Lv 7

What should I look for in a graphics card?

If i want to play some games like GTA V, and Sims 4 for starters?

it's not that I cant build my own PC, but for time, since I have a full time job, if I can find a good prebuilt PC that can handle those games, that would be ideal. and one that i could still upgrade down the road as well.

i wouldn't mind one if i can do some streaming too for fun.

ideally, if i could spend maybe no more than $700, that'd be great, because I would still like to get a good monitor to add on to my current one that's connected to my laptop already.

4 Answers

  • 7 months ago
    Favorite Answer

    Well Prime Day is ending so if you're going to buy a prebuilt PC then you'd better make it quick.

    I built my first PC after an 8 hour work day and I don't have the greatest commute. I remember starting on it after dinner and it was running before my normal bedtime. Well, kinda because the Hard Drive was bad. I went to Best Buy the next day and bought another drive while I started the RMA process for the DOA drive. There have been other times that I transferred parts to a new case or did a complete upgrade after work.

    If you have the funds then look for a GTX 1660ti or an RTX 2060 that's on sale. Otherwise the RX 590 or 580 would work.

    TBH, an RX 570 would work great for the games you listed. GTA 5 was hard on games back in 2015 but back then a 2nd/3rd tier card like a GTX 970 or R9 390 was all you needed for 60fps at 1080p, Very High settings. Both the RX 580 or RX 590, and GTX 1660 non-ti are ahead of the R9 390 and GTX 970.

    If you wan to be really frugal, You could hit ebay or craigslist up for a $100 GTX 970.

    Modern day Integrated Graphics can run Sims 4 so that game isn't even a factor.

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  • John M
    Lv 7
    7 months ago

    Building a PC isn't all that difficult, but building a video card is something you aren't going to be able to do.

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  • Anonymous
    7 months ago

    GTA V is a CPU heavy loaded game. Avoid bottlenecking.

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  • 7 months ago

    ", but for time, since I have a full time job,"

    That excuse really doesn't hold up when you consider that many people who have full time time jobs somehow manage to build their own computers. These days it takes all of 30 minutes to maybe an hour (likely less) to put together a computer.

    A decent prebuilt that can do what you're looking would be something along the lines of an i5 or Ryzen 5 with 16GB RAM and a mid-range video card ( GTX 1660 or Radeon RX 580/590. I'd for a 500GB SSD boot drive and a 2TB HDD for storage. The thing is that a prebuilt with those specs would probably cost a bit over a grand. If you were to build it yourself you're probably not going hit that $700 price point. If you knocked it down to a four-core i3 or Ryzen 3 and left out the SSD, you could probably come close.

    Alternatively you could buy a cheaper Dell or HP desktop, and then add a discrete video card, but that could very well require replacing the stock PSU, and not all mass-market PC's use standard, off-the-shelf PSU's, but rather proprietary PSU's than can't be replaced with something better.So you'll have to do your research.

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