Graphics Card Upgrade?

[OICU812B4]

I bought a Dell XPS 8900 computer a while ago (about a year ago) and since then I have played many grand strategy games (paradox games) that have worked very well on it. Just last month I bought Fallout 4, hoping to play it on this PC that has so far done very well. I started the game up, and right away I knew this was going to be bad. The graphics were auto-set to very low. I played the game and after the opening cutscene, the game ran at a silky-smooth 5 fps. After my eyes stopped bleeding I was able to exit the game. Turns out my video card sucks big ones, and I need an upgrade.

 

I'm just stuck trying to figure out which graphics card is really good, under $400 preferably (but if it is THAT good then I could do $450 maybe), and will work with my current specs and such. I want to be able to run games like Fallout 4, Subnautica, and Battlefield (for when Battlefield 1 comes out).

 

For my PC specs, I haven't touched the inside of my computer at all since I bought it, so it's the same as the one advertised here.

 

Thank you very much.

-OICU812B4

[FMod]

GTX1070 I suppose, if you can find one. Get a non-reference version, one WITHOUT "founders edition".

 

They're next to impossible to find available, but if you spend a week or so monitoring the sites you'll find something.

Do not get the "founders edition", they run too hot.

 

However, the cheaper RX 480 (also almost impossible to find) or the GTX 970 (not as good a deal) will also generally be enough for your system and will play Fallout 4 fine. To get full use out of the 1070 you'd need to get some extra RAM. Still, the 1070 is worth it.

 

 

P.S.

Graphics ProcessorNVIDIA GeForce GT 730

Video Memory2 GB DDR3 VRAM

Of course they just HAD to do it. Take a CPU which has a good IGPU and pair it with a video card that is actually slower than the IGPU. Why? The only practical reason is to sell it as a "gaming" PC because "it has a discrete GPU", never mind that the card is useless. Your games will run 25% faster just plugging the display into the motherboard to use the IGPU.

 

Don't worry, you're not the only one to have bought it. The blame's on Dell, which has entire teams of six-figure analysts and systems integrators with computer science degrees, who came up with this configuration, had three meetings about it, wrote a stack of papers justifying it, sent them to eight departments to review, held another meeting to discuss the reviews, had a dozen executives sign off on it, and broke out the champagne when the first unit shipped.

[OICU812B4]

Thank you very much! I was actually thinking about getting the GTX 970, but I'll keep an eye out for the GTX1070 (not founders edition).

 

This is the first time I've ever made any changes to the inside of my computer, so I was worried that I would buy a video card that wouldn't work with my motherboard, or some other part of my PC. Thank you, again, this is very helpful.

[niphilim222]

The radeon 480 are out In amazon..

 

https://www.amazon.com/XFX-RADEON-DDR5-3xDP-RX480M8BFA6/dp/B01H3P9CKI/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1467769956&sr=8-3&keywords=radeon+480

Edited July 6, 2016 by niphilim222

[defjamv]

You have a mini tower? You're not going to fit majority of the 1070/970/480s in one of those.

You're best bet is the Gigabyte Geforce 970 OC ITX. Great mini card and Gigabyte are the best aftermarket imo.

Edited July 7, 2016 by defjamv

[FMod]

Size might be an issue, better check thoroughly. Power draw may be another issue.

 

All in all, your best bet might be waiting (aargh, not again!) for the GTX 1060, since it won't tax your PSU. The 460W unit installed should handle the 1070, but with less headroom than I'd like to see.

 

Alternately, the RX 470 should have less power draw, esp. downvolted a bit. The RX 480's draw is too high for its performance, through there's a 90% chance you can downvolt it to adequate draw. But in a power-constrained system, it's not the card to buy.

Edited July 8, 2016 by FMod

[niphilim222]

I have a 1000 Watt psu modular sli crossfire ready Antec model. Its a nice idea to have more wattage then you need. so that over wattage thing wont be a concern. Remember its not just your video card that need that overhead, cpus take up a good % of that as well, not to mention ram hard drives.

Edited July 8, 2016 by niphilim222

[FMod]

Good for you. But the OP doesn't and replacing it takes time. Also, the CPU takes under 100w and ram and hdd under 10w combined. So it's GPU+CPU+about 50w for the rest and headroom.

[TINMN]

Does the power supplyrics have a spare 6pin pcie connectior? If so I completely agree with defjamv the gigabyte 970 is an excellent card but you will need 2 pcie connectors and I know most dell's don't have that option. Another really good card that only requires 1 8pin connection (adapters are very cheap and easy to come by) is the EVGA gtx 960. I have had this card in the past and it has 4gb of bramble as welloyd and mosthe important it runs fallout 4 on high settings with tons of mods no problem.

[TINMN]

Jesus auto correct screwed me there. *it has 4gb of Vram as well and the most important thing* it runs fallout 4. Lol