Resurrecting an old cpu

[Seb86]

i have this old pc witch i turned into an HTPC but i want to leave it to my niece so she can play some games (she like the gta series and that kind of stuff, not interested in quality graphics settings but in good games with gameplay in general) it got a intel Q9500 cpu @ 2.9 ghz, an asus p5qc motherboard, with 4 gigs ddr3 1600 mhz in dual channel, one 500gb wd hhd, and a 212 evo coolermaster cpu cooler, my question is, witch gpu is the best for this old pc so she can play some games, at 720p or maybe 1080p, i got this old samsung 18" monitor to give her as well that doesnt get upto 1080p, but just in case she can ask to her parents for a new 1080p new monitor it would be nice that it could handle that screen resolution, i got this old evga 570, but dont know if i should throw it and get a readeon (im aware that most of the gpus will get bottlenecking by the cpu), so, i dont know what to do

[Alkali A]

the evga 570 should hold up for now, and the cpu is a guad core so it may keep on trucking just fine.

 

Best I can say is to test it out first to see how it holds up.

 

try running fraps while playing a few games, see if it will hold a consistent fps around 60 or higher on the kind of games it's gonna be used for.

 

If not, then getting a low end card that's just a generation back might just do the trick.