• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Desktop upgrade advice

K

kcheleb

n00b
Joined
Jun 20, 2012
Messages
8
Hello everyone, I recently purchased Counter-Strike Source and it did not run as good as I expected on my system. So I was just thinking about doing a couple of upgrades to my desktop, I have listed my full specs below.

I am thinking about getting more RAM, and also upgrading my video card because I would like to purchase the new Counter-Strike (Global Offensive) and I would like a video card that will be able to run that game, so I have a few questions


1) Right now I have 3GB RAM, and I would like to add more, but I would just like to know what is the maximum amount of RAM my motherboard can support, how would I find that out?

2) What video card do you recommend I purchase (one that will be able to run CS Source and CS Global Offensive) it doesn’t have to be the greatest and most up to date video card, just a good one that can run those games on high settings.


I realize that not every motherboard is able to run any card, I don’t know if my motherboard is PCI-E 1.0 or 2.0, also I don’t know what video card my power supply can support

The specs for my desktop right now after running Speccy are:


AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Dual Core Processor
3.00 GB Single-Channel DDR2 @ 244MHz (4-4-4-12) RAM
ASUSTek Computer INC. NODUSM3 (Socket AM2 ) motherboard
ATI Radeon HD 3400 Series (VISIONTEK) video card
H213H (1920x1080@60Hz) monitor
Windows 7 32-bit OS

If there are any more specs you need to know, just let me know. I am not sure how to check what my PSU is
 
Normally I'd say upgrade that whole system, but if you're just running CSS, that video card is your #1 problem. Put a sub-100 dollar modern generation card in there and you're golden. Or buy a used 4800 series card off the FS forums, some of the older less feature rich cards like the 4890 have plenty of speed for that game and can outperform some of the new cards available for the same price range. If you want to buy new, a 6670 or 7750 would be about as much card as I'd bother with on that CPU.
 
Hey man thanks for the reply, what am I looking for in a video card really? how do I know if one is good enough or not?? Is it Core Clock Speed??

out of the following, which would you say is the best to not only run CS Source but also run Global Offensive (which I believe uses the same engine as Portal 2)
perhaps none of them are good enough?

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/...25d2e326a5en02

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/...e7f5f26965en02

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/...a7ae3c8ef0en02

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/...8654762294en02

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/...34f8b00eeaen02

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/produ...ade9c83caeen02


thank you for your help
 
Core clock speed is not necessarily a great indicator. Can you give a price range? It'll be easier to give recommendations.
 
You're basically looking for a low end to midrange card right now. The links you pasted also aren't working, but here's some suggestions. A Radeon 6570 is a 50-60 dollar card, and about 20x faster than a 3400. Your radeon 3400 by comparison is slower than new on-cpu graphics from something like intel's Ivybridge or AMD's Llano/Trinty APU's.

If your budget is big, say 500 dollars big, you should just go ahead and upgrade your entire machine, your CPU slow enough to severely limit performance on anything faster than a radeon 6570.

If you only have 1-200 dollars, I'd say go with a 7750 or 7770 and PUT any money you have leftover into a full system upgrade piggybank.

If under 100 dollars, 6570-6670, 1GB models.
 
Last edited:
Yes my budget is about $150 max, the lower the better

I also don't really wanna upgrade the entire system, like I said I don't really wanna do any heavy duty gaming. I just wanna be able to play CS Source and CS Global Offensive (when it comes out) that is my main concern

and my apologies for the links, I have updated them here so now they should work

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product...spx?path=1e63316660c9ee936b1d0025d2e326a5en02

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product...spx?path=8494a303d6b8fdcf079621e7f5f26965en02

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product...spx?path=a762a4c00f7e425d080345a7ae3c8ef0en02

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product...spx?path=a9024052aceffc3f52d6a98654762294en02

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/prod...spx?path=31976fbe3a6e47adadd6bdade9c83caeen02
 
I wouldn't touch the 430, it's slower and more expensive than a radeon 6570. The 520... It's even slower, about half the speed of a 430. Lookin around BB canada, I see they have a Asus 6670 DDR5 model in your price range, that's what I'd recommend getting. Newegg.ca seems to have better prices on things though.
 
Video numbers are a mess, a GT 430 is a better card than a GT 520, a 6670 is above either.
Tomshardware does monthly gaming card rankings.
Bandwith is a consideration for entry level cards, ie DDR5 memory is faster than DDR3. Though for a GT430 1 GB DDR3 vs 512 MB DDR5 are equivalent.

Your upgrade paths are limited, 32 bit Operating Systems do not "see" more than about 3 GB RAM.
Single channel is unlikely to have much resale value

I suspect you can upgrade your AM2 processor, check youtr motherboard specifications.

With these reasons, any improvement is very video card dependent. A GT 440 or HD 6670 are big preferences. You could certainly buy used on the forums.

You do not mention power supply, an old system like yours probably has a low 12 volt wattage/ low efficiency unit, so cards are limited to the 75 watts available through the motherboard PCIe x16 slot.

I own cheaper versions (64 bit instead of 128 bit) GT 430 and GT 520 cards, the 520 was very disappointing, at least in comparison.

An HD 5670 DDR5 would be ideal ( the 6670 is a rebadged 5670 with minor tweaks often cheapened by DDR3 memory). The 7750 is the most powerful card without requiring aditional power plugs.

OTOH the ability of Llano to crossfire with HD 6670 cards insures a certain resale market.

Basically buying too little video card will mean another spend decision while spending an extra $40 now means you will get all you can from your system.
 
Last edited:
wtourist said:
Video numbers are a mess, a GT 430 is a better card than a GT 520, a 6670 is above either.
Tomshardware does monthly gaming card rankings.
Bandwith is a consideration for entry level cards, ie DDR5 memory is faster than DDR3. Though for a GT430 1 GB DDR3 vs 512 MB DDR5 are equivalent.

Your upgrade paths are limited, 32 bit Operating Systems do not "see" more than about 3 GB RAM.
Single channel is unlikely to have much resale value

I suspect you can upgrade your AM2 processor, check youtr motherboard specifications.

With these reasons, any improvement is very video card dependent. A GT 440 or HD 6670 are big preferences. You could certainly buy used on the forums.

You do not mention power supply, an old system like yours probably has a low 12 volt wattage/ low efficiency unit, so cards are limited to the 75 watts available through the motherboard PCIe x16 slot.

I own cheaper versions (64 bit instead of 128 bit) GT 430 and GT 520 cards, the 520 was very disappointing, at least in comparison.

An HD 5670 DDR5 would be ideal ( the 6670 is a rebadged 5670 with minor tweaks often cheapened by DDR3 memory). The 7750 is the most powerful card without requiring aditional power plugs.

OTOH the ability of Llano to crossfire with HD 6670 cards insures a certain resale market.

Basically buying too little video card will mean another spend decision while spending an extra $40 now means you will get all you can from your system.
Click to expand...

Hello, thanks for the reply, so based on your suggestions the highest video card I can get (without replacing my power supply) is the HD 7750

would this be it?
http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product...spx?path=ba07a113a100db1ae8cecb90142a3fd0en02

or this one?
http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product...spx?path=f090fbff87290d150f1e173a1a16dab8en02

not sure what the difference between the 2 are

Whenever I look up a video card I see Asus Radeon and XFX AMD Radeon
not sure what the differences are ...

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product...spx?path=cbe05f6cb8549a4e68e8110e3e51c617en02

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product...spx?path=6deaf393ef4532ba219bc03fbdf9cee4en02


So out of the GT 440, HD 6670 and HD 7750 which one do you suggest I get?
 
Cant really answer anything without knowing what you have going on for power. If your PSU is up to snuff in your shoes i would DEFINITELY go used. Saw a guy selling 5850s for $110. Thats a hell of a lot of power for just over a bill.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1700735

Hell i may even grab one after the weekend once i see whats left after my camping trip.
 
Disposed said:
Cant really answer anything without knowing what you have going on for power. If your PSU is up to snuff in your shoes i would DEFINITELY go used. Saw a guy selling 5850s for $110. Thats a hell of a lot of power for just over a bill.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1700735

Hell i may even grab one after the weekend once i see whats left after my camping trip.
Click to expand...
with his cpu, he would likely never see the difference with a 5850 over a 7750. whether new or used, he might as well just get a small efficient gpu as that will get the job done for what he needs while using hardly any power.
 
kcheleb said:
3.00 GB Single-Channel DDR2 @ 244MHz (4-4-4-12) RAM
ASUSTek Computer INC. NODUSM3 (Socket AM2 ) motherboard
Click to expand...

You've got a HP M7580N, right? That motherboard can only support 4 GB. HP's page for it is here.

The PSU is 300W, so you'll have to be modestly careful about GPUs.
 
Quartz-1 said:
You've got a HP M7580N, right? That motherboard can only support 4 GB. HP's page for it is here.

The PSU is 300W, so you'll have to be modestly careful about GPUs.
Click to expand...
if that is what he has than that cheap psu is probably almost on its last leg anyway after all these years. it probably cant even reliably deliver enough amps on the 12v to power any decent gpu. its only rated for 19 amps when new but cant even make that under real world conditions. at this point it can probably only deliver about 13-14 amps at best in real world conditions which is only around 150 watts. heck he better make sure its not the 250 watt psu that most HP/Compaq comps have.
 
UPDATE Hello everyone, thanks for the replies

Okay so I opened up my computer and my PSU is
Bestec ATX-300-12Z

also, it seems like my GPU is bottlenecked, not my CPU, since I get higher framerates when I lower the resolution

meaning my AMD dual core would be able to handle a better vid card, so yea I'd rather not change the entire system or the processor

video card and PSU is another question ...

Also from what I see it appears as though there are some PCI-E connectors, I have a bunch actually they are labeled (P1, P2, P3 ... P8)
 
Last edited:
Lol you will always get higher frame rates with a lower resolution. Also most people simply have no clue how bottlenecks really effect performance. To say you would see no improvement between a 5850 and 7750 is just plain wrong. That said, that PSU won't cut it anyway. 19a on the 12 volt rail is poo.
 
I think you're underestimating just how slow those old CPU's are, and how little graphical power it takes to run CSS of all things.
 
Yoda4561 said:
I think you're underestimating just how slow those old CPU's are, and how little graphical power it takes to run CSS of all things.
Click to expand...

I know exactly how slow the processor is. You are also not reading his posts at all since he wants to play CS global offensive when it comes out. Even with that processor a 5850 will still be significantly faster than a 7750. He obviously will not get the full potential of it but if he bought a used 5850 and a PSU he could stay in his budget and from there he can upgrade the rest down the road and already have a solid GPU.

The 7750 and all these low end cards are a dead end. Buy a used card worth a shit, buy a PSU and later on buy CPU/MOBO/RAM and make use of that new PSU and GPU instead of just having to buy everything again.

Thats what i would do with a budget and limited game list like that. Get the GPU and PSU now since thats your most limiting factor at the moment. Later on snag someones used quad core, mobo and ram from here and have a solid machine on a super budget price.

Its all up to the OP but blowing $110 on a 7750 when you can get a used 5850 at that price just seems like a waste to me.
 
Disposed said:
Lol you will always get higher frame rates with a lower resolution. Also most people simply have no clue how bottlenecks really effect performance. To say you would see no improvement between a 5850 and 7750 is just plain wrong. That said, that PSU won't cut it anyway. 19a on the 12 volt rail is poo.
Click to expand...


Disposed said:
I know exactly how slow the processor is. You are also not reading his posts at all since he wants to play CS global offensive when it comes out. Even with that processor a 5850 will still be significantly faster than a 7750. He obviously will not get the full potential of it but if he bought a used 5850 and a PSU he could stay in his budget and from there he can upgrade the rest down the road and already have a solid GPU.

The 7750 and all these low end cards are a dead end. Buy a used card worth a shit, buy a PSU and later on buy CPU/MOBO/RAM and make use of that new PSU and GPU instead of just having to buy everything again.

Thats what i would do with a budget and limited game list like that. Get the GPU and PSU now since thats your most limiting factor at the moment. Later on snag someones used quad core, mobo and ram from here and have a solid machine on a super budget price.

Its all up to the OP but blowing $110 on a 7750 when you can get a used 5850 at that price just seems like a waste to me.
Click to expand...
sorry but you are flat out wrong. even a 7750 would be severally held back in modern games with that cpu. a 7750 is dead even with a 5770 which almost even with a gtx260. when I had my my gtx260, I could lower my E8500 to 2.0 and lose up to 50% of what that card could do in cpu in intensive games. overall my E8500 lowered to 2.0 only let me get about 60-70% of what a gtx260 could do. the OP's cpus is only equal to my E8500 running about 1.6-1.7. a 5850 would never ever be more than about 40% utilized with a cpu like his. a 5850 is 50% faster than a 7750 but he would never know it. heck his cpu does not even meet minimum requirements for most newer games.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top