What's a good Nvidia gpu to pair with an i3-4160?

[michaeltrain22]

Title says it all. 3.6ghz dual core Haswell. A good Nvidia gpu preferrably under/around $150.

[themaniac]

gtx 750/ 750ti

[flibberdipper]

750Ti. Maybe one of the EVGA ones. But you should save and get something like a GTX 760.

[Smattmad]

look at what you want to spend and what you will use it for

[Wingfan]

750Ti, R9 270x, R9 280 (285) GTX 760

[Sauron]

Anything from a 750ti to a 970 (although the 970 will be a little bottlenecked). But why only nvidia? I'd go for an amd R9 270, it's one HELL of a budget card.

[Aniallation]

Title says it all. 3.6ghz dual core Haswell. A good Nvidia gpu preferrably under/around $150.

Why only NVIDIA....

 

R9 270 hands down

[Wingfan]

Why only NVIDIA....

 

R9 270 hands down

280 lol

[othertomperson]

look at what you want to spend and what you will use it for

 

This. Everyone here will assume you play very CPU intensive games.

 

Let's be real, if you use a 780 Ti (for the sake of argument) and you're playing a game that is bottlenecked by your CPU, then you will still be unable to play it whether you use a 750 Ti or an R9 270. If you get a GT 610, then you'll be bottlenecked by that instead, and you still won't be able to play it.

 

So match your hardware to the things you want to use it for, not to eachother.

 

And your budget, but that goes without saying.

[Aniallation]

280 lol

Well that's $200

[Wingfan]

Well that's $200

Got mine for $185.....very happy with it

[Aniallation]

Got mine for $185.....very happy with it

Still more then the 150 that OP wants to pay. lol

 

280 is an amazing card tho

[Wingfan]

Still more then the 150 that OP wants to pay. lol

 

280 is an amazing card tho

oops, didnt see that part, my bad

[Smattmad]

This. Everyone here is assuming you're playing very CPU intensive games

 

Let's be real, if you use a 780 Ti (for the sake of argument) and you're playing a game that is bottlenecked by your CPU, then you will still be unable to play it whether you use a 750 Ti or an R9 270. If you get a GT 610, then you'll be bottlenecked by that instead, and you still won't be able to play it.

 

So match your hardware to the things you want to use it for, not to eachother.

 

And your budget, but that goes without saying.

i have a 660 and it runs all my games just fine and i have a apu as my cpu. it works just fine

[michaeltrain22]

Ah, a lot of passion here  . I'm going to use this for gaming mostly. I don't care about the settings too much so long as the framerate is fine. (I don't want to play game on Ultra @ 26fps). I'm also somewhat interested in Dolphin Emulator, though I know my CPU may not be the best for that As for Nvidia only...I don't know. I asked a tech friend and recommended Nvidia. Right now, I'm leaning towards the 750Ti, though I'm going to start considering Radeon now. 

[othertomperson]

i have a 660 and it runs all my games just fine and i have a apu as my cpu. it works just fine

 

Yeah. A 660 is a little bit less performance than a 580, which is roughly the same as a 660ti/R9 270X, and I am only this and last year starting to find the SLI necessary. Like Tomb Raider drops a lot to 40 fps with a single 580, wheras it fluctuates between 70 and 90 with two. This is at 1080p, so at that res a 760 is fine for the time being.

 

If you played something with huge maps or lots of things on the screen at once you might want something a bit more CPU-wise, but unless you fall below that threshold of adequacy you won't really notice any benefit.

 

EDIT: Above framerates are with everything on ultra, btw. I'm using that as my benchmark of when I ought to upgrade. I'm thinking a year from now, or maybe even next generation. Or until I get a higher res monitor. Whichever happens first.

[michaeltrain22]

Would opting for a 760 instead of a 750ti provide a significant performance boost even with my lower end CPU?