Need to Upgrade my PC

[BarbaricGoose]

Hey there.

So I've been playing GW2, and it's pretty much destroying my machine, so I think it's finally time I upgraded. My knowledge of computers, however, is lacking, so I thought you could help me choose what I upgrade.

Processor: i7 920 2.66GHz ( OC'd to 3.5)
GFX: (2x) nVidia 275 GTX
RAM: 6GB DDR3

I figure the GFX cards are the biggest offenders. How much would I have to spend to run the game on mostly high settings?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Palfreyfish]

Do some research on a GTX 670, that should give you a starting point. The 660Ti is alright, but only a little cheaper than the 670, but the 670 will perform a lot better.

 

[AlwaysPractical]

I agree with Palfrey, a single 670 will do, if you wanna stick to dual, dual GTX 660s or dual GTX 580s. Your CPU should be fine as a quad at 3.5

 

[BarbaricGoose]

Thanks for the quick responses, folks.

Couple more questions. Per your advice, I'm looking into two cards right now; this [http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-3072MB-Graphics-03G-P4-3661-KR/dp/B008S15WCO/ref=br_lf_m_1000825151_1_18_ttl?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=electronics&pf_rd_p=1391574542&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_t=1401&pf_rd_i=1000825151&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0TP0NW0NJSC3D76FKR73] one, and this [http://www.amazon.com/Galaxy-GeForce-Express-Graphics-67NPH6DV5ZJX/dp/B007Z33SYA/ref=br_lf_m_1000825151_1_12_ttl?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=electronics&pf_rd_p=1391574542&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_t=1401&pf_rd_i=1000825151&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=00M0ZK3SVAPWM6SVKK2A] one. They're both pretty close to in terms of price, but how much of a difference is there in performance? The 660 has more memory than the 670, but is this really that important? What is important in a graphics card? I'm just trying to educate myself now...

Also: could you ever expect to save money by using two weaker, cheaper cards in SLI instead of a single, more powerful card?

 

[Supernova1138]

The 670 with 2GB of RAM is the better card out of those two. Anything more than 2GB of RAM is only really needed for multi-monitor gaming. More than 2GB won't make any difference on a single display. I personally would recommend the 670 over the 660Ti. The 660Ti has a narrower memory bus that can hold it back at higher resolutions, or if you use lots of anti aliasing or anistrophic filtering.

I would almost always recommend a stronger single card over two weaker cards. SLI and Crossfire can be a bit flaky. Those configurations are more prone to driver problems, games not properly supporting multiple GPUs, and a phenomenon called microstuttering, in which the two cards don't sync perfectly, so you get a stuttering effect as your framerates dip and rise rapidly. You also need a stronger power supply for multiple video cards. Depending on which cards you are trying to SLI/Crossfire you may need a good quality 750 Watt power supply to run multiple video cards.