Buying new video card - Need advice

rzea

rzea

Geek Trainee
Hello everyone,

My GeForce 8800 GT went south on me so I'm looking for a new video card.

I was bit involved in hardware in the past but It's been a while since I've dealt with anything so I'm bit rusty in this matter, so I'd like some advice on this.

Let's start with the parts required to know for my upgrade:

Board: GIGABYTE N650SLI-DS4
Power supply: OCZ GameXStream - 700W

My budget is $200.

Now, the card I have in mind is a GeForce GTX 560. I have these two links:

• Newegg.com: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...4002 600158457&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Pagesize=50
• Pricewatch.com: http://www.pricewatch.com/search?q=gtx+560

I do not want to go ATi, I had one in the past and I REALLY didn't like ATi at all, so I'm staying with nVidia :)

My questions:
  1. My board is not PCI Express 2.0, will I have any issues with the GTX 560? I wouldn't think so, but I want to confirm.
  2. I think I have enough juice in my power supply to run the GTX 560, right?
  3. I'd like to go with a known brand for my new video card, EVGA (although I'd like to try another brand since my last card was EVGA), MSI, ASUS, but I've seen new brands I know nothing of. Which brands do you recommend?
Any advice you could give me or your opinion(s) would be of great help.

Thanks in advance.
 
Hi,

1. The card should be backwards compatible with older PCIe slots, it just will not be running at its full potential because of limitations with the older slots.

2. I found on nvidia's site they recommend having a 500W power supply for this card so your should be able to run it.

3. For brands, any of the 3 you listed should be good. If you find an XFX, they are good too, and they offer lifetime warranty on all of their cards. (I have 2 of XFX 8800gtx xxx cards running in SLI for almost 4 years and they are still going strong). I've heard lots of good things about MSI, and asus has been around for a long time so any of those should work. You may want to just read some of the reviews at newegg to see how others like them before you buy just to get you a better idea of what actual users of the card think :)
 
Hey Wildcard,

Thanks a lot for your reply, quite helpful.

Yeah, right now the brand is what I'm still deciding on, I'm going to look into their warranties now that I've done all the grunt work of looking for a card within my budget and asking for advice.

Thanks again.
 
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