Need advice about upgrading my system.

[dragongit]

First time posting on the forums, hopefully I'm in the right place.

I need to upgrade my graphics card from this old clunker to something hopefully better, but I have trouble deciding which card to get, so I come here for a hopefully unbiased comparison on which would be best at a reasonable price.( Budget at around $200)

[Caution: Wall of text approaching. you have 5 seconds before it makes contact with your eyes and causes you to slam your face, into the desk.]

My gaming experience has become very laggy at best, having to play most games on medium quality or less in order to have enough frames per second to not be horrible.

My current system specs are as follows. I hope its enough info.

OS: WIndows 7 Home. 64-bit
PCU: AMD Athlon II X4 630 (2.80 GHz)
Motherboard: Pegatron; VIOLET6
RAM: 6GB DDR3. Dual Channel.
PSU: ATX 0300D5WC ( 300w)
GPU: Nvidia GeForece GT 220

I think I'm set (besides the power supply, that I will upgrade to 500w). But my next step is the graphics card. The Nvidia GTX 460 looks like a strong competitor, with their 1GB SE version retailing at 180. (I know the non SE version is better, I'm on a budget) but I hear ATI and their 5770 is comperable to the 460, and at a much more reasonable price... but I still can't seem to decide.

Any tips or advice would be appreciated.

 

[Ziadaine_v1legacy]

Dont buy a GTX460/480. Buy a GTX570 ($50 more and less heat+Power)

Even if you buy a GTX460, you WILL need a Power Supply with more then 700W+, 500W will only just barely do it, for a decent up-to-date GPU. Is your Processor a Double or Quad Processor? (Im more savvy on the Intel side of things)

 

[dragongit]

Wow... well I did ask for opinions and advice... this sort of took my design of a budget and sort of... turned it around completely, instead of getting decent gaming for a reasonable price, I should instead dish out for a more expensive GPU, power supply, and possibly more powerful CPU. Anyone care to help me with a more cost efficient method of decent gaming? I'll turn off AA if I need to, but I like it when my games have good textures and shading, and things that go boom look like they are going boom.

 

[dragongit]

I suppose thats some good advice. I'll at least get a decent PSU, 650W. They have some Corsair ones going for 60 bucks with rebate. And as much as missing out on PhysX related physics will suck for some games like Mafia II, and Arkham Assylum, for cost efficiency its better I go for the 6850. Besides I have an AMD CPU, the 6850 is probably more compatible then an Nvidia. So I've read anyway.

 

[evilgenius134]

A GTX460 is a perfectly fine card to buy and can fit on a decent 550W PSU, 700W is overkill for a 460 since I run a 4890 on a 650W and even that's overkill and the 4890 is more power hungry than the 460.

If you wish you can go for a 6850 or a GTX460, a decent 550/600W PSU will handle them fine.

 

[icame]

Get the 460. I always suggest this card as it is the best your going to get in terms of power to price ratio. Unfortunately, as I've recently found out (upgrading my own rig soon...) I need to upgrade my own PSU to get a new Graphics card (Goona get the 460.) A good rule of thumb is to get something made by Cordair.

Hope I helped