What vid card for my current set up?

[AV1611]

I have an older PC with a Core2Quad running stock @ 2.83 Ghz. I have an ancient ATI Radeon 3870 card and am looking to upgrade my vid card to play Witcher 3. I'm not in the market right now to replace my CPU, mobo and ram. My monitor resolution is 1920x1200. What's the best video card to play Witcher 3 at my native resolution and with at least most of the eye candy turned on? Also, my power supply is only like 300 watts. So, I need to replace that as well. I don't really want to spend more than $300 USD and don't want to buy a crappy power supply.

Thanks,

AV1611

 

[happy medium]

I think you should try a gtx 750ti. Your cpu won't push a faster card anyway and it dosen't require extra power.

Edit:
I don't think your system (cpu) can play Witcher 3,it has high system requirement's.

Minimum System Requirements
Intel CPU Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz
AMD CPU Phenom II X4 940
Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 660
AMD GPU Radeon HD 7870
RAM 6GB
OS 64-bit Windows 7 or 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1)
DirectX 11
HDD Space 40 GB

 

[cusideabelincoln]

If the Wither 3 is the only game you need the extra grunt I'd wait until closer to the release date, or see if some of the current $250-300 cards have a firesale between now and then - the r9 280x, r9 290. There's also some new cards coming out soon that may be worth your attention.

If you had to buy right now, you would have to settle for an R9 280 (non-x), r9 285, or GTX 760.

 

[MeldarthX]

750Ti isn't going to come near most eye candy on at that resolution.

I'm sorry but you got a couple choices; upgrade your PSU......and get a solid card to go with it like the R9 280 or R9 290...*possible*

Or grab R7 270+ or 270 which should only need 1 6 pin for the card...there isn't anything else out that will fit price and power contraints......

even then you're not going to run eye candy with most things on with that... You'll also cpu bottle necked......might as well oc it to give yourself a little more room.

You're going to have to compromise somewhere

 

[Attic]

If you can push your budget a little you can get a very nice setup that you can build into.

My recommendation is:
EVGA 500w PSU for $40

And look for a GTX 970 on sale around $320.
Gigabyte Mini 970 for $330


If you dont want to push the budget then go with the PSU upgrade and a GTX 960TI (whatever the fastest version of the 960 is when Nvidia releases later this month.)

If your CPU is the Core 2 Quad 9550 then try to push it lightly to 3.0-3.2ghz with an OC. With the GTX 970, you can upgrade CPU into the GPU later and have a strong long performing system, rather than getting a cheapo card like the 750ti or 280 that is going to be out of date soon no matter where you go with the rest of the system.

Cliffs: If your budget is $300 and you want to enjoy TW3, then get a very fast GPU, the Q9550 is still a relatively strong CPU.

 

[Cerb]

Wait and see. If you're not up for a complete PC replacement, don't go buying parts until the game is out, and tested on varied end user setups.

 

[shady28]

Wait and see. If you're not up for a complete PC replacement, don't go buying parts until the game is out, and tested on varied end user setups.

This ^^^


The Witcher 2 bottlenecked on CPU on anything under a 3.2Ghz (overclocked) i7-920 with a GTX 590. Even if Witcher 3 retains the same CPU requirements you are probably going to bottleneck on a C2Q CPU before GPU with a 750 Ti.

You really are not going to have enough on a $300 budget to go much farther than that. You can replace the PSU and put in an R9 280 for ~$300 total, but again you'll bottleneck on the CPU.

 

[Ranulf]

You've got 4 months so I'd start saving instead of upgrading now. As others said wait until its released to get reviewer and real world testing experience.

 

[SlickR12345]

I'd say you can got for an AMD r9 270x, I think that graphic card would be reasonable with your CPU, sure it might be a bit CPU bound at lower resolutions, but at 1600 resolutions and upwards its going to be GPU bound no matter what.

But as others have said you might as well wait and see how it does on various systems.

 

[shady28]

This graph might help. It shows the Skyrim Ultra performance of a stock Q9550 C2Q with a 7970, which is roughly equivalent to an R9 280.

750Ti with a faster CPU can get more fps than the c2q with 7970 / R9 280.

Unless there is a plan to upgrade CPU/Mobo/RAM, anything over 750 Ti is overkill for your Q9550. Even if you overclock to 3.4Ghz Q9550, at best it would be balanced.

Edit : Worth noting the 750 Ti does not require a PSU upgrade.


51fps avg / 41fps min with C2Q / 7970 :

~ 50fps is the minimum and ~ 60fps avg with an i7-3960 / 750 Ti:

 

[Techhog]

If the Wither 3 is the only game you need the extra grunt I'd wait until closer to the release date, or see if some of the current $250-300 cards have a firesale between now and then - the r9 280x, r9 290. There's also some new cards coming out soon that may be worth your attention.

If you had to buy right now, you would have to settle for an R9 280 (non-x), r9 285, or GTX 760.

... none of which will run on a 300W PSU without serious issues.

OP, it's time for a new PSU. You can't hit the minimum GPU requirement with that set-up.

 

[Techhog]

750Ti isn't going to come near most eye candy on at that resolution.

I'm sorry but you got a couple choices; upgrade your PSU......and get a solid card to go with it like the R9 280 or R9 290...*possible*

Or grab R7 270+ or 270 which should only need 1 6 pin for the card...there isn't anything else out that will fit price and power contraints......

even then you're not going to run eye candy with most things on with that... You'll also cpu bottle necked......might as well oc it to give yourself a little more room.

You're going to have to compromise somewhere

This is a gameworks title. The 270 and 270X will perform worse than the 750 Ti.

 

[Cerb]

Just save, wait, and read both objective performance scores, and user experiences for a couple weeks after release. An $800 PC should be able to made to meet or exceed the specs nicely, today, and that's with no used parts transferred. If you kept parts, or sold the current PC, that could be closer to $600. But, less than that might be just fine...we don't know, yet. Despite the console releases, the PC versions of the previous 2 were quite capable of pushing mid-range systems, to keep decent FPS at 1080P, so I would be hesitant to make any firm predictions, especially in light of the weird CPU requirements.

 

[happy medium]

I think you need to overclock your cpu to obtain reasonable fps in most games today.
A overclocked q9550 at 3.8 can push a gtx680,gtx770, and should be good for the new gtx960, anything more is overkill. Look at my signature.
A stock q9550 will barely push a older gtx570.
My dual 6870's were about equal to a gtx680.

If he overclocks his cpu his psu won't cut it.
Best case scenario...,buy a decent psu for about 75$,overclock you cpu as high as you can. If you get it to 3.2 grab a used 6970/gtx570 for about 90$, @ 3.5 or above grab a used gtx 680,gtx770,7970 for about 135$. I would not waste a whole lot of money on that system.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

... none of which will run on a 300W PSU without serious issues.

OP, it's time for a new PSU. You can't hit the minimum GPU requirement with that set-up.

Which is why I suggested video cards that are around $200, which leaves him at least $80 to get a very nice power supply.

 

[greatnoob]

We're in the same boat (replace C2Q with Haswell i5 and GPU with a similar offering) and what I'm planning on doing is waiting it out. By the time the game is out, the GTX 960 and/or 950 wouldn't be too far ahead for release. By that time:
1) optimised game drivers from AMD and Nvidia for Witcher 3 should be out,
2) 750 Ti prices would have dropped,
3) you'll have saved more than enough money to spend on a new PSU + GPU (or more) and
4) there will be more power efficient and powerful cards for that money you've saved (future proofing)

 

[poohbear]

i'd wait until AMD releases their 3xxx Radeons in a couple of months. Prices for GTX 9xxx should drop shortly after. Win Win.

 

[WittyRemark]

Well,
Corsair CX600 for $38
along with
R9 290 PCS+ for $238
These are your best options currently, you can also wait for the next big thing, though I doubt you'll see a better deal than $238 R9 290.

 

[Cerb]

One of the Corsair CX or RM PSUs, when on sale, are very good values, they're good on the rebates, and a 500W+ one will handle anything you might upgrade to, overclocking included. So, if you want to nab a PSU when the prices are good, rather than right when needed, that would be fine.