xhayatox Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 I have a crappy standard Intel graphics card. I'm looking to purchase a better card, around $50 - $100 that can run Skyrim on Low - Medium settings. Can I have some suggestions on a card within that price range? Also, will I need to buy a power supply or something for my computer? I heard about that.. Not sure if it's true. I'm not really tech-savy so I don't know much about stuff like this. Please help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FMod Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 Your best option is to buy a used card. $50-$100 will buy you a lot of great cards that are not up to date. GTX260 will run it on High, not medium or low, and it's about $50.But if your PSU isn't up to it, you need something with low power draw, and that's new cards like HD7750 or GTX650. What is your PSU model? Performance: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Catalyst_12.11_Performance/19.html7750 is faster than 650 and the margin is not small. But price-wise: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161403 - $100http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130827 - $85 I can not recommend anything cheaper. With GT630 or 640 it's too likely that you'll get a fake (a card with an old chip). These Nvidia-sanctioned fakes are grossly inferior to proper cards in performance and draw more power. And they aren't even measurably cheaper than 650 anyway. With AMD you get what is promised, but their cheapest new card is 7750. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rennn Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 (edited) If you have an integrated Intel chip now, are you sure you can upgrade your graphics card? Is it a laptop or a desktop? Btw, AMD has fakes as well. A 6770 is really just a modified and rebranded 5770, for example. Having said that, a 6770 is still a good performer for the cost. Edited November 8, 2012 by Rennn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Illiad86 Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 (edited) Btw, AMD has fakes as well. A 6770 is really just a modified and rebranded 5770, for example. Having said that, a 6770 is still a good performer for the cost. Yeah, except the 6770 uses less power than the 5770. I have the 5770, uses 120W max I believe. The 6770 uses like 20% less. Other than that...same core clock, same shaders, etc. Good card though. I can run Skyrim on Ultra 1920x1200, 4xAA,16xAF with the official texture pack, 40-60FPS outdoors, 60+ indoors. Got quite a few mods stacked on that too. But, you also have to factor in that I have pretty fast CPU and RAM. $50-100 isn't going to get you much. You'll be able to get something that's barely better than your onboard graphics. $150-170 will get you a nice graphics card that can play about all modern games at medium high to high settings. What is the rest of your system? CPU matters just as much as the graphics card. You can have a nice graphics card and games will still run pretty crappy if your CPU is slow. Edited November 8, 2012 by Illiad86 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FMod Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 Btw, AMD has fakes as well. A 6770 is really just a modified and rebranded 5770, for example. Having said that, a 6770 is still a good performer for the cost.That's not the same. All 6770 are rebranded 5770. It may be a little disappointing, but at least it's straightforward. On the other hand, Nvidia keeps selling different cards under the same exact name. Some GT640 are the real deal, while others are rebranded old cards that are significantly worse. You can't know for sure which one you get unless you have information about that specific model. The same in every generation. Only the top model is safe, everything else is a raffle ticket. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rennn Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 Let's not compare whose fakes are worse, if anything it's a trade off between a raffle and a clear failure. That's not really the point of the thread. Illiad is mostly right, but it's easily possible to get a solid card for $100 as long as you look for a sale or an unusually good deal. I paid $130 for my overclocked 460, and it'll put anything on high, most things on ultra. I mean, I can put Battlefield 3 on high at 60 fps at all times, at 1080p. My brother got a superclocked 560 for $150, and he can literally put anything that's out right now at ultra with at least 45 fps, possibly 60 but I haven't asked. He just caps at 45 because he doesn't see a difference past that. Of course that was marked down substantially and was almost sold out. The OP will probably want one of Fmod's suggestions. Other than that, you could try looking for a 6770 for about $100, or maybe a 550ti. Either of those would be possible for $100 or less. This is a very good option:http://www.amazon.com/XFX-Radeon-6770-Graphics-HD677XZNFC/dp/B005C31FJU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352405311&sr=8-1&keywords=amd+hd+6770 Another good option, with less performance but lower cost:http://www.amazon.com/XFX-Radeon-HD6670-PCI-Express-HD667XZHF3/dp/B004Z5GRW6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1352405357&sr=8-2&keywords=amd+hd+6670 A very good option for the price:http://www.amazon.com/PCI-Express-ENGTX550-TI-DC-1GD5/dp/B004RJJN9Y/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1352405417&sr=1-2&keywords=nvidia+gtx+550+ti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FMod Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 Let's not compare whose fakes are worse, if anything it's a trade off between a raffle and a clear failure. NV has been rebranding its cards for just as long. 9800, 250GTS, 300 series, the whole low end of 600 series. Selling one product under multiple names is nowhere near the borderline fraud of selling multiple different products under the same name.Anyway, GT600-640 aren't worth their price even if you get the best version. My links got obsolete in the time being - used to be much cheaper, now the prices are up. That said, the models remain. Right now I think there is no beating this:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102969Proper HD7750 with GDDR5 for $85 post-rebate free shipping. Same performance as 550Ti, while the price is better and power draw is twice lower - 550Ti might need a new PSU, 7750 won't. Grab it while it lasts, don't wait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik005 Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 The 7750 is definitely the best option , and it should run on anything but pico-psu's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawlacaust Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 ATi HD 4850 is a good cheap card and you can buy it new for around 50 bucks it can run skyrim fine even with 4x AA but thats with 512 video ram if you want to use HD textures you need a bear min of atleast 1gig of video ram Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik005 Posted November 9, 2012 Share Posted November 9, 2012 Yes but the 4800 series draws a lot or power, they also get very hot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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