Okay...come tax season (I do mine as soon as I get my W-2 form in early January), I'm to get myself a new video card. Currently have a 256MB PCI-e...was starting to look at newegg for some ideas...came across something that I don't know about, so I thought I'd pose a question to you guys. I noticed that there aren't that many PCI-e cards anymore, but a LOT of PCI-e 2.0 cards. Are those interchangable? Like, will my PCI-e motherboard be compatible with it? I've looked at the pictures of each, and I think the interfaces look the same...but not completely sure. And I don't want to spend money on something, just to find out that it's not going to work in my computer. Any confirmation on if they're compatible??

Yes.

The amazing thing compared to only a few years ago when all the good cards were around $300-$400+, you can almost get anything for less than $300 and that's pretty much for the best.

Yeah...that's what I was noticing. I could get a 1GB card (which is what I'm going for...don't need anything else when just playing CSS...probably don't even need to upgrade my 256...but would be nice, since I hear the fan on it going more and more lately, like it's starting to burn up) for a good price....

GTX 260 is about all you need unless you just want to say you have four GTX 285's in sli. The best thing is that you can get the 260's for around 2 hundred.

Most 512 cards are faster than the 1 gig counterparts so don't go after mb's of ram.Buy the fastest gpu and let the rough end drag.1 gig cards are great but you will only see a difference if your running at insane resolutions.Any thing from 1680 down will suffer from having over a gig because it takes longer to access that extra ram.So a 512 radeon 4870 will be faster than a 1 gig 4870 at most resolutions.Now if your rocking a 24 inch monitor go for the gig it will help.But it also depends on the games,new games will take advantage of more ram,but for the next year or so 512 is still the sweet spot.
Just remember that more ram will not take the place of a faster gpu.

If you want a new GPU that will run css amazingly go with the ATi 5xxx series for a few reasons...1. they run directX 11 which no nVidia card on the market can do 2. They are decently priced e.g. sapphire 5770 only costs $160 and if u want high end 5870 will rape any nvidia card besides the GTX 295 3. They run really high clocks and high bandwith rates meaning your going to get smoother and more frames per second.

4. My name is Bleep and I bump 2 month old posts with irrelevant information since anything higher than an 8800 or a 3850 can run a 5+ year old game with 300+ fps on high settings and 1280 or higher resolution.

i apologize i didnt see how long ago this was i just saw a check on it when i went to tech support and read it :/ sorry guys

Mine does...

BUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That seriously is the dumbest shit I've heard all week. He must be running DX9 and reading the PC tabloids

my 5770 runs slightly better then my gtx260 did!

So what that doesnt mean your actually getting the directx 11 tessellations your gpu will run directx 10 even mine says directx 11 but thats only because the computer has directX 11 installed but ur gpu doesnt support it theres a reason why everyones waiting for the GTX 470 and 480 to come out because that will be nvIdia's gpu that will run true directX 11. jus look at my pics and ull see and hope that clears the confusion guys

you're wrong.

LOl he's right but whatever!

No I'm pretty sure he's right. You can install dx11, but you can't take full advantage of it as the latest that the card supports is dx10

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_200_Series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct3D#Direct3D_11



EDIT: forgot a link

You retards wouldn't know sarcasm if it jumped up and took your left nut.

He's F*CKING wrong god damnit!

Oh, lawl. Me and internet sarcasm never do see eye to eye...

LOL i win