Hardware lurkers - help me find a new video card!

[Thenryb]

I am having the same sort of issue wondering what the next suitable upgrade would be for my Nvidia 240. My system is pretty old: XP OS, 4gb ram, 32bit, quad core (I think). I would like something better but do not want to overdo it. About the only games I play are Bethesda games like Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim which run OK on medium quality. I find the numbering system Nvidia uses incomprehensible and cannot tell with certainty what the next step up is. Diablo 3 also seems to run Ok but I did not play it long enough to really test it.

Almost anything available right now is an upgrade from a 240.

People who buy in the low end seem to strongly prefer nVidia, and as a result, nVidia's pricing is not at all competitive with equivalent AMD offerings.

In that price range, you're basically looking at:
GTX 650 > GTX 460 1 GB > GTX 550 > (maybe ~=) GTX 460 768 MB

For 4xx / 5xx / and 6xx series cards, anything with a GT or GTS instead of GTX is extremely low end for gaming. For the most part, you can cut capability of the lowest end GTX card from that generation and expect it will perform on par with that.

for comparison, AMD cards in that price range are
6850 > 7770 > 6770 / 5770 > to ~= 7750
Below those are mostly not gaming cards here you can look at the hundreds digit. 6 and below in that digit is extremely low end for gaming.

For reference, the GTX 650 is a shade slower than 7770 and GTX 460 1 GB is about equal to a 5770 / 6770.

Cards below these are mostly being phased out because current gen CPUs have competitive integrated graphics to those cards. They're primarily HTPC type cards.

Thanks for your input. I confess to being one of those who automatically gravitates toward Nvidia cards. That 6850 looks pretty good. According to my search (my owner's manual is lost) my old Dell XPS 610i has a 750 watt power supply, so that should be adequate. I looked on Newegg and it appears to have two versions of that card available and the only difference between the 2 is that one supports something called "Eyefinity" and I wonder if this is something I ought to embrace or avoid.

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I am having the same sort of issue wondering what the next suitable upgrade would be for my Nvidia 240. My system is pretty old: XP OS, 4gb ram, 32bit, quad core (I think). I would like something better but do not want to overdo it. About the only games I play are Bethesda games like Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim which run OK on medium quality. I find the numbering system Nvidia uses incomprehensible and cannot tell with certainty what the next step up is. Diablo 3 also seems to run Ok but I did not play it long enough to really test it.

Almost anything available right now is an upgrade from a 240.

People who buy in the low end seem to strongly prefer nVidia, and as a result, nVidia's pricing is not at all competitive with equivalent AMD offerings.

In that price range, you're basically looking at:
GTX 650 > GTX 460 1 GB > GTX 550 > (maybe ~=) GTX 460 768 MB

For 4xx / 5xx / and 6xx series cards, anything with a GT or GTS instead of GTX is extremely low end for gaming. For the most part, you can cut capability of the lowest end GTX card from that generation and expect it will perform on par with that.

for comparison, AMD cards in that price range are
6850 > 7770 > 6770 / 5770 > to ~= 7750
Below those are mostly not gaming cards here you can look at the hundreds digit. 6 and below in that digit is extremely low end for gaming.

For reference, the GTX 650 is a shade slower than 7770 and GTX 460 1 GB is about equal to a 5770 / 6770.

Cards below these are mostly being phased out because current gen CPUs have competitive integrated graphics to those cards. They're primarily HTPC type cards.

Thanks for your input. I confess to being one of those who automatically gravitates toward Nvidia cards. That 6850 looks pretty good. According to my search (my owner's manual is lost) my old Dell XPS 610i has a 750 watt power supply, so that should be adequate. I looked on Newegg and it appears to have two versions of that card available and the only difference between the 2 is that one supports something called "Eyefinity" and I wonder if this is something I ought to embrace or avoid.

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Apologies for the duplicate post.