Edit: So based on the recommendations of this forum i am upgrading to a 3.4ghz i5 processor in a few days. With that in mind, what kind if gpu do you recommend (specifically) to get PS4/Xbox One quality graphics and good framerate etc? I'm holding off on the new consoles to build this thing so I want a solid performer that competes or beats what's coming out. Thanks! Link: GTX 770 4G Ram

So my MacBook died this morning after a long battle with spilled juice. I live in a rural area and had to get a pc so I could finish my homework today. It has an intel i3 3220, 8G ram, and a 600 watt power supply. I'm wanting to get a GTX 770 for a gpu ... will that complete my needs for a decent gaming rig? If not, suggestions?

Seems generally good, but usually you'd want to go with an i5 or i7; it still should be fine for most things.

Did you but a pre-built PC from HP, Fujitsu etc? If so then changing the processor and GPU will be really difficult if not impossible. I remember trying to do a simple hard-drive switch for my sisters computer an struggling with it for hours. Granted that was probably a decade ago and I don't know how much things have changed since then.

No. I bought it from a local shop. Owner built. Was on a budget as I wasn't expecting my laptop to shit out on me. I'm just liking for it to be better than my 360 and I figure ill upgrade to an i7 in the near future and add some more ram. Will it play most games on high ish settings with just upgrading to the 770 for now?

So I guess my question is: Will the 770 with 4G ram be better than my Xbox 360 with my other specs?

@mars: 8 GB of RAM is good, GTX 770 + a good quality 600w PSU is good, but an i3 is pretty weak.

we'll if you get a 770 the gpu won't be your bottleneck if that's what you mean, so you should be fine.

Unless you intend to replace the processor and maybe the power supply with something better, there's no need to get a 770. Other parts of your computer will bottleneck how well you can game well before you max out what a 770 can do. If you're fine with putting down $400 as the first part of a $700-800 upgrade to the system, then a 770 is fine. If that's not what you intend to do, get a card for less than half the price (Geforce 650 Ti or Radeon HD 7870 would be my recommendations) and still have a gaming computer that blows a 360 out of the water, easily.

You could probably get a weaker GPU without any major difference because the i3 will bottleneck it so badly. 770 is totally a decent card for gaming, but you seriously need to upgrade the CPU fairly soonish if you don't want problems running things.

1) My belief is that spending more than $250(ish) for a graphics card is a waste of money. Spend that now and in 2 years when it's feeling sluggish you can drop a new $250 on a card that's a bunch better than what you'd have gotten for $400-500 today.

2) An i7 is overkill for gaming now, I'd sit with the i3 for the time being since you've already paid for it, you can see what the ladscape looks like in about a year after some new games come out that may finally really take advantage of what a higher end CPU can do.

For now, if the shop will let you upgrade to the i5 for the $50 difference, do it and get a GTX 760 or HD 7950 for ~$250 and you'll still be $100 under what you were thinking, a bit more balanced in the CPU v. Graphics department and set for the next 18 to 24 months...

As the previous poster mentions a i5 is completely adequate for all your gaming needs. If you can upgrade cheaply, do it. But first you could check how much difference in performance you can expect. I really like to look at tomshardware.com for my research on PC hardware.

Bump because I edited my first post.

id wager if you get a i5 ivy or haswell and couple that with that 770 youd be set for next gen very nicely.

yep, a GTX 770 is what you want.

guessing this computer was a prebuilt oem ordeal, i'd want to know the model of the PSU, alternatively a picture of the spec sticker on its side.
Cause it might be shit.

@devildoll: not pre built. Built recently on my budget with knowledge of upgrading soon. There is no spec sticker. Started out as a case. He put in the mother, I have an i5 on order, 8G ram, several expansion slots. I'm not rich. Putting it together piecemeal.

To those condemning the i3: You have no idea what you're talking about. Even a newer Pentium chip will get the job done when it comes to gaming.

@mars: My graphics card advice from above stands - the $200 to $250 cards will give you the same/slightly better power (with caveats on architecture) as the new consoles. Also, as suggested Tom's Hardware is an excellent resource. Here is their latest Graphics Cards for the Money article.

@mars:

i dont think i have seen a powersupply without a spec sticker ever,

But if that is indeed the case, could you get the other thing i asked for then, the model name?

This is what a sticker usually looks like btw , the thing that says antec on it ( upper left corner ), and has a bunch of voltages and amperage written in kind of a spreadsheet.

@devildoll: this is the power supply.

Anything GTX 470+ will give you PS4/Xbox One graphics, at least until devs optimise the hell out of those systems.

So basically, any half decent card right now is going to be as good or better than PS4/XBONE launch games. A 570, 580, a 670, 680, a 770 will all blow them away.

Pretty sweet huh.

edit: this is assuming 1920x1080, anti-aliasing set to FXAA or off (some games don't really need it too badly), ultra settings, tessellation probably off (rarely is it ever worth the performance hit of turning this on) with these settings, I am running Battlefield 3, Blacklist, Witcher 2 and others all on ultra settings very nicely. It's pretty sweet for my soon-to-be 3 year old card. (a GTX 470) I use ambient occlusion too usually on the mid setting as it's a good compromise between image quality and performance, sometimes I can't even tell the difference of not having this on, again kinda game dependant.

Ah, okay, so looking at the 12 volt rail there ( the one that the thristy components in a pc use ) it is rated for 40 amps ( 480 watts )
Which is not the "600" it has in it's name, but still enough to power your rig, including a high end graphics card.

Another thing you can do is on that label is brand, model number and sometimes a serial number. Google is surprisingly handy in tracing hardware specs where many times you can just type in the serial number and it will tell you what it is.