Well I don’t know anything about computers so im just asking for a strait forward answer. Im thinking about getting crysis before crysis 2 comes out, but my computer as of right now is a slow piece of shit. So… anyone know if the GTX 580 is compatible?
Nobody can tell you if a GTX 580 is a worthy buy for you if I don’t tell us your computer specs. Please post 'em.
If your computer is a “slow piece of shit” then you might just be better off building a new one instead of buying an expensive gfx card to compensate for your other “shit” components.
I have a gtx 460 an its good, only game so far that I can’t play at the max is Arma 2. So the gtx 580 should be better but price wise it isn’t worth it imo.
First of all, if your current computer is a “piece of shit” it will either bottleneck the 580’s performance at the very least, or (most likely) be unable to run it at all due to an inadequate power supply or not enough room in the chassis.
Your best bet is to build a new one, but no, the 580 is not a good value IMO since the recently released AMD Radeon HD 6970 performs slightly worse (may very well catch up once drivers mature) for several hundred dollars less. When it comes to video cards, AMD/ATi has been, IMHO, the better buy since the godawful Fermi line first came out.
Well My specs are
Windows Vista Home Premium
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual core processor 4200+ 2.20 GHz
RAM: 894 MB
System type: 32-bit operating system
And my computer received a 3.0 rating :[
Just sticking a gtx 580 in that machine will do you no good at all. New computer time my friend.
Are you serious? With a dual core processor and a gtx 580 i thought all i would need is some more RAM
For the same price you can build a whole machine better than your system… don’t spend 500$ on this… You can probably get a great card for 200-300 that would probably still be “too powerful” for your system, but you probably wouldn’t see a difference.
More RAM would probably help you lots
Samapico is right you should hold off on buying the 560, i am running 2 GTX 460’s and i got them both really cheap and they both can run anything i throw at them on max
emphatically, though Im sorry to be the bringer of bad news… 
How does that thing even run with only 894 MB of RAM? My step-dad bought a computer with only 1 GB of RAM and it ran so horribly it made me cry. I can’t even imagine how crappy that thing runs with only 894 MB RAM.
The only problem is your fancy dual core is very old.
Drop some money in to an Intel Core i5/i7 setup, then think about upgrading your graphics card.
Best bet would be something like a Core i7 870, then 4GB DDR3 and THEN you can look at something like a GTX 570 or 6950.
You only need a GTX 580 if you are running 1920x1200 or 2560x1600 tbh
that’s the first time I have to disagree with everyone, a dual core is a dual core, all you gotta do is upgrade the RAM and overclock that thing to something close to 2.8, crysis will run like a black person who just saw 20 police cars.
Edit: just make sure it has a PCIe x16 slot on board.
Even if your rig ends up being a waste, that card will simply go in your new rig. That said, I don’t recommend Nvidia, go for a Radeon if you want more bang for the buck.
Most of these points have already been made, but I’ll just re-emphasize them all the same.
1.) Your computer really isn’t going to use much of this card’s potential. You’d need a new one to benefit from it. If you’re looking to drop some cash now, I’d save some from the card and put it towards a better PC - see next point.
2.) Video cards, like other PC components, are going to see diminishing returns the more expensive they are. Meaning, you can get a $200 or $300 graphics card and get about 80% of the max performance possible, but to get that last 20% you’d have to pay twice that or more. Consider your price/performance ratio. tomshardware.com is a good place to go, it regularly features an article called “Best Graphics Card for the Money: [This month]” which will help you get an idea of what you want to get.
3.) Crysis was famous for its demanding requirements, but that was over 3 years ago. Technology has advanced, so you no longer need ultra-high end equipment to play it. Also consider that a great deal of its problem was poor optimization, so if you’re expecting Crysis 2 to be worse, you may be surprised, since it should actually run better if they’ve learned anything at all from the first one. Since it’s going to be released for consoles I’d say they’ve improved in that area.
4.) If you consider buying or building a new computer, do your research, or ask us. It can be easy to get tricked into buying a less powerful machine for more money, or to get confused about what parts to buy and what factors to consider when putting your machine together.
Hope this has helped!
EDIT: @sersoft, clock speed is of course an important part of a processor’s power, especially when it comes to games, but cache is also important, along with other things, like more cores. Most applications don’t benefit from more than 2 cores right now, but more and more will soon. Although you’re right, even if his computer is still not doing well after upgrading the card, he can stick the card in a new machine later.
Here are my pc spec’s for comparison to something you might wanna get if your going for a low/mid range computer.
AMD Athlon II X4: @3.4 GHz
Corsair XMS 3: 4 GB
Gigabyte motherboard
Nvidia GTX 460
Ocz stealthstream II: 600w
Nobody has mentioned that at the moment you can flash a 6950 into a 6970 with a simple BIOS flash. More info here. That’s a 6970 (if you’re lucky) for around $300.
AMD are working on a new PCB to prevent this and a new wave of 6950 cards will be released soon that will likely be unable to do this.
Try to get 4 GB of DDR2 Ram and spend 100$ for an AMD HD 5770. This is the cheapest solution and it will run most games quite well. You can’t run everything with full hd resolution with 8x antialiasing, but most games in medium and higher settings.
The gtx560 will be realeased on 20th january. I would prefer that card.
Get a 5970 if u want total graphical domination (yes it is better and alot more expensive than the 6970)
And a lot more taxing on the PSU so you will see your power bill go up if you run your computer for a long time.