I have searched quite a bit for video cards that were super cheap but super effective. The objective is to run Crysis or Crysis: Warhead (With medium or high settings) on my Windows 7. The current VCard i have is an absolute joke. Here are the Some cards i looked into.
Ati Radeon HD 4870, 4890, or 4850
Radeon HD 5770, 5870 (No idea how'd it would do with Crysis)
As you can see, I only have Radeon Cards due to them being usually cheaper. If you have any other ideas that would be better than these (and around the same price too) then I'll gladly listen. I'm trying to keep this around the 200 - 250$ range at most. its fine if a few dollars over, but i dont got 300$ on me. I only have room for one slotted cards on my motherboard.
SPECS OF MY PC:
Intel premium processor E5300
750GB HDD
4GB DDR2 memory (Might upgrade)
Geforce 210 graphics card (haha.)|||The cards you've listed are good, but recent releases from both AMD and Nvidia over the past few months have surpassed them. The GTX 460 beats everything you've listed except the Radeon 5870. Meanwhile the Radeon 6850 and 6870 have one-upped the GTX 460.
Well, the first (and biggest) question which may impact your purchasing decision is... what capacity power supply does your computer have?
All midrange gaming cards require at least a 450-500 watt power supply.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as…
If your computer only has a 400W psu, you'd be limited to cards like the Radeon 5670 and GeForce 9800GT, which are well below the performance you're looking for. So some of your budget might need to go into a power supply upgrade.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as…
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as…
Anyway, back to the graphics cards... there's a big breakpoint around the $175 mark in terms of power requirements.
Older generation cards like Nvidia's GTX 260 and ATI's Radeon 4870 require at least a 550W power supply with TWO (not just one) PCI-E power connectors. So you cannot run a GTX 260, Radeon 4870 or Radeon 4890 without an SLI/Crossfire capable power supply. Newer cards like the GTX 460 and Radeon 6870 also require dual power connectors.
For computers with a 500W power supply and single 6-pin power connector, the best card you can install is the Radeon 6850, which goes for about $200.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as…
If you already have a 550W psu with dual power plugs, the Radeon 6870 is the best option in your price range. While the average price is around $270, some 6870 cards are selling for between $240-$260 currently.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as…
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as…
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as…
Radeon 6850/6870 review
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-Radeo…
On a final note, all cards of this performance level will require a bit of space... even though they only occupy a single PCI-E x16 slot, they're wide enough to cover the adjacent slot, too. I hope when you say there's only room for single slotted cards, you can accomodate them.
True single-slot cards max out around the $100 level. All of the serious $120 and higher cards require 2 free slots at the back of your case (although they don't really occupy that much room on the motherboard).
While Crysis does run slightly better on Nvidia cards, you've got to compare apples to apples. While a GTX 460 is better than a Radeon 5770 (and more expensive) it's not better than a Radeon 6850. In your price & performance ranges, Radeon cards are the better buy.|||Ignore the suggestion to buy "E8600 or a quad core Q6600"... those are outdated. If you are going to buy a new CPU - go for i5/7 or PhenomII (new PC in other words). It not very smart to buy 3 years old CPUs... After all, you probably don't want to do a CPU upgrade again after a year or two.
Now, for Video Card:
For Crysis the best cards are nVidia. The game likes them... crysis is a racist xD. No, really, in a lot of comparisons nVidia cards have lost to ati, but not in Crysis games. Right now I'm with 5850 1GB. I'm ~happy with it (ATI driver problems... they are famous), but now seeing Fermi in action I really want to swap it for a GTX470. I do recommend this VGA over 5850. The CUDA, PhysX,... are + over 5850, which is on the same price range and performance.
PC Don't upgrade the RAM or anything else (except add HDD/SSD or change/add VGA... things that you can use in your future PC). 4GB is enough and you won't gain much from faster DDR2 modules. Wait till you go for a new PC. In other words - don't put any more money in this rig, unless you can use it in your future PC, which will be (should be) at least with LGA1366/AM3 CPU, DDR3 and new chipset.
BTW Don't go for nVidia cards before Fermi or Ati 4000 or under. Those are outdated too. Ati 4k doesn't support even DX11, the same goes for before Fermi nvidia cards (200 and under).
PS DX11 isn't the only thing the older cards are lacking. Right now you should go for GTX470 or 5850 if you really want Ati.|||here are some crysis benchmarks with most of the cards above,
the best one is the 4890 http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/rade…
here is another one with the 5870 http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/rade…
the 5870 is the best card there easily
here is a graphics card chart http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/graphics-c… higher is better the 5870 is 2 from top.
but your E5300 will slow it down (bottleneck) it on some games.
get a better processor like a E8600 or a quad core Q6600
here is a chart of processors http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gami…
yours is fifth from bottom
edit. dont forget you will need at least a 500w psu (power supply unit) to run a high end graphics card
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