Looking for a Video Card

If I were you,I would wait until the budget 9xx/3xx budget cards come out because most of them might run you a little more money,but will be more power efficient and more price/performance.

This video card should be good.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: XFX Radeon R7 250X 2GB Core Edition Video Card ($106.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $106.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-09-01 11:53 EDT-0400

If you can spend a little over $100, I highly recommend a GTX 650. I have one and it plays a lot of less-demanding games at high or full settings at 60FPS.

hawaii727

WTFshady

GigorahkYou don't need that much ram dude.

you need 64 gigs of ram when editing 4k video

lol, I doubt he'll be doing that though.

We aren't talking about him. We're talking in general. Please, let's drop this and try to help the OP more before this turns into a flame war and the moderators start using they ban hammers.

@OP either save the money, or get 8GB of 1866/2133MHz DDR3 RAM. On an APU, faster RAM will help you quite a lot.[/quote]
Okay. I already have 4 Gigs of Ram though. Should I just get 4 Gigs of 1866 or 2133?

WTFshady

GigorahkYou don't need that much ram dude.

you need 64 gigs of ram when editing 4k video

lol, I doubt he'll be doing that though.[/quote]
We aren't talking about him. We're talking in general. Please, let's drop this and try to help the OP more before this turns into a flame war and the moderators start using they ban hammers.

@OP either save the money, or get 8GB of 1866/2133MHz DDR3 RAM. On an APU, faster RAM will help you quite a lot.[/quote]
Okay. I already have 4 Gigs of Ram though. Should I just get another 4 Gigs of 1866/2133Mhz DDR3?

You can go on ebay. Try to get a 270

GigorahkYou don't need that much ram dude.

you need 64 gigs of ram when editing 4k video[/quote]

lol, I doubt he'll be doing that though.[/quote]
We aren't talking about him. We're talking in general. Please, let's drop this and try to help the OP more before this turns into a flame war and the moderators start using they ban hammers.

@OP either save the money, or get 8GB of 1866/2133MHz DDR3 RAM. On an APU, faster RAM will help you quite a lot.

GigorahkYou don't need that much ram dude.

you need 64 gigs of ram when editing 4k video[/quote]

lol, I doubt he'll be doing that though.[/quote]
you never can tell, can you...

You don't need that much ram dude.[/quote]
For day-to-day using, no, but if you plan on hosting multiple servers on your machine at the same time, you need to get that much.[/quote]

Well yes, but he said nothing about doing any of these crazy things. I truly doubt he has or ever will do anything that requires that much ram.

Gigorahk

WTFshady

happyman323
i can build a computer with an r9 and an 8 core fx processor for <$700! no, you don't need a $1000 dollar computer

You don't and you will never do, unless you want to make a super-high-end workstation + server and you'll need NVIDIA Quadros, Intel Xeons and 64 gigs of RAM. A $400 PC will be enough to kill a console.

You don't need that much ram dude.

For day-to-day using, no, but if you plan on hosting multiple servers on your machine at the same time, you need to get that much.

You don't need that much ram dude.[/quote]
you need 64 gigs of ram when editing 4k video[/quote]

lol, I doubt he'll be doing that though.

Gigorahk

WTFshady

happyman323
i can build a computer with an r9 and an 8 core fx processor for <$700! no, you don't need a $1000 dollar computer

You don't and you will never do, unless you want to make a super-high-end workstation + server and you'll need NVIDIA Quadros, Intel Xeons and 64 gigs of RAM. A $400 PC will be enough to kill a console.

You don't need that much ram dude.

you need 64 gigs of ram when editing 4k video

WTFshady

happyman323
i can build a computer with an r9 and an 8 core fx processor for <$700! no, you don't need a $1000 dollar computer

You don't and you will never do, unless you want to make a super-high-end workstation + server and you'll need NVIDIA Quadros, Intel Xeons and 64 gigs of RAM. A $400 PC will be enough to kill a console.

You don't need that much ram dude.

WTFshady

happyman323
i can build a computer with an r9 and an 8 core fx processor for <$700! no, you don't need a $1000 dollar computer

You don't and you will never do, unless you want to make a super-high-end workstation + server and you'll need NVIDIA Quadros, Intel Xeons and 64 gigs of RAM. A $400 PC will be enough to kill a console.

yep couldnt have said it better

Also for him, I think ram isn't much of a priority, unless he absolutely can't run the games he want's because of the lack of ram he currently has. All he want's (as I'm aware) is to get a few more FPS in the games he currently plays. Which I don't blame him, but usually to upgrade a part of your computer, sometimes it involves replacing everything. As many before me have said, his integrated chip is pretty good as it is. For $100 I doubt you'll get that much better speed than he currently does; so why waste $100?

happyman323
i can build a computer with an r9 and an 8 core fx processor for <$700! no, you don't need a $1000 dollar computer

You don't and you will never do, unless you want to make a super-high-end workstation + server and you'll need NVIDIA Quadros, Intel Xeons and 64 gigs of RAM. A $400 PC will be enough to kill a console.

GigorahkWhat I recommend is saving some more, wait for the newest 9XX/3XX series that will come out and buy a current generation card (7XX/2XX). Their prices will hopefully lower and you can buy better cards for less.

The amount of money I have available for my PC increases about 10$ every month. Would it be better to purchase more RAM?[/quote]

NO! you do not need more ram. Ram will not increase your performance. The only thing ram's useful for is running programs. It sounds like your PC is good enough for now.[/quote]
Ok, lemme point some things out:

"You don't need more RAM": If he wants to make a gaming PC, 8GB of RAM is a standard. If he can get 8GB of 2100/2400MHz RAM, he'll make his PC WAY better.

"RAM will not increase your performance": That's partially true. If you're using APUs, the faster the RAM, the better it will perform. If you get 2400MHz RAM, you'll get a performance increase. While for dedicated GPUs, faster RAM usually won't affect the performance.[/quote]

What he's doing now is upgrading his card. I want him to be aware that ram is not a clear alternative for better performance. Ram is way overrated. People are obsessed with 32gigs or even 64 gigs of ram even though they will never use that much in their life. If it's speed he wants there are other things to do, like the CPU, and getting a SSD. Ram is one of the last thing's I'd upgrade.[/quote]
If you get a high-end RAM, you will definitively feel a speed bump.

Cuz if you want good ram, 8GB is around $100.

while upgrading ram wont increase your performance, it is still usefull if you want to do more things than vanilla. most mod packs require more than 4 gigs to run smoothly.

"Well I was wondering about getting more Ram because my computer averages a memory usage of 80-90% when running intensive games." Well games will do that.

What I recommend is saving some more, wait for the newest 9XX/3XX series that will come out and buy a current generation card (7XX/2XX). Their prices will hopefully lower and you can buy better cards for less.[/quote]
The amount of money I have available for my PC increases about 10$ every month. Would it be better to purchase more RAM?[/quote]

NO! you do not need more ram. Ram will not increase your performance. The only thing ram's useful for is running programs. It sounds like your PC is good enough for now.[/quote]
Ok, lemme point some things out:

"You don't need more RAM": If he wants to make a gaming PC, 8GB of RAM is a standard. If he can get 8GB of 2100/2400MHz RAM, he'll make his PC WAY better.

"RAM will not increase your performance": That's partially true. If you're using APUs, the faster the RAM, the better it will perform. If you get 2400MHz RAM, you'll get a performance increase. While for dedicated GPUs, faster RAM usually won't affect the performance.[/quote]

What he's doing now is upgrading his card. I want him to be aware that ram is not a clear alternative for better performance. Ram is way overrated. People are obsessed with 32gigs or even 64 gigs of ram even though they will never use that much in their life. If it's speed he wants there are other things to do, like the CPU, and getting a SSD. Ram is one of the last thing's I'd upgrade.

My point is to get you to understand that upgrading your card a little won't increase the performance to much. You should just save up and get a new computer later on. It seems yours is fine for now, so no need to spend all the money you have to get a tiny bit more performance.

Chrix12

hawaii727

Chrix12Your CPU has AMD Radeon HD 7660D intergrated, which is most likely better than the MSI ATI Radeon HD 6450 1 GB DDR3.

I: http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Radeon-P ... on+r7+250x

Approx. how much of a FPS increase would that be on average?

(IGP = Integrated Graphics Processor)

Don't have experience from using either, but from raw numbers, theoretically more or less twice as much.

With experience, it won't increase your FPS 2x. If you're lucky you'll probably get 40% or something around there. I doubt a graphics card under $300 would get you any more than 200+ FPS consistantly.

I have a gtx770 which costs me around $300. I upgraded from a Radeon hd7870. I noticed a pretty good leap. Before I usually ran Minecraft at about 400 fps in a void. With my new one I easily get 600+ in the same enviroment. With my old graphics card I could run medium shaders at around 60+ fps. With my new one I can easily run any shaders out there (including Seus Ultra version) with 80+.

I don't know to much about all the different cards, but I do know, that you won't get 2-4x performance. If you're lucky, you might get 10%-40% increase, depending on the performance range of the newer part compared to your older one.

hawaii727
So I'm confused. Does my current APU become useless if I buy a new Video Card?

No. Just so you know, an APU is a processor with integrated graphics. So no, the CPU will still be used. What will become useless is the iGPU.

Chrix12

hawaii727

Chrix12Your CPU has AMD Radeon HD 7660D intergrated, which is most likely better than the MSI ATI Radeon HD 6450 1 GB DDR3.

I: http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Radeon-P ... on+r7+250x

Approx. how much of a FPS increase would that be on average?

(IGP = Integrated Graphics Processor)

Don't have experience from using either, but from raw numbers, theoretically more or less twice as much.

So I'm confused. Does my current APU become useless if I buy a new Video Card?

Chrix12

hawaii727

Chrix12Your CPU has AMD Radeon HD 7660D intergrated, which is most likely better than the MSI ATI Radeon HD 6450 1 GB DDR3.

I: http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Radeon-P ... on+r7+250x

Approx. how much of a FPS increase would that be on average?

(IGP = Integrated Graphics Processor)

Don't have experience from using either, but from raw numbers, theoretically more or less twice as much.

So I'm confused. Does my current APU become useless if I buy a new Video Card?

hawaii727

Chrix12Your CPU has AMD Radeon HD 7660D intergrated, which is most likely better than the MSI ATI Radeon HD 6450 1 GB DDR3.

I: http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Radeon-P ... on+r7+250x

Approx. how much of a FPS increase would that be on average?

(IGP = Integrated Graphics Processor)

Don't have experience from using either, but from raw numbers, theoretically more or less twice as much.

For that budget everything you'll get most likely will be worse than your current iGPU.

What I recommend is saving some more, wait for the newest 9XX/3XX series that will come out and buy a current generation card (7XX/2XX). Their prices will hopefully lower and you can buy better cards for less.

-

Most GPUs in that price range will probably have equal or worse performance compared to your APU.

We got an HD7750 with 2 GB of DDR3 memory on clearance at Best Buy for $100, and its performance is about the same as that iGPU in your build..

Your CPU has AMD Radeon HD 7660D intergrated, which is most likely better than the MSI ATI Radeon HD 6450 1 GB DDR3.

I: http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Radeon-P ... on+r7+250x