Recommend me a low profile graphics card!

[Gromril]

So, im done with console gaming. Which, checking my post history, is a big deal as iv'e always defended it, but I just cant justify dropping upwards of £400 on a system that either A)watches me while I sleep or/and B) has the backwards capability of someone's feet.

So! I am looking to upgrade my PC to play games newer than my kid, and Im pretty much done. However, I am in need of a video card, as my old one is currently sat in my PC contemplating seppuku.

What's making it a minefield for me is 2 things. Money, and the fact I need a low profile one. So, anyone have any god recommendations that wont require black market kidney sales?

 

[Gromril]

Hmm, looks pretty good. Will shop around and see where I can find one on the cheap, and depending on any other recommendations it may be the one.

BONUS ROUND!

How do I tell what cards my Mother Board will/wont accept into it's warm embrace? I'm a noob when It comes to Video card replacement.

 

[nevarran]

What Calm Sands suggested sounds good.
For just a little more you can buy Radeon R7 260X, that would be better.

Unless your motherboard is very old, it can work with the newest video cards. All it needs is PCI-Express x16 slot.

What could potentially be an issue is the PSU (the power supply). If it's too old and weak, it can struggle with the newest power demanding cards.
You need 450 Watt PSU for the 7770(also called R7 250X)
and 500W for R7 260X

A little more expensive card then those two is GeForce GTX 750 Ti, the good thing is that it requires only 300W PSU.

 

[Gromril]

Dah crap, looks like my PSU is like 280 Watts. This is what is get for cobbling a PC together out of spare parts

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Nvidia GTX 750Ti would be my choice. It is the most extremely power efficient card out there. TDP is 60W and the price/performance ratio is INSANE! It is slightly better than HD7770 in terms of raw performance.

 

[Gromril]

Hmm, I may have to pick that nvidia card once I manage to sell off all my console games/assorted crap. Although I havent had an Nvidia card in like 6 years, so fun abound!

Do they still look at me funny if I google "AMD"?

 

[Zac Jovanovic]

Any chance you can tell us what your current CPU is, and GPU for that matter? While the new GPU is pretty much guaranteed to work with the motherboard, a CPU from a PC with a 280w PSU is more than likely to bottleneck a 550ti to uselessness
And that goes double if you play in less than 1080p.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Nvidia GTX 750Ti would be my choice. It is the most extremely power efficient card out there. TDP is 60W and the price/performance ratio is INSANE! It is slightly better than HD7770 in terms of raw performance.

I just wanted to write that myself until you posted it.

Pretty much this. If you want a good budget graphics card with good performance grab a 750ti, can't go wrong with that.

 

[Gromril]

For those wandering what I'm running, I'm currently sat at 4gig RAM and a 3gig dual core for a processor. Seems enough to get the job done.

Obviously, RAM is an easy(ish) thing to up, so I'm not all concerned about it atm.

Urgh, hated finding aworking PSU the first time, for some reason I found it a fiddly little bastard to install.

As far as PC work goes, I can put hardware together easy enough, hell I can even solder repairs If someone explains what to solder. I just suck at all this compatibility shikanery.

 

[Zac Jovanovic]

That should work, but best make sure you buy somewhere where you can get cashback if it doesn't work out.

I recently had a case of pairing a HD6870 with a 2.6ghz core 2 duo, barely made it work. Had to overclock the CPU to the limit and moved the machine to a HD monitor from a 1440*900 one to get half decent performance.

It had such massive stuttering not even 8bit indie games were playable, the CPU would just stuck to 100% while the GPU got barely any use at all.

 

[Requia]

Hmm, looks pretty good. Will shop around and see where I can find one on the cheap, and depending on any other recommendations it may be the one.

BONUS ROUND!

How do I tell what cards my Mother Board will/wont accept into it's warm embrace? I'm a noob when It comes to Video card replacement.

Here's a pic of ports, the two longest ones are the standard graphics card port: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileCIExpress.jpg

If you don't have that, but do have one of the shorter ports (not the one on the bottom) there are a handful of x1 cards, but not any very good ones. If you only have the port on the bottom you're just boned.