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Advice on a new graphics card


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Hello all

 

As I've long suspected would be the case, I'm not able to run DCS 1.5 due to my appalling graphics card, it's a nvidia Geforce 310. I'm seeing if I can do an upgrade on the cheap, I'm really not into spending much money on something which is essentially a hobby, and will stop when I go off to uni. Unfortunately I know absolutely sod all about the tech side of stuff. To be honest I'm not even sure what the names of the connectors for the current card are so it's likely I'll have to pull apart the current computer at some point, trying not to break anything. :D

 

So the DCS website, lists the specs required as needing a DX11 compatible card, as well as two GB of RAM. What type of RAM is recommended? A lot of the stuff I'm looking at is DDR3, I see some have DDR5, how essential is that? Is it sensible to go for 4GB? What kind of clock speeds should be reasonable?

 

One more question which I appreciate is difficult to answer at this stage. My computer only has 6GB RAM, while 8 is specified as the minimum. How likely is it that the game will flat out not work without the required RAM? I can live with some instability. It seems to be possible to buy the extra RAM quite cheaply but I wouldn't mind knowing.

 

I'm not looking for great performance or high settings, cheapness is the priority here. :D

 

Thanks for any help, I'm a complete novice when it comes to the internals of computers.

Always remember. I don't have a clue what I'm doing

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1.5 open beta runs absolutely beautiful on my 290X with maxed out settings and 2560*1440 resolution. Performance is way better than I expected. What does this tell us? You won't need the most expensive card out there. You will have a great experience on a mid range card, like the 970 or R9 390. I'm so glad it also works well on AMD now. Previous versions of DCS were almost unplayable on my PC, with framerates ranging between 20-60 fps. Now it's a stable 60+ fps. :)

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Very nice, think I had a look at the 290X but saw some people had complained of reliability issues with it (though everything's got similar names, it's tricky to keep track. :)), thanks for the advice, appears my quest is not futile.

Always remember. I don't have a clue what I'm doing

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What are your computer specs now?

You don't 'need' a 290X if you are not looking for high settings, and especially if the rest of your system is not up to it (eg PSU). The '2GB' you are referring to is graphics card ram. System ram is different, 8GB is supposed to be the minimum for 1.5/edge


Edited by Uther

i5 4690k / MSI Gaming 5 / 2 x 8 GB Crucial Ballistix ram / Zotac AMP! 980Ti / 2 x 250 SSDs

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What are your computer specs now?

You don't 'need' a 290X if you are not looking for high settings, and especially if the rest of your system is not up to it (eg PSU). The '2GB' you are referring to is graphics card ram. System ram is different, 8GB is supposed to be the minimum for 1.5/edge

 

Windows 7

CPU: AMD Athlon II x4 (going by the sticker on the front at least)

GPU: Nvidia Geforce 310

Did have the motherboard make the other night but i'll have to check that in a moment.

6GB RAM

 

Don't really know anything else, if there's anything specific that it helps to know I'll try and find out.

Always remember. I don't have a clue what I'm doing

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I had that same processor before my current one, was CPU bottlenecked in 1.2x with a Radeon 6850, which is already way better than that graphics card. In any case, for budget cards, the GTX 960 is getting solid marks by other DCS users. It's in the just under $200 range new, about half that for used. My own GTX 770 2GB works very well, it was $230 almost a year ago, probably cheaper now. Another place I'd look is the R9 270x and basic 280, both are budget cards in the under $200 price range. I haven't seen performance posts on those yet, but they probably do ok. I'd search the forums first though.

 

Going cheaper isn't going to do you much good. If you can't afford new, look at refurbished or used. And going off to school doesn't remove the possibility of flight sims or any other video games. It's the #1 hobby here in the US among college students, and probably more so with the serious ones.

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Could you download and install CPU-Z and post a screenshot of the info it gives when you run it? It's a small program that gives you detailed information about your CPU. The reason I want to know more about your CPU, is that I believe it might not be worth pairing it with a decent graphics card.

 

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

 

Here you go

CPUZ.jpg.21382bb2df5f87825f4633a82eb0cb2c.jpg

 

EDIT: I've found a cheap Radeon 5870 1GB on eBay that's apparently in pretty decent nick. A couple of people have posted on the forum that they're using that and it's working well for them. Though I've also found a GTX 760 2GB for decent money. Thoughts on either of those?


Edited by Jona33

Always remember. I don't have a clue what I'm doing

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I consider the 5870 almost ancient by now. It was once a powerful card, but it is outdated, although better than what you have now. Also, it would make for a balanced system, as you current CPU is not great either and would bottleneck a modern high end card in most games. The GTX 760 is more modern and although it wasn't top of the line at it's release, it's still twice as fast ( source: http://www.sweclockers.com/test/18345-radeon-r9-290x-med-sapphire-tri-x-och-xfx-double-dissipation/7#content ) as the 5870, just because it is a more modern card. If I had to choose between these, I would definitely go for the GTX 760. It should be able to run DCS 1.5 with okay framerate, but don't expect to be able to max out the graphics settings. For that I think you would need a completely new rig, new CPU, motherboard and everything.


Edited by Brisse
Added source for performance data
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Here you go

[ATTACH]122373[/ATTACH]

 

EDIT: I've found a cheap Radeon 5870 1GB on eBay that's apparently in pretty decent nick. A couple of people have posted on the forum that they're using that and it's working well for them. Though I've also found a GTX 760 2GB for decent money. Thoughts on either of those?

 

It all depends on the prices.

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