Help me Choose between these two please?

[john5527]

I have narrowed down my graphic card choices to these two because of my current pc setup. I have read several reviews but can't really decide. Is the 550 worth a few more bucks? Anybody have any experience with either of these who can make a recommendation? I will purchase one or the other so please don't mention buying a stronger card. I realize these two aren't top of the line, but I have an older pc and don't want to upgrade right now. So, 550 ti or HD 5770 guys? Thanks

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130625

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102873

 

[jhokie]

550 TI should be a little faster card, but it is also a little more expensive. Also, are you planning to play any specific games?

 

[cannondale06]

they perform about the same so either one is fine. 5770 uses a bit less power though if that matters.

and what are the details of your current pc? what res do you intend to play at?

 

[john5527]

550 TI should be a little faster card, but it is also a little more expensive. Also, are you planning to play any specific games?

Thanks for the response. I know this isn't an exciting question. I have an older pc with an E4600 2.4ghz dual core, 450Watt corsair PSU and 4GB Ram. I just want to play newer games with acceptable fps. Nothing fancy.
I was playing FEAR 3 and Deus Ex Human Revolution when my 8800 GT began displaying strange colors and blew up. Will either of these handle these type games on medium settings? I know I can't max out settings with these, but I need a card to get me by for a year or so until I buy a whole new pc. My HP right now has integrated graphics and can't even load a game. LOL Someone told me that it wouldn't benefit me to go above these cards anyhow because of my outdated pc specs.

 

[jhokie]

Also, I know you said that you do not wish to consider any other cards. However a 6850 is actually cheaper than the 550 TI after rebate, and will be significantly faster than either of those cards. It should only use perhaps 10-15 watts more power than your other choices as well.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131374
There are several other 6850s on Newegg offering a similar rebate as well.
If it doesn't fit in your case or whatever, just disregard.

Also here's a comparison with these 3 cards:
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...tml?prod[4825]=on&prod[4913]=on&prod[4822]=on

You'll probably be CPU limited quite a bit on most modern games. However I imagine you may still gain some benefit from a moderate GPU upgrade as you are considering.

 

[cannondale06]

I would just go with a 5770 or 6770. they are cheaper than a gtx550 and use less power. with your cpu there is no point in getting anything faster. in many newer games you are not going to average much more than 30-35 fps no matter what gpu that you get.

and please list what res you are going to play at.

 

[john5527]

Also, I know you said that you do not wish to consider any other cards. However a 6850 is actually cheaper than the 550 TI after rebate, and will be significantly faster than either of those cards. It should only use perhaps 10-15 watts more power than your other choices as well.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131374
There are several other 6850s on Newegg offering a similar rebate as well.

If it doesn't fit in your case or whatever, just disregard.

I appreciate any advice. Now that I posted my pc specs above what would you advise?

 

[john5527]

I would just go with a 5770 or 6770. they are cheaper than a gtx550 and use less power. with your cpu there is no point in getting anything faster. and please list what res you are going to play at.

I have a 23 inch monitor that I guess I usually play at 1920X1080. Hope that helps.

 

[jhokie]

I would just go with a 5770 or 6770. they are cheaper than a gtx550 and use less power. with your cpu there is no point in getting anything faster. in many newer games you are not going to average much more than 30-35 fps no matter what gpu that you get.

and please list what res you are going to play at.

I kind of agree with this statement. If you are trying to go up in resolution it will put more stress on the video card though (say 1680x1050 or higher). In that case you may see benefit from going with a 6850. If you're playing at a low resolution you will likely be CPU-capped all over the place.

 

[cannondale06]

I have a 23 inch monitor that I guess I usually play at 1920X1080. Hope that helps.

yeah I was just making sure you were not at some really low res like 1024x768. if you were than even the 5770 would be pretty wasteful with your cpu. just get the 5770/6770 as that would be the best overall gpu for your situation. just remember that you older dual core cpu will cause some pretty low framerates in more cpu intensive games.

 

[john5527]

yeah I was just making sure you were not at some really low res like 1024x768. if you were than even the 5770 would be pretty wasteful with your cpu. just get the 5770/6770 as that would be the best overall gpu for your situation. just remember that you older dual core cpu will cause some pretty low framerates in more cpu intensive games.

Sure, thanks. I knew my fps will be low in some intense games. but it will have to do for now.

 

[cannondale06]

and since you mentioned Deus Ex, this little cpu chart might be of bad news. even that 3.0 Phenom 2 X2 getting just 33 fps average is probably around a 30% faster cpu than your old E4600.


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[Insula Gilliganis]

I also concur about the 550Ti being the slightly faster card. Tom's Hardware graphics card chart has the following..

Enthusiast Index (higher # is better)

6850 - 67.71
550Ti - 56.99
5770 - 51.20

Gamer Index

6850 - 92.89
550Ti - 79.01
5770 - 70.87

And PassMark's High End Video Card Chart has this..

6850 - 2,846
550Ti - 1,885
5770 - 1,674

jhokie is correct.. for about $15 more (after all the rebates), you can get the 6850 which seems to be clearly faster than your 2 choices. But to answer your original question, I would go with the 550Ti as does look to be a bit faster than the 5770. So if they are about the same price, the 550Ti looks to be the better deal. Plus you can always sell the free DungeonSiege3 game if you wish to make this purchase that much less. Also, I have switched to using only NVidia as my teenage son has run across a few games that have had problems rendering some parts of games when he used an AMD card but never a problem when we switched to nVidia. I also believe that nVidia plays better with Adobe products as well. Good luck with your purchase.

 

[john5527]

and since you mentioned Deus Ex, this little cpu chart might be of bad news. that 3.0 Phenom 2 X2 getting just 33 fps average is at least 30% faster cpu than yours.


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Yeah that's bad news as I really liked what I saw of that game. Oh well. I was playing it for a few days and didn't notice any lag at all even with my old 8800GT so I figured a newer card would help a bit. I used the fraps software to test my frames and I was getting around 30. But i know my cpu is very outdated.

 

[john5527]

I also concur about the 550Ti being the slightly faster card. Tom's Hardware graphics card chart has the following..

Enthusiast Index (higher # is better)

6850 - 67.71
550Ti - 56.99
5770 - 51.20

Gamer Index

6850 - 92.89
550Ti - 79.01
5770 - 70.87

And PassMark's High End Video Card Chart has this..

6850 - 2,846
550Ti - 1,885
5770 - 1,674

jhokie is correct.. for about $15 more (after all the rebates), you can get the 6850 which seems to be clearly faster than your 2 choices. But to answer your original question, I would go with the 550Ti as does look to be a bit faster than the 5770. So if they are about the same price, the 550Ti looks to be the better deal. Plus you can always sell the free DungeonSiege3 game if you wish to make this purchase that much less. Also, I have switched to using only NVidia as my teenage son has run across a few games that have had problems rendering some parts of games when he used an AMD card but never a problem when we switched to nVidia. I also believe that nVidia plays better with Adobe products as well. Good luck with your purchase.

Thanks. That was actually my main concern as with which card would give me fewer problems with drivers and such for games. I have always owned nvidia in the past, but I realize both are reputable companies. I figured since the 5570 had been out for sometime also that drivers issues would be ironed out by now mostly.

 

[Insula Gilliganis]

Another thought.. you haven't mention anything about if your E4600 was already overclocked or not. If it isn't, good time to try. Just Google "overclock E4600" and you will see some results. Seems like getting up to 3.0 GHz looks fairly easy.

 

[cannondale06]

I was under the impression that he had an oem HP pc.

 

[m3t4lh34d]

If you're gaming at 1080p, go with a 6850 at least... that way you can at least play the newer games that come out even if you are bottlenecked cpu wise.

 

[cannondale06]

If you're gaming at 1080p, go with a 6850 at least... that way you can at least play the newer games that come out even if you are bottlenecked cpu wise.

with his cpu, he will never see the difference anyway in most games. just because he is at 1080 that does not change the fact that his cpu is very slow in general. and most newer games are getting more cpu not just gpu intensive anyway. 30-40 fps average in many games with even worse minimums will feel the same whether he buys a 5770/6770 or 6850. he would be lucky to even get half of what a 6850 can do in many cases with his E4600.

 

[samuelmorris]

Agreed, with only a Phenom Dual core, no point getting anything faster than an HD5770/6770 unless also upgrading the CPU later on.

 

[john5527]

I was under the impression that he had an oem HP pc.

Yeah, I do have an HP. I have added the PSU and changed the cpu because it came with a 1.8ghz, but the main board is still a HP Asus Leonite2 6.00 . When I added the E4600 a guy told me that this board wouldn't hold any better cpu. I tried searching all over the net because I would love to overclock this thing to 3.0ghz. Everywhere I read said that you can't overclock an HP because the bios is locked and they just aren't meant to overclock. I would be happy even with 2.6ghz. Anything would be something.