The Graphics Card

Hey everyone,

I am making my first PC (as I am sure you know if you have been looking in the INBOX.EXE fourms the past month or so, sorry for all the questions), anyways, I am building it to be a gaming rig, and I am all but finished, next week I will have my CPU cooler and my 16 GB of ram (2x 8GB).  After that all I will need is the graphics card, and dispite how I know I want to build my comp (high things like CPU speed [intel 4th gen 3.4 GHz quad core], lots of ram, and lots of hard drive space [ I got a 2 TB HDD]), I have no idea what will be a good graphics card for a gaming rig like mine.

Obviously the more ram and GHz they have is what I want, but that comes at the price of... price.

Simply put, I want a great graphics card but I don't want to spend much more then $100 (I am willing to, just don't want to.)

So any suggestions on what type of graphics card I should get.  Below is a link to the motherboard I decided to get, just so there won't be any compatibility issues.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131991&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

Thanks for any help and suggestions you can give.

If you can shoot for 200 for a graphics card there will be a lot more options such as a 7870 or a 660Ti. 100 for a graphics card and you wont be getting much. 200 seems to be the value price right now

I suppose I could if I have to, but it would mean I would need two weeks of work before I could get it, as opposed to just 1.

These are the differences in benchmarks between 100 and 200 dollar cards (amd and nvidia). Almost double the framrate in every game and scenario.

AMD: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/536?vs=548

Nvidia: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/681?vs=647

One you choose what route (100 or 200) then start figuring out exactly which card you want.....or you could get something in between....

You will severly limit your build with a 4th gen intel core and a $100 GPU. Maybe you can get a 3570 (if you are dead set on intel) and add more money to the gpu department. 

Ya if you went with an AMD cpu instead you would have plenty of budget left over for a very nice GPU. Highly recommend that route if your only gaming.

P.S. I wish I would of went that route when I built this rig, I got a 3570k but i regret not getting an AMD and spending more on the graphics card.

Yay, two weeks of waiting for me.  If I had known that there was that much difference I would never have looked at the $100 versions.  Oh well, I guess I will just have to use the motherboard video output for 2 weeks or so.  Now I just need to pick a product ( I think I will go with Nvidia, I like them more).  

Thanks.

I already bought the parts, like I said in the my question, I only need to buy the ram and the CPU cooler (other than the GPU of course), so getting a non 4th generation intel chip is out of the question.

you you went with a haswell i5, 16GB of ram, a 2 tb harddrive, and you want a $100 gpu? for gaming?

this is why people need to ask for recommendations before they buy half their parts... *sigh*

anyway a 7770 will destroy a 650

My bad for not catching that in your OP. I say just wait an extra week so you have a well rounded system. If not go with this card unless someone else here has some more experience with this level of card:

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/sapphire-video-card-100358l

What's wrong with what I got, sure I will be getting a higher cost graphics card then what I origionally wanted, but other then that, what's the big deal?  (Also I know that 16 GIGs of ram is a bit much for a gaming rig, but I might also want to get into video editing and game recording, so that is how I justify the 16 gigs of ram).  As for the hard drive, I have over 150 games on Steam, alot are higher end games that take up 10+ GIGs of space, so that easily justifies the 2 TB HDD.

Yeah, I think I have decided to do that baised on all of your posts, but that still leaves the question of that $200 - $250 GPU I should get.

Any suggestions?

I have a hd 4870 and it's almost a Hd 7770 equivalent, while it's starting to show it's age, it's on par with a HD 7770, so for gaming you want better. If you want to run games on high resolution (1680x1050 and up) and high settings, go with a cheaper AMD CPU, which are good for both gaming and editing, and get a proper video card. And drop the RAM to 8GB you really won't be using it if you just started, it's a waste of a few dollars.

Again, I have already gotten my CPU, so I can't exactly get a different version, as for the ram, I want to get 8 GB sticks because my board can go up to 32 GB in ram on 4 slots, and they only seem to sell those in 2 (at least any site I looked at.

Also would I be able to record a game like Fallout (3 or New Vegas), or Civ 5, or GTA 5 (if and when we get it on PC) with only 8 gigs?

First look at this:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/860?vs=857

See which one does better in the games you'll play the most. Then i recommend one of these two:

7870(comes with crysis 3):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150605

660Ti(comes with splinter cell blacklist):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121656

Everyone think those are good cards for him?

Alright, thanks, I chose to go with the 660Ti, in most of the games that were on the list that I like (or could imagine myself playing), that one had higher frame rate.  Thanks for the advice.

i'd spend the couple extra for a newer more powerful card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127744 or any 760

ok, 760 it is, just compaired it with the 660 and it is either around the same or even better, so I think I will go with the 760, thanks.

I completely spaced the 760....thanks for catching me. I agree with that completely

I was just about to say 760. Try to get an EVGA brand card. 2 gigs of frame buffer ram will be fine for 1080p gaming for awhile. If you worried about that by the way EVGA does make a 4 gig card.  But if you have any plans to install an solid state drive in the future I would pass. Just assign your pagefile to that drive and you'll never miss it. This is why I scream at a reviewer who was checking out a pair of 7790s with 1 and 2 gig frame buffer. But was using an SSD for the OS drive.(page file would be set there by defult) And he could not beleave that there was no diffrence between the two.

Point is don't worry about the questions or what you got. Some of us so called experts are still learning.