We often use a three year old desktop for games, and we’re getting a some graphics hangup when newer games get busy, e.g. Battlefield 4.
I’ve swapped out graphics cards before, but it’s been almost ten years. We’re using a GeForce GTX 460. I know that there’s not much point in making a change here if some other component is the bottleneck, so here’s what else is in the box:
BIOSTAR TZ68A+RCH LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
SILVERSTONE Strider Essential series ST60F-ES 600W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI CrossFire 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL
Processor is a “CPU INTEL|CORE I5 2300 2.8G 6M R” that I can’t find on Newegg any more.
Can we pick pretty much any later series graphics card, or will gains level off at some point? Are there any incompatibilities that need to be avoided?
Your CPU is current enough that in most games you won’t be CPU bottlenecked. There are a few exceptions. PCI 3 vs PCI 2 isn’t a significant factor in all of this - only SLI setups start seeing limitations from PCI-2, and then it’s fairly minor.
The GPU is old enough that you’d see a significant performance increase by grabbing a new $150-200 card. If you can find a good black friday weekend deal, it’d be worth it to grab a 770 or R280x. PSU is fine for either.
PCI-E slots are cross compatible in either direction, so you’re fine, it just will use the slowest speed between the capabilities of the slot or the card. But PCI-E 2 is more than adequate for a single video card.
This is comprehensive. If your price range is lower, you’d be fine with a 760 or R270. I just thought there might be some decent black friday deals and it might be worth splurging a little.
Thanks for the suggestions and the links. I ended up going with a 760. She is playing a very pretty Battlefield 4, while I am still stuttering along in TF2 on my laptop. Which is fine with me.