Windows 7: Graphics Card Advice Needed

Hey, I just bought a GTX 550 Ti for a fairly expensive price at $176 while on vacation to the Dominican Republic. I feel like I have made a huge mistake even though I have been in need of a huge upgrade from my Sapphire x1650. Does anyone know if the purchase was worth it? If not does anyone recommend another card they think is worth it? I'm still here for another few days so a return is possible, and I can use that cash to buy something better back in the states.

My specs are:



Motherboard: Asus M3HNT DELUXE Mempipe edition
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual Core 2.6 GHz
RAM: 3 GB DDR2
PSU: Antec Basiq Power 500 Watt
Graphics (before the 550): ATI Radeon x1650

(Any possible upgrade packages within $175 budget would be nice if anyone knows any)

It depends on if you bought the 2GB version or the 1Gb version . Obviously if you bought the 2GB version then that is right about what you would pay here in the states. If by chance you bought the 1GB version for that price, I would definitely take it back.

Here are a couple of options in that price range with rebate options (I hate rebates ):

EVGA SuperClocked 01G-P3-1463-KR GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP

EVGA 01G-P3-1466-KR GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) DS SSC 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready

Yeah I bought the 1 GB version and I saw those prices which made me regret the purchase. Thanks though I might look into the super clocked card if no one comes up with a better option.

I have an EVGA 550 ti, I bought it for $125.00. I don't know why your GPU is so expensive... where did you buy it from?

You could probably get a saphire 6870 for that price which performs better

I bought it at a store here in the Dominican Republic. It wasn't till I got back home and did a currency change to realize what I spent in the currency here totaled to $176. Does the 6870 have that much of a performance difference to the switch and will my PSU handle it?

Yes, that is not what you should have paid, I suggest you return it if possible. I'm not sure about the performance gain in Saphire 6870 from 550 ti... please correct me if I'm wrong.

Well for the 6870 you need at least a 500watt psu with with two 75W 6 pin pci express power connectors. The 6870 uses 151watts under load and the 550ti use 116watts under load,%30 difference in power consumption,the power supply should be able to handle it unless it's some low end brand with low voltage on the 12v rails. The card is a lot faster though and worth the money,own a single 6870 myself and max games with it.
Here you can compare the two cards, sapphire 6870 at amazon cost 169.99$usd
GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs Radeon HD 6870 – Performance Comparison Benchmarks @ Hardware Compare

you can get the 6870 from amazon here http://www.amazon.com/SAPPHIRE-Radeo...&keywords=6870

My PSU is listed above so I'm not sure if its a good one or not, it was given to me for free much like most of those components from a recycling site my state uses to prevent things being thrown out people might want. On the other hand, I have been looking at the 6870 and it always comes up when I look up something about the 550 ti. Worst case scenario, if I can't return the card what kind of settings can I get in some games with my current set up if I was to install the GTX?

High at 1680x1050-1920x1200 resolutions with around 40fps ,um games like crysis 2 are say to run at 35fps average on 1080p on high settings on the nvdia website. The 6870 would get you up to 55-68fps on avg,that's how it seems to run on my rig with it all on ultra.
You can take a look at it
GeForce GTX 550 Ti | Performance | GeForce
The only thing that would worry me though about the psu is that it has only 1 PCI-Express Connector
1 x 6-Pin and the 6870 would need two of them,I think you could get it to work with a converter but you could get it to work if you got a Molex to 12V 6Pin Adapter.