to be a lot less relevant. I have the 560m and can run most newer games on ultra (barring the new tesselation). The desktop version is even better.

However, its important to note that games with high player counts and a lot of info (lika MMO's) are more cpu intensive than anything. smed already said something about core 2 duos not being a very good situation in PS2, and I'd have to agree.

All in all, I don't know that your machine is worth putting that kind of card into.

[Masterr]

How about a Radeon HD 6670 ?

i5-3450 ivy bridge 3.1 Ghz quad core
8GB ram

[Raymac]

I've been holding out for a new video card for PS2 (currently have a GTX260). I've got an ok processor (Phenom II x4 965). My question is, what is so great about the Nvidia 660? I know the 680 is the hotness, so is the 660 just a more affordable version?

[Program]

Shoutout to a fellow Hoosier! (I hope)

You may be able to get by with the NVIDIA GTX 460 SE ($100) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130690

However, the main concern is bottlenecking, with your cpu being 2 generations old now, or more, with "computer years" being very fast. If you have the fastest Core 2 you could effectively use this card, but the 7850 is way too beefy for any Core 2. Please post more specs about the CPU. If you don't have that good of a cpu, it may be time to upgrade the system. Don't forget, all parts are important in a computer, and they all rely on each other to work properly.

[morf]

I've been holding out for a new video card for PS2 (currently have a GTX260). I've got an ok processor (Phenom II x4 965). My question is, what is so great about the Nvidia 660? I know the 680 is the hotness, so is the 660 just a more affordable version?

the '50's' and '60's' i.e. 550, 560, 650, 660 are essentially the mid-grade version for each generation, with the 70's & 80's (670, 680) being the high end. Recently they've been also pushing out the 90's which is 2 80's GPU on a single board, but very expensive.

Basically nvidia comes out with the high end stuff and the cheap stuff (610) first - the 10's-40's are hardly worth owning unless you want to play on minimal settings. Then later on they push out the mid-grade stuff (50's, 60's, 60ti), which gets you about 85% of the bang of the high-end stuff for around 50% of the price. ($175-$275 price range compared to $499 for the 80) - the only downside is you have to wait a little longer.


http://www.geforce.com/Active/en_US/shared/images/products/shared/lineup.png

Looking at the chart above, last generation when the 560ti came out, in the 3dmark benchmark it's performance was almost identical to the 480 (flagship card of the previous generation) - but at about half the price. If that holds true this time, the 660ti should be roughly equivalent to a GTX 580 and you'll get the most bang for your buck. I used to buy the flagship cards, but it's just not worth it because in 2 years a card half the price will be just as good. Now I buy mid-grade and upgrade every 2-3 years and they run everything i want to run - granted I'm not doing much multi-monitor gaming or anything of that nature that would justify the high end purchase.

[Sturmhardt]

7850 and 7870 are the best budget cards at the moment, I would go with one of these. Current generation, high effieciency, low cost.

[IndianaHoops]

Shoutout to a fellow Hoosier! (I hope)

You may be able to get by with the NVIDIA GTX 460 SE ($100) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130690

However, the main concern is bottlenecking, with your cpu being 2 generations old now, or more, with "computer years" being very fast. If you have the fastest Core 2 you could effectively use this card, but the 7850 is way too beefy for any Core 2. Please post more specs about the CPU. If you don't have that good of a cpu, it may be time to upgrade the system. Don't forget, all parts are important in a computer, and they all rely on each other to work properly.

THANKS EVERYONE......

Yep.....fellow Hoosier here....

This is my big concern......am I buying to good of a card for my system.

Here is the complete system:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115041&nm_mc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel&cm_mmc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel-_-Content-_-text-_-N82E16819115041)

Shuttle SX38P2-Pro Intel Core 2 Extreme (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856101058&nm_mc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel&cm_mmc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel-_-Content-_-text-_-N82E16856101058)

8G RAM

Vista 64 Bit

I guess the better question is, what is the best card that my system can support?

I am going to guess the 7850 is too much and a waste of money....

[Raymac]

-snip-

Thanks, morf!

[Program]

Though your cpu is old, it is quite powerful, being a quad core at nearly 3 GHz (most games don't utilize all four cores, but nevermind that). However, I don't think your cpu has the stuff to handle the 7850 properly. Look at all of the cards suggested though, do your research, and I think you'll come out with a PS2 worthy machine.

[morf]

I guess the better question is, what is the best card that my system can support?

I am going to guess the 7850 is too much and a waste of money....

Here's a question to consider - when are you going to upgrade the rest of the rig? There's 2 ways to go here; you can pull a decent card now, and have something that you can drop right in to your next system a year or 18 months from now, or you can go dirt cheap and run this system into the ground and maybe squeeze another 2 years out of it.

I don't think you'll CPU bottleneck by a ton, given that the 7850 is roughly equivalent to some high end cards from early 2010 (GTX 480) - at that time your processor was only 2 years old and would have been in use in a lot of machines. But then again, PS2 may bottleneck faster on CPU than most games.

[Catmain]

I think you should go for the 660, but you should be able to play the game silky smooth on a 560ti if you cannot wait for the release! What does a 570 cost nowadays?

[Rbstr]

I've been holding out for a new video card for PS2 (currently have a GTX260). I've got an ok processor (Phenom II x4 965). My question is, what is so great about the Nvidia 660? I know the 680 is the hotness, so is the 660 just a more affordable version?

Basically, yeah.
When you look at the 670 which came along at $400 and was beating AMD's $500 card for a while and see the 660 is a 670 with a smaller memory bus. Nearly everything else about it is the same. Which means it could be a heck of a deal.

Usually the line up looks like this (the numbers are for the last generation or so...they always fiddle with them, but the product distribution usually remains similar):
They usually have two or three specific chips per generation, one for highend cards, one mid-level, one low. Then they do stuff with each of those to create more products.

So, the x80 card has the fastest chip. The x90 is two of those on the same board. The x70 is the same chip, but maybe has some disabled bits, a lower clock rate, or less memory.

The x60 is often a different chip than the previous three. It's similar in general but starts out with fewer of most everything. the x50 is the same chip with some disabled bits. (In the 660's case it seems like it still uses the higher end part)

Anything lower than an x50 is usually crap.