Yet another thread about Graphics cards

Technology and Gaming
#1

So, I have been out of the loop for quite a while when it comes to gaming PCs.
I bought my shitty laptop about 4 years ago and haven’t really been able to play much on it other than the most basic games.

I should hopefully come into some money in the summer and am planning on using it to get a nice desktop.

The problem is that I have no idea what system is good and which graphics card I should go for.

Is there a site which compares these things and gives you an idea of what they can do in n00bfriendly terms such as SKYRIM WILL WORK SUPER AWESOME WITH THIS CARD?
Most of the websites I find say shit like:

This means NOTHING to me. How do these testicle tessellations affect my Battlefield3 gameplay?

You guys are likely to be far more technologically savvy than I, so I come to you for advice.

Basically, I want to be able to run Skyrim well and I want the computer to not be outdated by next year.

Is this a good build?

AMD Bulldozer FX-8 Eight Core 8120
AMD Radeon 6950 2GB Graphics Card
Gigabyte GA-970A-D3 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+)
8GB DDR3 1333Mhz Memory

I feel like such an old man. I remember the olden days when I was able to keep up with the Geforce and Radeon cards. Now they spew them out so fast that I have no idea which is better than another.

#2

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

Lists all graphics cards in order from best to worst and you can compare them.

Your listed build sounds good to me. Not sure if it’s worth it to spring for the 8 core CPU but your graphics card will definitely be able to play Skyrim. I can play it at a constant 60 FPS on mostly high graphics with an older card. If you have more money though I’d say go for the 7000 series cards that were just released.

Here’s your chosen graphics card on the site I posted: https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+HD+6950

#3

Perfect, that’s the kind of thing I was looking for. Thanks Kairouseki.

#4

Intel i5 2500K is about what is best atm for gaming in my opinion. The AMD Bulldozer range have poor performance in comparison.

The AMD 7970 is the best single GPU card on the market at the moment but is a little expensive.

What is your budget?

Tesselation is awesome, it enables added geometry to a model which means much more detail, it’s a major resource hog at the moment though. The best example I can show you is if you watch from 50seconds onward on this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_hiyxSqZaA - watch the stone walkway change from flat to more realistic presence.

#5

My budget is probably around the €1200 mark, although with that I also need to buy a decent monitor, speakers…etc.

As easy as people say it is to make your own system, I lack the skill and I have nobody here who could help me if I fuck up, so I am reluctant to do it myself which means buying a ready made system at a higher price.

The system I posted earlier came in around that price mark.

And yeah! Tesselation is pretty awesome. It certainly makes things look sexier.

#6

Honestly, removing and adding components is usually pretty simple. RAM sticks and PCIe cards are very straightforward, hard drives just need the two cables, etc.

I don’t blame you for wanting to get a prebuilt system though, I recently did my first build, and was a bit nervous about the processor, but the rest I’d swapped out enough that it wasn’t daunting.

#7

Yeah I thought I was damaging the processor when I was putting it in as well, but apparently that’s a common occurrence.

#8

Germany sucks balls when it comes to technology.

Every time you want to buy something electrical Angela Merkel comes to your house with a giant unlubricated dildo and rapes your ass with it.

I had a look at the prices for some premade systems here.
They’re charging €800 ($1000) for a system which contains a GeForce GT-530 or a Radeon HD 6670.

Using the lovely website which Kairouseki linked I was able to discover that these cards can be picked up for the combined price of a chocolate ice cream and can of coke.

Same with games. Skyrim costs anywhere between 47 and 59€ ($61-77). I can import it from the UK (which I would need to do anyway since I dont want to play games in German) for about $50.
Annoyingly, Steam localizes its prices, so they’re also charging more in Europe than elsewhere.

So yeah, fuck you German electronics prices. I’m buying all my stuff in the UK and having it shipped here. Even with the cost of shipping I would save around $200-500 on a new PC.(depending on spec).

#9

wow, which shops are so expensive?

#10

How about getting someone to buy and built it for you in the UK and then send it over? €1200 is about £1000. That would get you:

Monitor - 23" 1080p LCD monitor - £150ish
Keyboard - £20
Mouse - £20
CPU - i5 2500K - £170
Motherboard - Z68 board - £120
RAM - 8GB DDR3 - £40
GPU - GTX 560Ti / 6950 - £180 / £220
HDD - 1TB 7200RPM drive - £80
DVD Drive - £15
Windows 7 64 bit - £70
650W PSU - £55
Case - £40

Total - £960 to £1000

How does that equate to what you can get on the continent?

#11

No budget for paying whoever puts it together for you, or for shipping though. You have to account for those too, no?

#12

I’m in the middle of ordering my build and I’ve come across some useful resources for choosing parts and assembling them:

Firstly, pcpartpicker.com makes things very easy. You can change the location at the top right corner. Click along and choose some components then see how much it costs altogether. It doesn’t list every product or every shop but it gives typical prices for most components.

If you like reddit, r/buildapc can be useful along with r/gamingpc. There are links in the sidebars of those subreddits with charts and guides and stuff.

The Newegg youtube channel. Specifically, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPIXAtNGGCw
NCIX and LinusTechTips youtube channels are also useful for getting informed.

Toms Hardware has many useful articles. They’re not always easy to find but they are there like this one

Regarding prices, UK is already darn expensive compared to the US (20% VAT hooray). I saw a recommendation for HardwareVersand.de and those prices seem fairly close to UK prices.

If you spend enough time lurking on forums and such, you’ll soon learn everything you need to know to build your own. If you still don’t feel like assembling everything, you can get preassembled bundles (mobo, cpu, memory) and pit that in a case with video card and a hard drive.

P.S. Apologies if my post seems condescending and you know everything already.

#13

Shit, I’d do that for free, just for the experience, as long as you would pay shipping, Karamazov. I enjoy assembling computers, but rarely get to do it. I’ve recently done the one thing I was inexperienced with (applying thermal paste to the CPU/heatsink) so yeah. I doubt you would want to have to wait for it to get to you from the US, though :stuck_out_tongue:

#14

I love how it says 6850(my card) is #1 for speed/price right now B)

#15

Gamestop was charging €59 for Skyrim. Saturn was surprisingly the cheaper at €47. I never checked Mediamarkt, so I can’t say what they charged.

Actually, I did find that monitors are very cheap in Saturn and I can pick up a good LG or Philips monitor for a good price. A 25" LG monitor costs €180.

If things are cheaper where you live I wonder if there are differences in regional pricing. These are what I found in Berlin.
Although that said, Gamestop is a bit of a joke and I found 3 boxed PC copies of Oblivion with completely different prices. One cost €10, one €25 and one €49. All of them were the same GotY edition.

@GuitarJim

That’s my plan. My brother recently bought a computer with Novatech and said they have a fantastic service department. He had a problem with his monitor and they replaced it within 2 days, no questions asked. They deliver to Germany, so I’ll probably go with them.

I have zero trust for postal services.
I’m still waiting for my fucking DVDs I ordered in January (they’re gone, I know). They’ve either been stolen by the thieving British postal service or the thieving German one.

When I was living in China I sent back some candy and gifts to my parents. When it arrived the fairly expensive candy had been changed for some cheap shit. So those cheeky Chinese bastards took my candy out, ate it and replaced it with cheap shit.
Although, that said, I sent my laptop to the UK via normal Chinese post (DHL and FedEx were asking for $300 in shipping) and it arrived absolutely fine.

I’m also annoyed at DHL here in Germany because they’re too fucking lazy to deliver packages to my floor (4th) and usually just dump it on the guy on the ground floor or even in the building next to ours simply because they’re too fucking lazy to walk up some stairs. I’m working on my German simply so I can shout at lazy postal workers. I’ve got my pronunciation of “Faul Arschloch” pretty much down.

#16

In my experience, they’re fine as long as you don’t go out of the country. Jambo ordered something from woot.com and had it sent to me, and it took about a month for it to get from me to him, when the shipping option I chose was 3-5 days, IIRC.

Sounds like postal workers in your area are worse than here, though. And you’ve had worse luck in general.

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