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if I were to get a new graphics card for my birthday?

which one shall I get the one I have now is a "AMD radeon HD 6450" and would love to have sto at a high graphics settings ^^

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    tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    Hard to tell without knowing your budget. Do you/the ones who buy you present have enough money to get GTX 980 Ti? Not entirely sure, but I think that is proclaimed the best GPU available atm.
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    jim625jim625 Member Posts: 907 Arc User
    Hard to tell without knowing your budget. Do you/the ones who buy you present have enough money to get GTX 980 Ti? Not entirely sure, but I think that is proclaimed the best GPU available atm.

    looks good but way overpriced forgot to mention about the budget price ^^

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    jim625jim625 Member Posts: 907 Arc User
    also the price I'm looking for some thing about £200 if possible
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    kiralynkiralyn Member Posts: 1,576 Arc User
    edited January 2016
    A good list to see how various cards rank up (obviously, there's some difference between manufacturer versions):
    http://www.overclock.net/t/502403/graphics-card-ranking

    Take that list, and cross-reference with a decent computer parts website to see prices. I'd say Newegg, but you're in England, so I've no idea what a good option is.

    Another thing to consider is if you have enough of a power supply (both enough wattage, and extra power connectors if the card needs them). And space in your case, if it's small.

    edit: honestly, you don't need that overpowered a card to get STO to high. Most MMOs don't push the boundaries like regular games do, they want to maximize possible customers. So to pick a card, think about what other games you might want to play (Battlefield, Tomb Raider, Witcher, whatever) and check out their requirements. :)
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    jim625jim625 Member Posts: 907 Arc User
    kiralyn wrote: »
    A good list to see how various cards rank up (obviously, there's some difference between manufacturer versions):
    http://www.overclock.net/t/502403/graphics-card-ranking

    Take that list, and cross-reference with a decent computer parts website to see prices. I'd say Newegg, but you're in England, so I've no idea what a good option is.

    Another thing to consider is if you have enough of a power supply (both enough wattage, and extra power connectors if the card needs them). And space in your case, if it's small.

    edit: honestly, you don't need that overpowered a card to get STO to high. Most MMOs don't push the boundaries like regular games do, they want to maximize possible customers. So to pick a card, think about what other games you might want to play (Battlefield, Tomb Raider, Witcher, whatever) and check out their requirements. :)

    cool thanks ^^
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    johnstewardjohnsteward Member Posts: 1,073 Arc User
    Go Titan :)
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    whamhammer1whamhammer1 Member Posts: 2,290 Arc User
    If STO was properly optimized, even a fair graphics card would be helpful but it isnt, a person almost have to have top of the line everything to have a good FPS rate :(
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    mrsmitty81mrsmitty81 Member Posts: 102 Arc User
    What resolution are you gaming at? If 1080P or less I would go for GTX 960 which is relatively cheap and will get you max settings in sto. If 1440P or 4k you will need GTX 980 or 980ti which cost alot more.
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    jim625jim625 Member Posts: 907 Arc User
    mrsmitty81 wrote: »
    What resolution are you gaming at? If 1080P or less I would go for GTX 960 which is relatively cheap and will get you max settings in sto. If 1440P or 4k you will need GTX 980 or 980ti which cost alot more.

    I'll check it out but im not sure if this graphics card is compatible with my computer
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    agnostic4agnostic4 Member Posts: 41 Arc User
    STO's graphics aren't that hard to max out. Don't let the 'Must have the best' crowd get to you. You can run max settings at 1080 with a nVidia 650. A 950 or 960 would perfect so you can also play other games coming out on medium-high settings for a few years.
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    jim625jim625 Member Posts: 907 Arc User
    agnostic4 wrote: »
    STO's graphics aren't that hard to max out. Don't let the 'Must have the best' crowd get to you. You can run max settings at 1080 with a nVidia 650. A 950 or 960 would perfect so you can also play other games coming out on medium-high settings for a few years.

    hmmm think I'll check this one out too still got plenty of time to decide before my birthday :-)
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    agnostic4agnostic4 Member Posts: 41 Arc User
    jim625 wrote: »
    agnostic4 wrote: »
    STO's graphics aren't that hard to max out. Don't let the 'Must have the best' crowd get to you. You can run max settings at 1080 with a nVidia 650. A 950 or 960 would perfect so you can also play other games coming out on medium-high settings for a few years.

    hmmm think I'll check this one out too still got plenty of time to decide before my birthday :-)

    If your budget is 200$ I'd take a close look at newegg, last time I looked I saw an nVidia 960 4g windforce for $190-200. That card will get you exactly what you want and a more.

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    jrdragonettijrdragonetti Member Posts: 32 Arc User
    The current card I have is a nvidia gt630, this quite happily runs sto at Max available settings and is a low end card (hats of to the devs for allowing us to effectively run this game on a toaster ;p) As I'm looking to upgrade myself I'm looking at an nvidia gtx 950, as that's about £120 and can run a lot of newer games at decent settings
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    seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    mrsmitty81 wrote: »
    What resolution are you gaming at? If 1080P or less I would go for GTX 960 which is relatively cheap and will get you max settings in sto.

    I agree completely.

    Star Trek Online looks nice at max settings, but it's not a game that you need the 'latest and greatest' to max out. A GTX 960 would EASILY do what you're after, you could run STO on max and most new premium games on Med-Hi for a very affordable price.

    If you can squeeze out a few more dollars (Pounds) you could try and move up to the GTX 970 which is a really great card, but a 960 is more then enough for STO. A GTX 960 is actually overkill for this game, and it's very affordable.

    I actually installed STO on my 'Media Center' PC which has a 2GB GTX 750 Ti in it and even that could max out STO with relative ease. It stutters a bit in massive combat zones like the Badlands, but it still handles the game very well. If STO is the goal, you don't need to spend much money at all.
    Insert witty signature line here.
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    alcyoneserenealcyoneserene Member Posts: 2,412 Arc User
    edited January 2016
    I'm using Nvidia Evga 660 using AMD AthlonII X4 920 and only 4 GB of ram on OC system.

    At 1080p getting 23 fps sitting on Hathon with nothing going on, graphics to max except for workd/terrain/char detail distance to medium, low max physics debris, and medium shadows. CCA when everything is around turns into a slideshow. VBZ fps is low too, so I go minimum, as are some of those delta quadrant missions which spam particles everywhere.

    Everything else is acceptable: this isn't an F1 simulator where you need 100+ FPS to make sure those visible 60 fps don't glitch one millisecond or anything in the CPU gets held back or you lose precious milliseconds on your lap times. For online games latency will be the limiting factor anyways.

    When my gtx470 fried itself while playing STO (after many years of great service and heavy use despite taking care of it and never OC) used its lifetime warranty to get that equivalent, and the extra bit of performance does show up in game by a few fps, but it is hardly noticeable. One major thing it helps with is renderscale 3 where I don't crash very often anymore, and can actually take screenshots easier than before.

    Also, here's the thing: this game is probably worse than many others out there in terms of optimizations. User-interface generated fps-lag is the number one obvious thing. They've worked on it, and it hasn't improved, at least not significantly. At this rate, we'll all be recommending each other personal supercomputers to keep up with the lack of optimized coding, but by all means, don't let me keep anyone from supporting hardware innovation.

    Edit to add: a GPU will for sure increase FPS and possibly graphics options (the newest DX is locked to Win10 sadly, maybe someone will port it backwards to 8 some day) but it also relies on what your current PC can handle and if it has any serious bottlenecks or not. Each game will respond differently depending on how well they make use of GPU and how much other resources they draw on (RAM, sufficient watts from a bronze or higher rated PSU, adequate cooling). CPU sometimes isn't that much of a bottleneck either, even one as old (antiquated) as mine apparently can make great use of an nvidia 970 according to my friend's system scoring as high as some faster processors on benchmarks, and achieving some really high FPS in certain racing sims on full where mine dips way below 60 unless graphics get turned down. So by all means, get a really good graphics card.

    Wish I had a chance to test STO on my friends' brand new PC we put together - doesn't have anything fancy like RAID SSDs or SLI but it's definitely performance without breaking the bank, and it shows. Some day I'll have a spare copy of STO with me and try it out.
    Post edited by alcyoneserene on
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    lordsteve1lordsteve1 Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    I have a GTX750ti OC version and it EASILY runs STO on max settings, no problems at all and that card can be had for under £100 these days.
    If your budget is up to £200 there are a heap of decent cards you can get for that price, you don't need anything close to a high-end card for STO. Any card from the last couple of years should be fine for max settings.
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    flyingshoeboxflyingshoebox Member Posts: 123 Arc User
    Like other have said If you can put in a bit more try and get a 970 its more than enough to run sto on max settings at 1080p. the 960 would work fine also but the extra head room on the 970 I’d say is worth it for other stuff you might be playing down the road. Basically it will cost more but last longer before needing a replacement.

    Beyond the video card something else to take into account is what is the rest of your computer like. 3 top of the line cards at 1200 a pop won’t help if your system stars to bottleneck someplace else. That extra you spend on a 970 could also get you more ram or an ssd. Yes an ssd will not really help fps but outside of that it will just feel so much faster and snappier.
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    rjd66rjd66 Member Posts: 89 Arc User
    I have a MSI 750 TI 2gb card and it runs this game really well. I think the newer GTX 950 would run this game with no problems, and newegg always has sales on them for like 119.00 .
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    meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,594 Arc User
    Hard to tell without knowing your budget. Do you/the ones who buy you present have enough money to get GTX 980 Ti? Not entirely sure, but I think that is proclaimed the best GPU available atm.

    I was dumb enough to get the regular GTX 980, a few month back. And now, playing Return of The Tomb Raider, I can't even max it all out, primarly not do due needing at least 6G VRAM for 'High Quality' textures. And you can forget about SSAA.

    STO doesn't have such ridiculous requirements, though. Regular GTX 980 spins like a kitten with it on max everything. :)
    3lsZz0w.jpg
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    jarvisandalfredjarvisandalfred Member Posts: 1,549 Bug Hunter
    The suggestion in here for a 970 or somesuch are flatly absurd. I run the game on 3 monitors at max settings with a 970 and have plenty of card less to spare. The 550ti I ran previously was fine for max or near-max settings; I only upgraded for other games and more monitors.
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    lowy1lowy1 Member Posts: 964 Arc User
    I run STO fine on my 4 YO GTX 580 with 3GB of RAM. Maxed out at 2560x1440p. I'd look for a superclocked GTX 960 for the price you're looking at. Try to find one with 2-3GB of video ram and you'll be golden for sto and other games. If you can hold out the Nvdia's new Pascal Chipset will be out later this year. It'll be a monster.

    I'd recommend this:
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487155
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    boothill873boothill873 Member Posts: 3 Arc User
    jim625 wrote: »
    which one shall I get the one I have now is a "AMD radeon HD 6450" and would love to have sto at a high graphics settings ^^

    I see a lot of people saying the GTX 950 and I'd have to agree with them. Just built my first gaming rig and used the 950 because of budget reasons. I was pretty happy with what it was able to do. I saved up a bit and added a second one to run in SLI. The 750ti is also a nice card. Just make sure your motherboard has a PCI express slot to support it.
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    seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    lowy1 wrote: »

    I recently did a build for someone using that exact card. Great bang for the buck, the card performs very well and it's whisper quiet. One of the better value for the money cards available.
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    meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,594 Arc User
    The suggestion in here for a 970 or somesuch are flatly absurd. I run the game on 3 monitors at max settings with a 970 and have plenty of card less to spare. The 550ti I ran previously was fine for max or near-max settings; I only upgraded for other games and more monitors.

    Considering ppl constantly beatching about low FPS from all the visuals, don't underestimate the card needed to do everything smoothly. GTX 970 and up are indeed not needed, though. My old GTX 580 ran everything just fine (maxed, DX11). Personally I wouldn't go much below that; but YMMV.
    3lsZz0w.jpg
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    seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    The suggestion in here for a 970 or somesuch are flatly absurd.

    Of course it's absurd, which is why no one said any such thing.

    People have suggested that the 970 is a great card if you can afford the extra money, but no one ever suggested that it's needed for STO. Even the 960 is a mountain of overkill as far as STO is concerned.
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    jaguarskxjaguarskx Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
    Assuming you bought a pre-built brand name PC, can you provide a link to it so people checkout the current specs of the PC? For example, the amps and watts of the power supply (PSU) is pretty important.

    Generally speaking, STO is not very demanding on graphics and £200 can get you something pretty good as long as your current PSU can handle the new graphics card (GPU). The following is a link for an Asus GTX 960 for £167, but you should search around for better deals; I don't live in the UK. The GTX 960 is a bit overkill for STO due to the game's low graphics requirements, but if you play games that are a bit demanding like Fallout 4, then the GTX 960 is money well spent.

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-Nvidia-PCI-E-Graphics-Card/dp/B00SKWIISQ


    If STO is the only game you play then it is possible to drop down to a lower end card like the following GTX 950 for £135. But from a performance point of view the saving of £32 does not justify the relatively large performance gap between the two GPUs.

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-GTX-950-DL-DVI-I-Graphics/dp/B013SUP76U


    If you prefer to get another Radeon GPU, then the performance equivalent to the GTX 960 would be the Radeon R9 285, but they are more expensive than the GTX 960 which means you get less bang for your buck, or in your case less bang for your quid. The following Sapphire Radeon R9 285 will set you back £205. There could be cheaper ones out there, but I am not sure where to look for deals in the UK.

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-Dual-X-Retail-Graphics-GDDR5/dp/B00N8THHQK/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1454424235&sr=1-2&keywords=r9+285
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    kiralynkiralyn Member Posts: 1,576 Arc User
    jaguarskx wrote: »
    Assuming you bought a pre-built brand name PC, can you provide a link to it so people checkout the current specs of the PC? For example, the amps and watts of the power supply (PSU) is pretty important.

    Yeah, kind of pointless to get a fancy card, if it'll either fry your power supply, or won't even connect to it because it doesn't have enough auxiliary 6/8-pin power connectors....
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