Greetings, brilliant minds of Giant Bomb. I have come to seek your advice.

In an unfortunate turn of events my trusty old GeForce 8600 GT has bit the dust. Now, under normal circumstances this would be a perfect time to build a new machine (something I want to do anyway) but I don't have the money for that right now. What I have come to ask instead is if there are any currently available cards out there that I could get ahold of on the cheap to keep me going until I can afford a full build. I've looked at some cards on Newegg, but everything that I see that's compatible appears to be garbage. Here's my (ancient) motherboard. If you know of anything that would fit the bill, or if one of those old cards is particularly good, I'm up for anything to get it running again.

Thanks a bunch Giant Bomb,

Mike

Get a hold of either a Geforce 560 Ti, or 570 if you can afford it. Both are good and still perform well. I can't really give you any AMD/ATI advice.

I wasn't sure if PCI EXPRESS x16 2.0 cards worked with his motherboard, but aparently they are backwards compatible, so if thats the case, its just a matter of how much you are willing to spend, which would help us out a bit.. but at least 2.0 cards are combatible so you shouldn't have to worry about that, just wont be nearly as good as a 2.0 x16 port would be.

So they are backwards compatible, that's fantastic news. I'm not super worried about it being optimum at the moment, so I'm sure I won't even notice what I'm missing with the lack of a 2.0 port.

Price-wise, I'd really like to spend around $120 or less, but I have about $200 that I could put towards it.

I would really go with this GTX 560and not any more, coz you dont really need to right now, its under your budget, and you'll be slightly bottle necked anyway, it wont perform to its full potential but its better then what you had, and it "should" perform much better then your old card. Be interested to know what your other specs were for your comp.

@VACkillers: The GTX 460 is still a pretty good deal at about $125 after rebates too if he's looking to save some $$$.

GTX460 is great value for money. Good entry level DX11 card.

AMD is great for the money, but the savings come at the cost of really unreliable drivers, in my experience. I'm going for nvidia with my next card and the cards I buy professionally.

Currently trying to get my hands on some 680 cards, but they've been out of stock everyone for weeks...

yeah agreed guys, the 460s are very good too, i forget about them sometimes just so used to seeing the 5 series.... i need an upgrade myself actually only using the GTX260 (216 core) myself lol so not much better then what he was using heh

Depending on where you live, I could sell my ATI HD 5870 for $100 to you. I'm planning to upgrade myself soon, but the ATI HD 5870 can still max out everything with the right processor. (Bf3 stays at like 30 frames maxed out with an i5 2500k unclocked, not the best peformance but ok) I'll have to check later if I have AA and Anti Aliasing enabled.

For $120 you can go with the GTX 460 or the newly released Radeon 7770. For $200 you could even get a GTX 560Ti if you scrounge around for a sale (but you'd have to wait for a rebate; would be easier to find the original 560 at that price though, or cheaper).

Or I have a spare 8800GT...

I'd get this http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150576 a little better than your 8600GT

If you want to spend a bit more http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121633a decent budget card, will run circles around your old card and it comes with the new Dirt Showdown game that just came out this week

GPU hierarchy chart for comparisons to your 8600gt and everything else recommended in the thread

Wow, thanks for all the info! Lots of stuff to look into now. I'll slide back through tomorrow with some more specific replies, but just wanted to say thanks.

Sorry for the random bold text. Parchment doesn't like to get rid of the bold, apparently.

@VACkillers said:

I would really go with this GTX 560and not any more, coz you dont really need to right now, its under your budget, and you'll be slightly bottle necked anyway, it wont perform to its full potential but its better then what you had, and it "should" perform much better then your old card. Be interested to know what your other specs were for your comp.

Would it be worth getting that card now and hanging on to it for my next build or is there some hot new thing that will be coming out by say, the end of the year?

The rest of my build was as follows. One of my room mates at college helped me pick the parts.

• AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
• 2 GB Patriot DDR2
• Western Digital 500GB
• And a DVD Burner, Antec Sonata III case w/ PSU, crazy Thermaltake CPU cooler, and a sweet Samsung 22" monitor

@wewantsthering said:

@VACkillers: The GTX 460 is still a pretty good deal at about $125 after rebates too if he's looking to save some $$$.

I really like the look of that card (and the price). Has everything I would need and it's of course leaps and bounds beyond my card.

@AlisterCat:

Another vote for the 460, then.

@Live2bRighteous said:

Depending on where you live, I could sell my ATI HD 5870 for $100 to you. I'm planning to upgrade myself soon, but the ATI HD 5870 can still max out everything with the right processor. (Bf3 stays at like 30 frames maxed out with an i5 2500k unclocked, not the best peformance but ok) I'll have to check later if I have AA and Anti Aliasing enabled.

I live in Florida. I appreciate the offer. My processor is above, but I don't think it compares to an i5 at all (could be wrong, ever since the i3,5,7 came out I've been so confused about all the Intel stuff).

@AndrewB said:

For $120 you can go with the GTX 460 or the newly released Radeon 7770. For $200 you could even get a GTX 560Ti if you scrounge around for a sale (but you'd have to wait for a rebate; would be easier to find the original 560 at that price though, or cheaper).

Or I have a spare 8800GT...

Again, I do like that 460.

@Kidavenger said:

I'd get this http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150576 a little better than your 8600GT

If you want to spend a bit more http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121633a decent budget card, will run circles around your old card and it comes with the new Dirt Showdown game that just came out this week

GPU hierarchy chart for comparisons to your 8600gt and everything else recommended in the thread

I like the look of that second card a lot. It's PCI3 3.0, though. Would that be backwards compatible to my original PCIe? The only other issue is that I run dual monitors for music recording, so I'd need two DVI ports. That chart is suuuuper cool, though.

Unless there's any reason I shouldn't (based on my specs) I'm thinking I'll order that 460 tonight.

Something else to consider - I've recently had to start doing some video work for my dayjob - how much would that affect what choice I should make for video card?

I used to run two 8800 gtx ultras in SLI mode until they fried when I forgot to clean them out and cat hair clogged up the fans and caused them to over heat. I replaced them with a 460 and have had zero problems with games. Other then LA Noire running at -30 FPS, rockstar sucks at PC games anyway, I have been able to run every modern game perfectly fine at high resolutions and med-high gfx settings. If you want a good old over for the next year or so, I would suggest getting a 460. They are pretty cheap these days and are a great workhorse card.

Sadly games are still being held back by the consoles. So until the next ones come out PC gaming is going to continue being held back as they will keep making games for the lowest common denominator until they have to upgrade. So you got another year or two before you will see the PC market requiring you to have a beefier system to play games.

Just going to say, the difference between PCIe 2.0 and 1.0 is almost entirely negligible. For single-card setups (non-SLI/crossfire) you'll be losing about 1% performance, which is usually going to be a fraction of a fraction of a frame per second. Your motherboard won't be bottlenecking you at all, it'll just be your processor, most likely.

The Radeon 7750 is nice for that price, just bare in mind that ATI have absolutely shocking drivers for their cards, very very hit and miss but once they work their just great. Dont know much about the compatability between PCI E 3.0 and PCI E 1 though but should be backwards compatable i would assume. Not an Nvidia fan boy myself, but i haven't had the best experiences with ATI because of their drivers, had a machine with two ATI 5870s and it was an absolute nightmare to work properly.

So I just put in my newly purchased 460... Loaded up Skyrim and had my mind blown. Not only did it look great, but the framerate is lightyears better than what it was. So awesome.

Thanks again, everybody!

glad we could all help some way or another.. good luck with your new card heh

ati radeon HD7770 beats al others in performance and in INDIA, 
it costs--barely 170 us$ 
and can play most of the games very well

@ZimboDK said:

Get a hold of either a Geforce 560 Ti, or 570 if you can afford it. Both are good and still perform well. I can't really give you any AMD/ATI advice.

god damnit do You even read his post?

He asks for a cheap placeholder which would work in this shitty mobo and you suggest 560/70 ?

He don't even have psu capable of running that. jesus people

@HiCZoK: That righteous anger got me laughing in a real nice way.