New GPU

[kavorka19]

Hello folks. It's officially the holidays and time to upgrade my extremely outdated GPU. I'm currently rocking a MSI Radeon HD 4830 (i know...)

I'm looking to upgrade this within the next month. I'd like to drop about $150-$250 on a newer card. I realize that Black Friday is coming up and there could be a potential 'deal' for some sale going on...but I'd like some advice on what I should be looking for. Was hoping someone could point me in the right direction or inform me of a 'deal' that I need to jump on.

The other specs of my rig are:
- CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955
- Mobo: MSI 970A-G46 Link
- RAM: Corsair DDR3 1333 MHz (PC3 10666) Link

Any advice or suggestions would be much appreciated!

 

[Dangman]

1) What's the max resolution of your monitor?
2) What games are you planning on playing?
3) What PSU do you have?
4) What case do you have?
5) Is your Phenom II X4 955 overclocked?

 

[kavorka19]

1) What's the max resolution of your monitor?
2) What games are you planning on playing?
3) What PSU do you have?
4) What case do you have?
5) Is your Phenom II X4 955 overclocked?

1) I'm about to buy 2 Dell E2414H. The recommended resolution for those are 1920 x 1080. I assume that is the max?
2) League, Batman, State of Decay, AC Black Flag, etc. A lot of different ones
3) Antec Earthwatts EA500 500w Link
4) Apevia X-Navigator Mid ATX Link
5) It is not overclocked and I don't plan to

 

[Dangman]

Well here's the deal: Your Phenom II at stock speeds is going to limit the performance of a lot new GPUs. Hence why I asked you the overclock question. So keep in mind that you may not actually get the full performance of whatever GPU you buy due to your CPU. So a CPU upgrade would be a good idea. To save money, you can just upgrade to the $150 FX-8320 (preferably the FX-8350 though) once you do a BIOs update.

Now considering that you're planning on playing AC4 at 1920x1080, that means you're going to want as beefy a GPU as possible. I recommend grabbing the $160 HD 7870 2GB at the least. If there's a good sale on the HD 7950 3GB for under $250, then get that instead.

With that said, I would only recommend getting a new GPU if you can upgrade your case as well. I do not think it'll provide sufficient cooling for newer GPUs. It's so outdated that even this $45 NZXT Source 210 Elite case will outperform it in terms of cooling as well as providing a far easier time with installation and cable routing.