Entry level gamer looking for help

[DrG00ber]

Hello everyone, 

 

I just recently got a desktop that im using for school work, gaming and just browsing the web. I have an AMD A10-6700 APU with built in Radeon Graphics, and I am wondering what low to medium level graphics card would not bottleneck and also give me the performance im looking for. I would like to be able to play games like LoL, Gmod, Tf2, DayZ, Bf4 and other games on medium to high settings. I know I wont be able to play all games and upcoming games on the highest settings, but I would also like to be able to enjoy my new computer and the games I play on it. Along with the computer I got a 24in 1080p monitor. If anyone has any ideas on a good graphics card that would work for me, that would be so helpful. Also my budget would be up to $150. 

 

Thank you to all who take time out of their day to help me out!

[Lotus]

If your budget is up to $150, then I strongly suggest the AMD R9 270, which can usually be found as low as $140. It's great.

 

It may bottleneck in some CPU intensive games, but in others it will be fine.

 

Honestly though for LoL and TF2 (not sure about BF4) the APU should be sufficient.

[Peter Vaughan Truslow]

so your best GPU options are the AMD R9 270 or the Nvidia GTX-750 Ti

the 270 would definitely give you better performance, but would draw significantly more power, so before I can fully suggest the 270, I'd need to know the specs on the built in PSU

the 750 ti would still give good performance, and I am almost certain the built in PSU can handle it without any trouble at all

[DrG00ber]

If your budget is up to $150, then I strongly suggest the AMD R9 270, which can usually be found as low as $140. It's great.

 

It may bottleneck in some CPU intensive games, but in others it will be fine.

 

Honestly though for LoL and TF2 (not sure about BF4) the APU should be sufficient.

Yea ive been playing LoL lately and i play on medium settings with about 43 frames, but i would like to be able to get more because I get frequent drops in frames in team fights, which is annoying. But thanks for the help, ill look into it!

[DrG00ber]

so your best GPU options are the AMD R9 270 or the Nvidia GTX-750 Ti

the 270 would definitely give you better performance, but would draw significantly more power, so before I can fully suggest the 270, I'd need to know the specs on the built in PSU

the 750 ti would still give good performance, and I am almost certain the built in PSU can handle it without any trouble at all

I'll have to check my PSU, but I think I should be good with either one of those if I wanted. But thank you for the help!

[WaitForMeImOnDialUp]

if on a budget get a used hd-7950 off ebay..sometimes you can get them for 80-120 bucks.

that will be your best bang for buck gpu. 3gb vram, can play most games ultra settings at good framerates

[Peter Vaughan Truslow]

I'll have to check my PSU, but I think I should be good with either one of those if I wanted. But thank you for the help!

if you aren't sure, take a look into your case and tell me how many amps are on the 12V rail(s). that's really all I need to know to tell you ye or nay

[DrG00ber]

if on a budget get a used hd-7950 off ebay..sometimes you can get them for 80-120 bucks.

that will be your best bang for buck gpu. 3gb vram, can play most games ultra settings at good framerates

Okay ill go look around for some good offers and see what I can do!

[DrG00ber]

if you aren't sure, take a look into your case and tell me how many amps are on the 12V rail(s). that's really all I need to know to tell you ye or nay

Honestly I dont know much on the PSU but the sticker on the side has 3 columns that have 12V in it. The first one +12V1 has 13.0A, the +12V2 has 13.0A, and the -12V has 0.3A. I dont really know what that all means, but on the bottom of the chart on the sticker, the Total wattage for the +12V1 and +12V2 is 286.4W. Im guessing that I have a 350W PSU because of a small line of text saying that the peak is 350W. 

If that doesn't make sense the way I tried to put it, I could try to attach a picture, but I dont know how to do it on this site haha sorry. 

Anyways thanks for your time!

[Lotus]

Well, you can get the R9 270, but that's pushing it. Like really pushing it. If there were a single 12v rail rather than two it would be fine, but on a single rail you can only go up to 156W, and the R9 270 is a 150W card at stock speeds, so forget about overclocking. And that assumes that those ratings are fine for continuous usage not peak, which they probably aren't. That means I probably wouldn't get the R9 270 with that PSU.

 

However, if you can spend $14 more than $150, then you can do this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: Club 3D Radeon R9 270 2GB '14Series Video Card  ($129.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  ($33.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $163.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-11 13:34 EST-0500

 

This PSU isn't really all that great, but it's the cheapest one I'd trust to run the R9 270 when overclocked. If you had more money you could go for the EVGA 500B, but now we're talking replacing components and that's when "upgrades" get overly expensive.

 

The 750ti would work completely fine with your original PSU, but it just wouldn't have the same performance as an R9 270 running at 1100MHz. However it may be the best bet right now as it's actually inside your budget.

[Peter Vaughan Truslow]

Honestly I dont know much on the PSU but the sticker on the side has 3 columns that have 12V in it. The first one +12V1 has 13.0A, the +12V2 has 13.0A, and the -12V has 0.3A. I dont really know what that all means, but on the bottom of the chart on the sticker, the Total wattage for the +12V1 and +12V2 is 286.4W. Im guessing that I have a 350W PSU because of a small line of text saying that the peak is 350W. 

If that doesn't make sense the way I tried to put it, I could try to attach a picture, but I dont know how to do it on this site haha sorry. 

Anyways thanks for your time!

that PSU would be stretched rather thin on that system. I really hate all of these multi 12V rail PSUs

 

Well, you can get the R9 270, but that's pushing it. Like really pushing it. If there were a single 12v rail rather than two it would be fine, but on a single rail you can only go up to 156W, and the R9 270 is a 150W card at stock speeds, so forget about overclocking. And that assumes that those ratings are fine for continuous usage not peak, which they probably aren't. That means I probably wouldn't get the R9 270 with that PSU.

 

However, if you can spend $14 more than $150, then you can do this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: Club 3D Radeon R9 270 2GB '14Series Video Card  ($129.99 @ NCIX US)

Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  ($33.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Total: $163.98

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-11 13:34 EST-0500

 

This PSU isn't really all that great, but it's the cheapest one I'd trust to run the R9 270 when overclocked. If you had more money you could go for the EVGA 500B, but now we're talking replacing components and that's when "upgrades" get overly expensive.

 

The 750ti would work completely fine with your original PSU, but it just wouldn't have the same performance as an R9 270 running at 1100MHz. However it may be the best bet right now as it's actually inside your budget.

pretty much spot-on with my thoughts

[DrG00ber]

Well, you can get the R9 270, but that's pushing it. Like really pushing it. If there were a single 12v rail rather than two it would be fine, but on a single rail you can only go up to 156W, and the R9 270 is a 150W card at stock speeds, so forget about overclocking. And that assumes that those ratings are fine for continuous usage not peak, which they probably aren't. That means I probably wouldn't get the R9 270 with that PSU.

 

However, if you can spend $14 more than $150, then you can do this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: Club 3D Radeon R9 270 2GB '14Series Video Card  ($129.99 @ NCIX US)

Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  ($33.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Total: $163.98

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-11 13:34 EST-0500

 

This PSU isn't really all that great, but it's the cheapest one I'd trust to run the R9 270 when overclocked. If you had more money you could go for the EVGA 500B, but now we're talking replacing components and that's when "upgrades" get overly expensive.

 

The 750ti would work completely fine with your original PSU, but it just wouldn't have the same performance as an R9 270 running at 1100MHz. However it may be the best bet right now as it's actually inside your budget.

 

Well, you can get the R9 270, but that's pushing it. Like really pushing it. If there were a single 12v rail rather than two it would be fine, but on a single rail you can only go up to 156W, and the R9 270 is a 150W card at stock speeds, so forget about overclocking. And that assumes that those ratings are fine for continuous usage not peak, which they probably aren't. That means I probably wouldn't get the R9 270 with that PSU.

 

However, if you can spend $14 more than $150, then you can do this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: Club 3D Radeon R9 270 2GB '14Series Video Card  ($129.99 @ NCIX US)

Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  ($33.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Total: $163.98

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-11 13:34 EST-0500

 

This PSU isn't really all that great, but it's the cheapest one I'd trust to run the R9 270 when overclocked. If you had more money you could go for the EVGA 500B, but now we're talking replacing components and that's when "upgrades" get overly expensive.

 

The 750ti would work completely fine with your original PSU, but it just wouldn't have the same performance as an R9 270 running at 1100MHz. However it may be the best bet right now as it's actually inside your budget

I think that I will stick with the 750ti because ive looked into it and I think it will be good performance while also staying in my price range. Where would you guys recomend buying it from? Amazon or NewEgg?

[DrG00ber]

Haha I didn't even see that I had 2 quotes in there. Whoops

[DrG00ber]

so your best GPU options are the AMD R9 270 or the Nvidia GTX-750 Ti

the 270 would definitely give you better performance, but would draw significantly more power, so before I can fully suggest the 270, I'd need to know the specs on the built in PSU

the 750 ti would still give good performance, and I am almost certain the built in PSU can handle it without any trouble at all

I looked up the 750 and I did some addition, and the calculator showed the build would be about 370W, which would go over my limit of 350W

[Peter Vaughan Truslow]

I looked up the 750 and I did some addition, and the calculator showed the build would be about 370W, which would go over my limit of 350W

I honestly doubt that. Those calculators are pretty inaccurate.

A 430 watt PSU is still a worthy upgrade, and an 80 plus model would give you some savings on the power.

[DrG00ber]

I honestly doubt that. Those calculators are pretty inaccurate.

A 430 watt PSU is still a worthy upgrade, and an 80 plus model would give you some savings on the power.

 

Yeah honestly I dont know anything about a PSU, but I just want to be sure I dont break anything.

[Lotus]

Yeah honestly I dont know anything about a PSU, but I just want to be sure I dont break anything.

 

If you have the cash, I do think the PSU + R9 270 is the best option.

[DrG00ber]

If you have the cash, I do think the PSU + R9 270 is the best option.

Awesome, i think i might do that then