Need Advice on New Graphics Card That Supports Win 10

[Moondoggy]

I have a Sapphire VaporX HD4850 PCI-E graphics card with 2 GB of GDDR3 memory that was installed in my Windows 7 Pro machine when it was built about 5-6 years ago. I recently upgraded my system to Windows 10 and the card still works on that platform but there may be an issue with the card.

To make a long story short it's been suggested that there's an issue with the driver for this card that's causing a black screen delay when booting Windows 10 and that I need to uninstall the existing driver and install a updated driver. Unfortunately, AMD stopped updating drivers for this card 3 years ago and I'm concerned about uninstalling/reinstalling the driver for fear that something might happen and it will mess up my PC even more. As I see it the best solution, since the card is old, is to upgrade to a new card that supports Windows 10 and DirectX 12.

So, what I'm looking for is some recommendations on cards that might work for me. Note that I'm not a gamer but I do play a game occasionally. My objective is to find a good quality card that's not too cheap but not too expensive that's Windows 10/DirectX 12 compliant, that's new enough that AMD or Nvidia are going to support there card for some time, and on that will run quietly and coolly.

Can I please get some recommendations from you all with a reason or reasons why you think this card would be a good fit.

 

[PP Mguire]

Best bet is to give a budget and we can work from that. If you're not a gamer then most anything in the latest series from either camp will work for you.

 

[Dauntae]

I agree with PP but I lean more to Nvidia myself due to the driver support, AMD doesn't always have the best driver support and you can still get drivers for there older cards, At least the ones I've tried. A friend is STILL using a 9800GTX+ card I sold him back in 2009 I think and has a driver for it and looking on there site they still have driver support for the 8 series cards which are really old.

 

[PP Mguire]

I agree with PP but I lean more to Nvidia myself due to the driver support, AMD doesn't always have the best driver support and you can still get drivers for there older cards, At least the ones I've tried. A friend is STILL using a 9800GTX+ card I sold him back in 2009 I think and has a driver for it and looking on there site they still have driver support for the 8 series cards which are really old.

They have legacy drives for anything older than 400 series. Windows 10 doesn't support anything older because it requires the newest driver.

 

[Moondoggy]

Best bet is to give a budget and we can work from that. If you're not a gamer then most anything in the latest series from either camp will work for you.

Thanks for the reply. I would like to stay below $200 if possible but could go a bit higher if necessary to get the right card. Someone suggested the GTX 960 card that's around that number but I had suggestions that I should go lower since I'm not a gamer. Someone also suggested that Nvidia was coming out with a new card today 8/20/15 called the GTX 950 that's supposed to be around $150 but I know nothing about any of these cards.

Once additional question though..... I noticed that there are a lot of card manufacturers making Nvidia cards at different price points. This is kind of confusing to me and would like to know which manufacturers to look at and which ones to avoid. Thanks.

 

[PP Mguire]

Easy, stick with eVGA for Nvidia.

A cheap 960 will go for $189 while the 950 just coming out might be a bit high around 160. It's up to you whether or not you want to spend the extra money. Either card will last you 5 years at the minimum since they are the latest generation currently. And by last you I mean driver support for latest OS.