graphics card upgrade

catastrophy

Afternoon all,

Looking for a bit of advice and direction on this one.

I currently have a i7 4770, 16 gb of ram, a 120 gb ssd and a 2 tb hdd. The graphics card is a geforce 645 with 2 gb of vram.

Ive just upgraded from 2 x 27 inch 1080p monitors to a single 34 inch 3440 x 1440. (Ill probably keep the 27 inch monitors as reference screens in portrait).

I use the pc for mostly programming, running virtual machines, data visualisation etc. However I do play the odd game along the lines of arma 3, warhammer total war and fallout 4.

Now the graphics card is struggling to power the new monitor when gaming so Im looking to upgrade. I dont want to spend a massive amount 200 - 300. But there is a restriction in that I dont have any spare aux power connectors on the motherboard.

Given that what would you recommend?

Lu Tze

catastrophy wrote: »

Afternoon all,

Looking for a bit of advice and direction on this one.

I currently have a i7 4770, 16 gb of ram, a 120 gb ssd and a 2 tb hdd. The graphics card is a geforce 645 with 2 gb of vram.

Ive just upgraded from 2 x 27 inch 1080p monitors to a single 34 inch 3440 x 1440. (Ill probably keep the 27 inch monitors as reference screens in portrait).

I use the pc for mostly programming, running virtual machines, data visualisation etc. However I do play the odd game along the lines of arma 3, warhammer total war and fallout 4.

Now the graphics card is struggling to power the new monitor when gaming so Im looking to upgrade. I dont want to spend a massive amount 200 - 300. But there is a restriction in that I dont have any spare aux power connectors on the motherboard.

Given that what would you recommend?

I presume you mean spare power cables from the power supply? To he honest, while you could get a graphics card that is solely powered through the PCI express port, and it will be quite a bit better than your current card, anything in that range will struggle at that high resolution. You would need to replace the power supply as well as the graphics card, your best bet on the current power supply would be the 1050ti, but don't expect to be playing on high settings etc.

srsly78

No cheapo card will drive a high resolution screen like that. Sure you can play games at low-quality in low-resolution, but I guess you don't want that.

Gonna have to splash out on a high-end card. Example: GTX1080

Your monitor is very high-end and expensive, to use it properly you need a high-end graphics card.

Maybe won't even have to upgrade PSU, how many watts is it? AUX power cables can be spliced together with adapter etc. Note even cards based on the same chipset (e.g. gtx1080) can have different aux power sockets. Some have 2x6, others have 1x8. When 1x8 is expected you usually get a splitter/adapter with it.

Lu Tze

It depends on the game, im running a HD7970 (im guessing the 1050ti is at the same level) and it does alright, run GTA V, medium to high settings on a similar monitor (3440 x 1440). Couldnt tell you the exact frame rates or anything, but the dips dont interfere with my enjoyment of it!

K.O.Kiki

srsly78 wrote: »

No cheapo card will drive a high resolution screen like that. Sure you can play games at low-quality in low-resolution, but I guess you don't want that.

Gonna have to splash out on a high-end card. Example: GTX1080

Your monitor is very high-end and expensive, to use it properly you need a high-end graphics card.

Maybe won't even have to upgrade PSU, how many watts is it? AUX power cables can be spliced together with adapter etc. Note even cards based on the same chipset (e.g. gtx1080) can have different aux power sockets. Some have 2x6, others have 1x8. When 1x8 is expected you usually get a splitter/adapter with it.

This is simply wrong.

LTT built a 4k gaming PC 2 years ago for under $1000

@OP
An AMD RX 480 would get the job done for you no problem.
4Gb model is fine, very few games go beyond 4Gb VRAM ([1], [2]).

A Geforce GTX 1060 6Gb would be fine too, AFAIK it draws the same power as the 645.

catastrophy

All input appreciated, as I said Im not an avid gamer so Im not overly informed of the various architectures.

I guess what Im trying to find is the sweet spot between what I want to spend and what I want to do.

@ Lu Tze: Like yourself I dont mind slightly lower frame rates. Not looking for bleeding edge results.

@ srsly78: I think I will have to look at adapters. Power supply is 500W so should be ok.

@ K.O.Kiki: Was looking at the RX 480 actually, video is interesting.

K.O.Kiki

catastrophy wrote: »

All input appreciated, as I said Im not an avid gamer so Im not overly informed of the various architectures.

I guess what Im trying to find is the sweet spot between what I want to spend and what I want to do.

@ Lu Tze: Like yourself I dont mind slightly lower frame rates. Not looking for bleeding edge results.

@ srsly78: I think I will have to look at adapters. Power supply is 500W so should be ok.

@ K.O.Kiki: Was looking at the RX 480 actually, video is interesting.

Can you open up your PC and give us the power supply model name/number?

catastrophy

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Can you open up your PC and give us the power supply model name/number?

Sure can.

Its a FSP500-50AAGA manufactured by FSP group,

catastrophy

And to my shame I believe I see a six pin and a six plus two pin connector tucked up in the loom.

srsly78

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

This is simply wrong.

It's not wrong. Of course you can run non-demanding games at high resolutions. FFS the guy runs World of Warcraft... And he even specifically says if you want to run anything demanding you need "seriously powerful" hardware. The games the OP mentions are quite demanding thus your recommendation is not useful.

I can't even get near 60 fps with recent games on a gtx1080, never mind 144hz. Anyone with an expensive modern monitor will want to get the most from it.

RossieMan

You can't get 60 fps on a 1080? Are you sure you have your brain plugged in? Perhaps a reboot might solve your obvious issues?

GHOST MGG

srsly78 if your not getting 60fps with a 1080 there is something majorly wrong..are you sure you are not confusing a 1050 with a 1080?

TerrorFirmer

A GTX1060 6GB or RX480 4/8GB would be plenty, considering you're coming from a GTX645 - either card is multiple times faster, it's a massive upgrade.

Even a €150 GTX1050Ti would be a huge upgrade and would run those games just fine at native res at middling settings, which would visually be strong enough. People these days tend to confuse 'low/medium' settings with poor image quality, which isn't really the case anymore with PC games.

But all said and done an RX480 would be my personal choice and it will run most of the latest games at 3440x1440 at medium-high at a strong high framerate - slightly older games even better.

I can't even get near 60 fps with recent games on a gtx1080, never mind 144hz.

The GTX1080 can definitely drive new games like BF1/Fallout 4 at 3440x1440 ultra settings flawlessly at 60fps.

But that's besides the point, telling someone that they 'need' to get a GTX1080 is a bit ridiculous.

catastrophy

Just picked up a 1060. Ill get it installed later and report back.

As much as Id love to spend 500+ on a gpu for the use it would get I cant justify it. As I said in my first post the pc is used for work mostly.

Thanks for all the input...

catastrophy

For posterity....

Arma 3 on maxed out settings in 3440 x 1440 is resulting in 52 - 57 FPS. Happy enough so far.