Hey everyone. It's been a while since I posted here (and played TF2). Mass Effect has got me hooked and schools a bitch. But I have some questions.

My GPU, the NVIDIA 9600GT has recently died. The fan broke and I have no warranty for the thing. Since I couldn't be bothered to pay to fix this POS, I decided to buy a new one. I was interested in a 260GTX, however that thing is sold out all over Portugal and I can't find one. HOWEVER, I found out a ATi HD 5770 (XFX) for 160 Euros. Not bad. But the thing is, it's ATi. I never owned one and I heard that their drivers aren't all that great compared to NVIDIA's. It may be a bunch of BS, bah.

Looking up on Wikipedia, the interface on the 5770 is PCIe 2.1. Does it work on a PCIe 2.0 Mobo?
Will it run fine on a 600W PSU? (I currently have a 450W PSU, but I am ditching that one soon)
Is there a way to put PhysX games taking advantage of the card? It's NVIDIA PhysX, so I don't expect it to work.
I don't have a powerful CPU (C2D E4500 @ 2.2Ghz), nor do I have a lot of RAM (2Gb). How bad will the bottleneck be? (I am replacing the Mobo, CPU and RAM later this year)

That's it. HALP ME

Hey there,

PCIe is always compatible. If you connect a faster GPU to a slower MB or vice versa it will just slow down. Its like USB. And PCIe 1x, 4x and 8x cards fit into x16 slots but not the other way round.

Yesterday arrived my very first ATI pc too and so far I am satisfied. The drivers are as good as the nvidia ones its just a new control center to learn. A fitting Nvidia card would be the 250GTS for you. I recommend the Asus Black Knight there. A 5770 is totally oversized for your PC with bottlenecks everywhere but if you want to upgrade anyway this years it will be okay. A 450 watt PSU is way more than OK for your hardware. Even with the new GPU your pc wouldnt require more than 250 watt.

PhysX is like CUDA a Nvidia exclusive thingy. But there arent many PhysX games out there and with a powerfull processor you wont notice a huge difference anyway.

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Hey there. Thanks for the help bird.

I am expecting to upgrade the PC by July, probaby installing an i5 and 4 GB of RAM.
On guru3d they recomend atleast a 500W PSU. I already ordered the 600W one. It's going to cut the price on the July upgrade.

BIIIIIIIIRRRD

if your upgrading to and i5 and stuff you should get a pretty high wattage, you can get them for a small price anyway.

For example: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/161664 (Probably a bit overboard for your requirements though)

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

A bit?! 750 is enough to power two of the same computers. And then some.

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Comfortably Numb

I was aiming more towards the quality of the psu rather than the wattage, it was the first one I found on ebuyer

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

Then I'll throw this quality list in:

Excellent:
Fortron-Source based (Sparkle/SPI, Powertech, BFG, some PC P&C models, Aopen, OCZ GameXstream, Antec Basiq, Zalman)
Seasonic based (Antec Neo HE/TP Trio/EarthWatts, PC P&C Silencers, Corsair)

Above medium:
Enhance based (most Silverstone and Akasa, some ASUS)
Lite-On based (Supermicro/Ablecom)
Delta based (some Chieftec)
Enermax
Channel Well based (Antec, Meridian XClio, some Thermaltake)
Topower based (OCZ, Globalwin, Be Quiet!, Athena Power, A+GBP, Tagan, some Vantec, Spire/Speeze, Mushkin, BFG)
AcBel Polytech based (Coolermaster, some ASUS)
SevenTeam based (Sytrin, MGE, XG, some CoolerMaster, Thermaltake, Masscool)
Andyson Electronics based (some Hiper, AC Ryan, Aerocool Zero-dba, Sunbeam NUUO)
Heroichi based (HEC, Compucase, some Thermaltake)

Medium:
Superflower/TTGI/Fore Point/Fortrex
Wintech based (Sintek, Ultras that are not 1st generation X-Connect)
Sirtec based (most Thermaltake, some Chieftec, Yesico)

So instead of buying a crapload of W for no use, get a Corsair or Antec model close to your actualy watt usage, which is certified 85%+ so you'll be sure your system will have a reliable and solid backbone.
Of note is that a lot more important than overall watt power is the stability of voltage the power supply puts on the rails.

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Comfortably Numb

Exactly why I recommended Earthwatts and said that the wattage was overboard It's the PSU I have, so it was the first one I thought of ^^

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

With aiming for an i5 go for an ATI 5850.

Oh and people telling something like "uhh... ATI drivers are such crap... I stay with nvidia" should have a big printing on their forehead: FANBOY!

Never had any severe problems with either ATI nor nvidia.

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SaintK: I'm completely lost

Dear god...

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"Fire rained from the sky on the day I was born: 10,000 lives I ended before drawing first breath. Do not speak to me of guilt or regret, Jonathan.” - Brayan, The Keepers of the Fire

Oh shit. What a turn of events.

Looks like I am going to get a new Rig with a i7 920, 8 Gb RAM, and a HD 5870.

Looks like the upgrade was sooner than I expected D:

Thats a ridicioulous overpowered and power hungry rig.

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

No sir... that would be something with a nvidia 480.

A friend is running the same config with only 6 GB RAM (8 doesn't make that much sense for the i7)... "Empire: Total War" was still runnning slow at the beginning.

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SaintK: I'm completely lost

Well, with the 480 it wouldn't be ridiculously overpowered, just power hungry

Bring it back to the good old 200 series

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig