We bought a 2nd hand desktop PC for about £200 for my son, with the idea that he could play low-end games for now and upgrade over time to something which can run Elite dangerous and Stelaris. Unfortunately the twelve year old graphics card in the box (Nvidia Quadro FX 3500) is stuck on DX9 so we really need to upgrade it now and Owen got more birthday money than we were expecting so he wants to upgrade now.
We are thinking of buying this NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-GeForce-Profile-Express-Graphics/dp/B0719CR59P/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1524302490&sr=1-1&keywords=gt+1030) but OMG I really haven't got a clue. There are so many options and price points…
Both these cards seem to be PCI Express so that means this GT1030 will at least fit right? And it's a lower per requirement so that's fine. Is there anything else I need to check? Is there a better option I've overlooked?
In case it isn't obvious I really haven't got a clue about hardware…
PCI Express should work fine.
The Nvidia GeForce GT 1030 2GB (https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gt-1030-2gb,5110.html) is probably the best you're going to find at that price point but Graphics Cards are in a super weird place at the moment. It turns out they're really good for mining cryptocurrencies so prices have basically shit the bed. A 980 ti's price has gone up by $200 in the last year and it just staying there because of people like this guy.
Ok cool. So what's the difference between the Gigabyte version and the Asus one? They seem to be the same except the Asus one is fatter. Is it just that the Asus one has a bigger fan? Is that worth considering?
Branding, really. And as for fans, a lot of that should be handled by your case fans.
Hi hi.
Is this a decent price for what it is? I'm looking for something that'll play older PC exclusives (LOTRO, Anno 1404 etc) so it doesn't need to be a powerhouse. Although if I could upgrade it over time, that'd be a bonus.
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/365260262403533/?ref=browse_tab&referral_code=marketplace_top_picks&referral_story_type=top_picks
