Hotter, too - which shouldn't be an issue if you're looking for low-draw stuff, but something to keep in mind if you do get a card that warms up a bit.

I can't offer much advice on smaller setups. I have a normal tower case and got a card with a 6 pin connector and dual fans in case I overclock it to have the extra cooling.

http://www.amazon.com/Asus-GTX750TI-OC-2GD5-ASUS-Graphics-Cards/dp/B00IB9P1KG/ Edit: No thats not a referral link if anyone was wondering.

But as LiquidOxygen said, don't get a slimline. Those have drawn my blood enough times over the years doing stuff inside them at work.

firstly

I would really hope that anybody who pays attention to that takes a really good long look at exactly what those chips are capable of, and all the limitations that go along with them. many would tell you to get a pentium and a low-end gpu like the AMD 7790 or nvidia 750 if your focus was gaming, sooner than that APU. in addition, the unlocked pentium is coming out soon, or is out already, so that's something to consider as well, when pricing a pentium and low-end gpu vs an APU.

on the i3. the haswell i3, 4330 and also the i34130 I think to a degree, show very strong results in all current games but a few particularly demanding games that are designed to be demanding. those two chips practically match the i5 4430 in the lions share of benchmarks. the haswell versions, remember. but it is true what people say about needing 4 cores for the future. with the consoles built on low-clock, high-core processors, the software will continue to make better use of multithreading capability. 4 fast cores in place of 8 slow ones could be necessary, and the i3 doesn't have that. it could be the i3 starts to struggle in the future, it could be that it holds up like it is doing now as Intel ever increases their IPC. I would recommend the i5, too, but only if you can afford it. if your focus is just games, then you are better spending on a better gpu. if you don't like the higher power draw of the better cards, period, then maybe spring for the i5 even if it's not in your budget.

another important thing is that 20nm hits next year, and there could be a measurable jump in gpu performance. I can guarantee you nvidia is just itching to force another performance situation. I don't think it will be a total crapshoot, because DX12 will support current-generation cards, so they know it's not gonna go like it usually does. but it could be that 20nm makes a difference, and it could be current cards get huge price cuts when 20nm hits.

building a PC is unnecessarily bothersome. the only way to be sure you will be happy is to know what you're doing. the less research you do the more you need to pay attention to build guides and the like. if you don't know what you're doing, the PC market will burn you. that said, that 750ti is a good buy. it's pretty good for the money when you look at the performance, the awesome, awesome power draw, and noise and heat output. that's if you can get one that isn't marked up to high hell by the retailers. the MSRP was supposed $150.

On W3, I think the 750ti won't do it any higher than medium. I can't say whether that's with 1xMSAA or not but it might even be not.

nevermind, I made a reminder of microcenter but I see you live in the uk

Heh, I was going to make a crack about the nearest microcenter being over 3000 miles away :P

But the rest of your post was very helpful, thanks!

yeah no worries about it, just keep an eye out.

names to keep in mind are the geforce gtx 760, the geforce gtx 650 ti BOOST (gone because nvidia didn't like so much perf that for money. it's better than the 750ti, but does have higher power draw), the radeon r9 265 (renamed 7850), the radeon r9 270 (7870, good card), radeon r9 270X (hot clocked 7870), and the radeon hd 7950. after that you're really high end. the 660 is also good but it starts to lag a bit behind those higher r9s, the 660ti I don't think you can get anymore.

and I made a guess at W3, but really any guess is just completely up in the air at this point.

Performance-wise, you can use this chart to see where your proposed videocard purchase fits. Every site is going to have a different chart. This is just one of them.

Regarding small form factors, you can get cases that will fit any GPU, but it's best to stick to a short one for normal cases. I'm sure the 750 Ti will fit in most cases. In general AMD cards tend to be longer than NVIDIA ones. I built an SFF for my father, and there was a problem with RAM clearance, had to use another brand, so be careful about that.

From what I've been able to find out about it, the 750 Ti is one of the sexiest cards the frugal gamer has ever had bestowed upon them. The cost for what you get vs the cost of what you have to pay to seriously out preform it, is substantial.

It may not be the ideal card for someone who dumps 400$+ dollars on a GPU every year or two, but for someone thinking of upgrading to an i3, the doors it is likely to open up are going to take a long time to walk through.

I wouldn't expect someone looking at these kinds of upgrades to be looking for an end solution for playing top of the line games on maxed out settings. I would expect them to be looking for a good value for power card that opens up tones of new options they didn't have. Something this card seems to excel at with rare flair, and with ridiculously low power needs.

I'd personally like one.

Unfortunately for those who want to do any form factor less than, say, microATX mid-tower, current editions of the 750/750Ti aren't well suited.

They only come full-height, double-width. Hell, you could make this GPU half-height, single-width, even passive-cooled. But nobody has done so.

OK for certain cubes or the larger kind of mini-ITX setup, maybe. Not for half-height desktop, rack-mount, or pizza-box.

Well my friend picked up the 750 ti 2gb model and from what I seen it stacks up to a gtx 660/ ti model in the middle
Its good to play games on like full hd at medium settings to high depends on the games
I ran crysis 1 with the gtx 650 ti 2gb at full hd with all settings maxed out and ran around 40 to 50 fps so yeah its a beefy card

BUT IF YOU CAN SAVE UP MORE AND GET A GTX 770

it will last way longer and run anything right now maxed out and maybe 2 years to come..

My gtx 6704gb model can still max any game even crysis 3 and farcry 3 around 50 lowest to 60 fps and its almost 2 years old so. a 770 would own.


it dont run much power from the wall either! so enjoy

http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=02G-P4-2773-KR

My vote, skip the GTX 750 Ti, and go for similarly priced Radeon R7 265.
Note, that the 750 Ti, comes in a large range of skus, meaning some are on smaller form cards (for people with smaller mobos/pc cases)
And generally, the 750 Ti has one fan, compared to the R7 265's two fans. (and the Ti skus with 2 fans generally get even less power savings compared to the single fan 750 Ti's.)

why not just grab yourself one off the production line then?

either that or this is advance warning of a secret nvidia re-education scheme or something

Whatever you finally decide to get, I think this link will help calculate how many Watt you will need.
I would also recommend to get an ever bigger PSU, because it will last longer. What I mean is if you need 348 watt and you get a 350 watt PSU, you will be using 99% of the PSU, and you know when you use something at the maximum it deteriorates more quickly.

I have also set a personal limit on PSU's. Nothing with less than 5-year warranty. Even better with 7-year warranty.

I really dig the 750 ti, especially this one from Galaxy because it's low profile. Makes me want to do a compact build with it.