Budget (gaming) PC upgrade

Hardware Build a PC
1

Good day guys.

The situation:

lately i find myself turning graphics options fairly low to maintain a somewhat playable fps, so i guess it has become time for me to do some upgrading on my PC.

unfortunatly i dont have enough knowledge with this to do this on my own, so im asking for some help.

 

I mostly use my PC for strategy games (total war series, COH, paradox grand strategies) and pc exclusives like garry' s mod, chivalry, (Banner saga soon, it looks great) stuff like that.
Games like battlefield, cod, gta etc. i play on my console because most of my (real-life) friends are over there.

I'm not looking to get 120 fps in BF4 on Ultra, but right now im getting around 25fps in COH2 on low-medium and 30 fps in Shogun 2 on medium-high.

I would like to at least double the preformance, so i can go through the next 2-3 years.

 

My PC specs:

i5 750

geforce 320 gt

4 gb 1333 ram (2x2 gb sticks in a dual-channal, there is 1 dual channel free)

Ftp55 motherboard (a pain in the ass to find a proper spec list, all i know is that is has 1 Pci-e slot 2.0x16 and some x1 slots

 

Budget:

i dont really have a fixed budget. but i would like to keep it under 150$

 

 

Many thanks to people who would like to take some time to help me onwards, and sorry for my broken English,

Daniel

 

 

2

Depending on your PSU and if you are willing to spend a bit more you could go for a R9 270X or this HD 7870 I found on Amazon. Link Or even a R7 260X if you don't want to go beyond your $150 budget Link

3

The r9 270 is probably your best performer if you mind going a little bit above your budget.  You can also find some HD 7870s relatively cheap.

Otherwise the R9 260X or GTX 660 may be good for your purposes.

4

You might find that your chosen strategy games prefer Nvidia cards. Any given GPU upgrade will give you the boost that you need.

5

thanks for your reply,

the 7870 is out of the question. i cant order from amazon, and in my country the 7870 costs over 250$, and i dont want to spend that mutch on a card.

the r7 260x oc i do find for around 140$.

I have also looked for used cards in my local area, and found some options.

-sapphire 7770 ghz edition for around 80$

-sapphire 6950 for around 130$

 

does any of these cards seems like a deal for you?

and wont they be hold back by my other specs?

 

Daniel

6

You may also want to consider doubling your ram by filling the 2nd dual channel slots with another set of 2x2GB sticks.

But primarily, a GPU upgrade like the other suggested is where your money will be best spent. If you have some of your budget left over or you save up a little later, bumping up to 8GB ram will stretch the life of you system even further. 

7

thanks for your comments guys, it helped me a lot to find out what kind of cards i should be looking for.

 

Now i have 2 questions left.

 

-if i get another 2x2gb of ram, will there be any point in getting better sticks then what i have got in my other channel? or will they be downgraded to match the other channel.

 

-My PSU. it states the following on it:

250W (+3.3V & +5V=110W max) (+12V1 &+12V2 = 180W Max.)

How does this work?, should i treat it like a 250W and therefor replace it with a more capable psu, or does this mean it can power up to 180W cards?

 

Thanks in advance,

Daniel

8

Someone got any thoughts?

9

4 GB is enough for gaming, and if you are on a budget, i would prefer to put the money on a new gpu, and most inmportnantly on a new PSU. Your 250W psu will not be enought for powering up a card witch you mentioned earlier. I would say, get at least 450W 80+ bronze certified psu, and then spend the rest for the gpu. The psu doesn't need to be very expencive, just make shure it is at least 450W, 80+ certified, and has only 1 12V rail.

10

My thoughts:

Find a way to increase your budget. You need to get a new PSU if you want a new GPU. 

A CX430 PSU is a ok budget PSU for your needs. Then you could add the R9 270 or other lower alternatives. 

*Ram will set itself to the lowest speed out of all used.

11

Ok, clear answers.

 

I thought the specs on my psu meant it was powering the 12v rail with 180W, but i will look around for a nice psu.

 

Thanks ,

Daniel