I'm done working on my old computer, want to try to build my own.

[Furunculus]

Awesome, that's more money that can go to the other components. I am not planning on playing any ultra realistic triple A titles. Because I am cheap, I stick with older games I have not yet played. The most difficult thing I plan on running would be Deus Ex:HR and maybe ME3.

What tier of video cards should I look at? Should I go for the top tier just to stay ahead of the curve?

what you want is enough power and features to play modern games the way they are meant to be played, at a reasonable resolution.

to give you an example:

you want to be able to play games like Deus Ex HR and Shogun in DX11 mode, with settings on medium and a resolution of 1920x1080, and still get an average of 40 frames per second (minumum above 30 hopefully).

this will require an AMD card such as:
1. in old money a VLIW5 6850 with 960 shaders
2. in new money a GCN 7770 with 640 shaders*
available from £110 upwards

from nvidia the equivalent would be:
1. in old money a GTX460 with 336 shaders
2. in new money a GTX560 with 336 shaders
available from £110 upwards


http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/25...specifications