I have a 2 yr old pc with an NVidia GTX 660 card. It's always behaved as if something is wrong with the card - fluttering, ghosting out, other things. I am thinking of replacing it but horrified at the price of the GTX 690. I play a few other games, Simcity, most recently Cities: Skylines, but Sims 2 is what I usually play. I'd like a suggestion for a replacement with good performance that doesn't cost $1000. Thanks!

Specs:

Win 7
Intel i7-4770K CPU @ 3.50GHz
8 MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660
Cooler Master mid tower case

Well you could just replace it with a comparable card - something like an R7 260. They're not much more than $100 at Amazon, and you could probably find one on sale for right at or a little lower. I've got one and it runs just about everything without a hiccup that isn't a FPS of some sort, unless there's a very large amount of operations going that would tax nearly any system. It's not going to set the world on fire, but it's a solid card.

The R7 260/X is weaker than the GTX 660.

What kind of power supply do you have? If you open up your computer case, there should be a sticker on the side of the Power Supply Unit that has all the info I need. Can you take a picture of it?

Off the top of my head, the R9 270 is great value at $150 ish. Here's a decent one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16814125491. The R9 270 is slightly more powerful than the GTX 660 you were using. Maybe 5% - 10% depending on the situation.

If you want something more powerful but still efficient, the GTX 960 is better at $200: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16814125771. The GTX 960 is about 50% more powerful than the R9 270.

The image quality is very poor, I'm afraid. Because it's a mid tower, things are shoved together pretty tightly. It's an 800W power supply Model HG-X800. I'll try to copy the info from the chart if this isn't enough.

Yea picture not so clear. What does it say under +12V column? 26A?

I hope this version is better. I turned on the flash which I should have done the first time. Under 12V, it does say 28A.

Thats fine then. It can handle either of the two cards i mentioned. Get whichever you prefer, the R9 270 being closer to what you previously and the GTX 960 being about 50% more powerful.

Thank you! I'm going to go for the GTX 960 then - after dealing with the 660, I'd prefer more power. I can swap it out myself with no problem. Thank you again!