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If you know about graphics cards you know what I am talking about. I am going to desktop PC gaming master race. Right now I have enough for a 650ti ($150) but not quite a 660 (230), should I save up a few more bucks and go for the 660? It would also cost 50 as opposed to 40 for the power supply I think it would better future-proof the system. But then I would have to wait longer.

Le system

http://www.officemax.com/technology/com ... 9&ssp=true
Yes, easier to go pick it up at officemax then deal with shipping, some places advertise cheap prices, but that is after a rebate, then they tack on shipping...

Le power supply

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817182044

Has 2 6 pins for the 660, the 650ti only needs one, not a big deal. Oh, and this one has a blue light!

660 has 25% more of each type of shader unit, which is typically a linear improvement. Its clock speed is oveclocked to about 11% faster.
The pixel fill rate is 48% faster and the texture fill rate (not sure exactly wha that means) is 33% faster. GDDR bandwidth, is 67% higher.

Overall, you are looking at 1425 GFlops vs 1882 Gflops, or a 32% processing boost.
Both of these cards are absolute monsters in my book, but there is no question the 660 is going to be roughly 1/3 better performance on pretty much any task that is properly utilizing the GPU. If you think a 1/3 improvement is worth $90 more, go and buy it.

For comparison, the 8800 GTS 512, which was NVIDIA's flagship product back in 2007, and is still a competent card for for modern games. With some quick and dirty math, the 650Ti is roughly 220% more powerful than the 8800. The real benchmark numbers are likely better than that, due to the expanded architecture. That's pretty damn impressive.


*Edit*
Never buy OEM unless you have a very good reason to. They often result in unpleasant things like proprietary parts you can't upgrade or change, or locks in the BIOS. Most of it you won't find out about until it's too late to do anything about.

Go here first.
http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc

Thanks, I looked at 650ti and it will run everything except a few games over 60fps which is like the maxing out point. With around 50fps, such as a game like skyrim, would you notice lag? I would probably get the 650ti, thought the 660 would be nice, but $80 seems a bit more than a couple bucks. I may have to the the 650ti, 50 fps should be playable.


Edit
Also OEMs are 680s or similar cards where not all the cores worked and Nvidia shut down some and rebranded them as 660s? That sounds sketch.

I was referring to that Gateway rig, not the graphics card.

And you don't need highest settings on everything in Skyrim to get the full effect. There are tons of mods on the nexus for improving the look of the game, and most are tacked onto the FXAA shader, which is very fast. You definitely don't need a 660 to play Skyrim at 60fps. Also make sure you are looking up benchmarks for the same resolution as your monitor. Resolution make a bigger difference in framerate than anything else.

If 660 is out of your league, get the 650. Like fr0st said, maxxing out everything is typically a good way to depress one's self about a new rig.

Though, if I might point out, a 7770 is better than a 650 and isn't that much more $$$.

I don't know a ton about the AMD cards, but I've also heard that they have a good crop this last round. You might check those out.

Ehhh, I would rather go Nvidia, Tiel just likes to support the underdog. Also the 600 series seems very good. I already researched benchmarks with the resolution of the monitor, and it seems good. My friend has a 560ti which he was getting around 50 fps on his 25 inch monitor, not sure of the resolution. Anyway, I am sure I could cut down on certain settings to increase fps. Also, Skyrim is like the only game I would need that power for, I am not even considering BF3. I am gonna go with the 650ti. I am gonna order my monitor tonight.

http://www.amazon.com/HP-2311x-23-Inch- ... B004G8QO5C

I would get a used or refurbished one, or should I go to 20 inches and get a new one here for cheaper? What is better refurbished or used?

http://www.officemax.com/technology/mon ... rod3310126

I would recommend never going refurbished on hard drives or monitors. The only reason people ever return hard drives is because something bad happened to them (if they were simply upgrading, the HDD would have been destroyed or shelved, not returned), and if it is a subltle hardware defect, recertification may not even detect it. With monitors, it is often a case of dead pixels, which the customer doesn't want to deal with. Sometimes pixels will also get stuck on the screen, but only do so after months of working normally. It's another one of those things than can work just fine at the factory and immediately go bad the day after you buy it.

The point is you can never know for sure why it was returned, and if the resaler even offers a warranty, it is rarely as good as the manufacturer's, so it's always a gamble. Most other components should be okay to get refurbished if you must to make budget, but I would not chance it on HDD or monitors.

If you do go refurbished for anything, always get the warranty if available. The only exception would be if the warranty is too expensive, or its coverage is worthless, and it ends up being more cost effective to simply toss the defective pice and try again.

*Edit*
That contrast ratio isn't great, and is going to end up with your dark colors bleeding. I wouldn't go less than 1500:1 personally.
Also any time you see a "dynamic" or "adaptive" contrast ratio with a million-to-one rating, they are lying their asses off. What it is doing is changing the backlight level to darken the screen in low light scenes. In theory a good idea but it is never implemented well, and ends up looking precisely like you just lowered the brightness setting on your monitor, i.e. your games and movies will look like DOOM 3. So you'll leave that setting off and be left with a 1000:1 contrast ratio monitor.

So, go 20 inches instead of 23. Usually refurbs are hit or miss, and I guess I will sacrifice 3 inches not to miss. With that said, TO OFFICEMAX!!


Edit: Compared to 15.6 inches, any monitor looks big to me. tvo9.org is a simple comparer of screen sizes.

Another thing. You can never trust the brightness level of floor model monitors. The are all cranked up to 100% to show up well on the show floors, but are much too bright for a normal living room or office. The thing that matters most is response time (anything <10ms is good, which they really should all be now, but make sure), then contrast ration (1500:1 is my recommendation if that is an option), then color balance (this is hard to test in a store, though).

As far as screen size, bigger isn't necessarily better. Figure out ahead of time how much space you have on your desk and how close you will be sitting. If you ever want a second monitor, being able to fit an additional screen of the same model makes a big improvement.

20" diagonal widescreen
Mercury-free LED
1600 x 900 native resolution
16:9 aspect ratio
1000:1 static contrast ratio
3,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio
250 nits brightness (typical)
0.277mm pixel pitch
5ms response time
1-year limited warranty

5ms is almost standard, the 2ms ones are more expensive, not a big difference. Also, I think you are talking about static contrast ratio? It is 1000:1 but I think that will be okay. I need to really find out what the ratio is on this laptop, if it is at least that it will be fine. I am sure in comparison to this screen, this monitor will look great in my eyes. I hope I am not being too optimistic, I am just going on hope I won't be disappointed. I am sure I won't.

My desk are HUGGEEEGEGEGEGEGGEEGe.

I am sure in the future I could ask for a bigger monitor as a Birthday or Christmas present. My desk is large enough for a 23 I am sure. I don't want to use my 720p Tv though, that looks pretty bad on a computer screen.

I didn't suggest the 7770 because I like AMD. It really is a fair bit more powerful than the 650, and is only around 15-20 bucks more expensive depending on where you shop.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gef ... 18-11.html

Anyway, looks like the TI model of it you're looking out squeezes a bit more performance than the 7770, but it's also ten bucks more expensive on average. Yet on the other hand, as you pointed out, there's superior driver support with nVidia, compared to AMD's better DX11 functionality on their cards.

Skyrim falls under the 'console port' category; it only supports DX9, so if that's the only game you're playing that'd be the optimum choice. Just don't dismiss my suggestions as fanboyism :L

Well, I am not looking at the 650, only the ti version. Also, Nvidia cards support DX11... Does AMD handle DX11 better?

Also is PhysX a worth it thing? I just kind of prefer nVidia, I can be dismissed as a fanboy if you want to say. For $10 more and Nvidia, it is worth it to me. Anyway, thanks Tiel and Frost, I think I know exactly what I am gonna do with this now. I can stop researching benchmarks and prices and functionality of everything now (I spent too much time on this).


Edit: Oh, and I am still gonna get the 2 pin power supply 500w so in the future I can save it and use it for a more 660 type card, or whatever series nVidia is on at the time. If my processor gets too old by then, hey, I could upgrade the motherboard and that. I have so many upgrade possibilities with a desktop, where with a laptop you are kind of locked in. I find this as an extremely good feature of desktops. Upgrading is always cheaper than starting new.

The differences between NVIDIA and AMD hardware is a very complicated subject, and it is very implementation based. I don't know enough about the nuances to vouch for one or the other. NVIDIA drivers are generally more stable, but AMD likes to go for early adoption of new extensions. Most of the time this only makes a difference in the brand new games, as both sides will release game-specific and hardware-specific fixes or performance improvements in their driver updates. Beta drivers often see a big performance boost for new games. But all of this varies from game to game, depending on how the engine works and what hardware the developers were targeting. Your best bet is just to look at benchmark sites and look for tests closest to the sort of thing you are doing.

@Tiel
Vanilla skyrim is officially DX9, but I believe some of the environment mods make use of shader model 4.0 extensions from DX10. @Hyper, You'll have to shop around on the nexus and see what you like. You can make Skyrim look ridiculously pretty with the right combination of mods.