masshuu

So ive been wanting a graphics card upgrade for a while, but I'm not very up to date with graphics cards. I'm Looking to spend at most, $200, but would prefer to stay around $120-160

Current specs:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5600+(2.81 Ghz)
8 GB Kingston SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel
Windows 7 Professional x64
mobo: MSI k9n4 SLI

Main hard drive: uuh some 500 gig WD that wrote a 3 gig file in 5 seconds or somthing like that

PSU: I think its an Ocz, can't see the label(its covered), it is 530 watt and has 2 12v rails at 30A, so i assume its enough to handle most Gfx cards.

Current Gfx card(don't know the brand off the top of my head, i thinks is MSI)
Nvidia Geforce 7300GT

Performance Scores:
Processor: 5.9
Ram: 7.1
Graphics: 2.2
Gaming Gfx: 3.6
Hard drive: 5.4

Goal: Buy and play Crysis on medium settings or something like that.

I would prefer Nvidia since i could later get a second and run in SLI, but I'm open to ATI

PoWn3d_0704

I'm basically doing the same thing. You can get a GTX 260 like I just did about.... 2 hours ago for 169.99 from best buy. Both in store and online. It's supposed to be a great card that can even handle 3 way sli, but I'm not sure if it would be the BEST card for what you want

masshuu

i see:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150398
but i also see:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150357
someone saying they play Crysis on high, so I'm wondering if i should go with that one(im not made of money)

But would it be worth it to spend $20 or so more and get a gts 250 with 1 GB instead of 512
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150439

emosun

I apologize for this information as it's incorrect..

Your cpu and power supply limit your card choices. A gtx260 requires a much better power supply then what your using , and your cpu will simply bottleneck it's speed easily. With that power supply and cpu you could do maybe a ddr3 version of the 9500 but that's about it. Anything higher will need a better power supply , or will be held back by the cpu.

masshuu

so then somthing like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150317

i see videos on youtube of people playing on a 9500 just fine

emosun

Yes that'll work fine. I also play on a mix of medium/high settings with my old 2600 so it should do fine. Your cpu will have a tough time though when the action is heavy.

masshuu

i know its not scoring 7.x, but its not like my processor is underpowered, given i did buy it in January of 2007. I know its not a quad core, but it should be fine given I'm not looking for photorealism. The biggest limiting factor i see here is my mobo.

I played around with the Crysis demo on this machine a couple months ago, and on lowest settings it played fine.

Phædrus2401

An Athlon X2 is an okay CPU, but it isn't a high-end one. It will probably hold back anything over a 9600GT, and your PSU further limits you. A 9500GT is a fair choice, emosun is giving sound advice. A better graphics card will help you a lot, but a GTX260 can't perform at its best when it spends half its cycles waiting for the CPU to catch up with handling the game data. It also needs a 650W PSU to have good stability and a long life-time.

This would be my recommendation:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121271

emosun

It is , but hes using an athlon 64 x2 , it's the early pentium D level cpu.

Phædrus2401

Ah. Not a big buff on AMD CPUs. But my guesstimate was about right, and the recommendation stands. A 9500GT or 4650 would be the biggest cards I'd put in there. 9500GT because of the SLI mobo.

masshuu

well thank you both for the help.