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Low power video card needed

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draken24

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 12, 2007
Messages
138
Hey peps..

Trying to set up a first rig for my daughter that she can have in her room... Got an old hp with a amd 3500+ 64 or whatever and a gog of ram.. Need a slight upgrade from the onboard ati x400 pci-e graphocs chip... The system has a 300w psu.. If memory serves right.. Its in my work room at the moment.. Any suggestions on a video card? It does have 1x pcie v1.0.. But with that psu and never ever looking at the low emd cards from nvidia or ati.. I dont know what I should get her to go with it
 
HD4770 will probably work. HD5770 mabey. I have access to both of these used but in good condition. PM me if you are interested.
 
How many volts on the 12V rail does the PSU have? No PCIe power connectors right? How much are you looking to spend on this purchase?

The fastest card currently available without PCIe connectors is the 6670, but it's not worth the price, especially for your application. The HD 4670, HD 5670, GT 240, and other similar cards will work.

I gave these recommendations in a kind of round-about way, here are cards to consider:
Fastest (probably CPU limited too): 6670, 5670, GT 240, etc.
Faster (probably the best you can take advantage of): 5570, 4670, 5550, 4650, etc.
Alright: 9500GT, 8600GTS, GT 220
Desktop only: HD 5450, G210, etc.

SonDa5 said:
HD4770 will probably work. HD5770 mabey. I have access to both of these used but in good condition. PM me if you are interested.
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C'mon man...
 
Last edited:
XacTactX said:
...especially for your application.
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He never mentioned the application. If its for 2d applications or basic internet usage, upgrading isn't going to be worth it. There is pretty much no difference between a top of the line HD6990 and onboard video in terms of picture quality for 2d. For gaming, the 6670 is actually the best value in its price range. I can't think of another card that doesn't require an external power source and performs as well. If your daughter only plays older games, look into a 6450 or 5450, they both can be had for less than $50 brand new.

HD4770 will probably work. HD5770 mabey. I have access to both of these used but in good condition. PM me if you are interested.
Click to expand...

Both of these cards are very poor choices for a low power system. I don't even think your computer would power up with the 5770 and the 4770 would be cutting it REALLY close IF it worked at all.
 
lloose said:
He never mentioned the application. If its for 2d applications or basic internet usage, upgrading isn't going to be worth it.
Click to expand...

Good point.

OP, what is your daughter going to be doing with the rig?
 
Thanks.for the feedback so.far guys.. As far as the application.. Well nick+++++++ will likely be the main thing.. However she loves running around with my.toons in wow and.various other.games... This.is why i wanna give her the upgrade. As sge enjoys these things also some dvd' and watching videos... Although the.x400 should be abke to handle that..i just wanna give my 7yo as much fps in running around in games like wow and such.... Excuse my.grammar im posting.on my.phone
 
It really comes down to how much you want to spend.

~$50 will get you a 5450
~$60 will get you a 5570
~$100 will get you a 6670

For wow, at a lower resolution, a 5570 would be fine. I run the equivelent in my laptop and it plays wow very well at 1600x900.
 
OP, where is your preferred online location in terms of price?

What is your monitor's screen resolution?

If you buy a 5000 series card, make sure the lower end ones aren't DDR2 if you want to game. DDR2 cuts the card's bandwidth in half, it's not ideal. And usually, if you sift through the offerings at your retailer you'll find a DDR3 version for the same price as DDR2. I found a PowerCoor 5450 Green DDR3, the fanless kind, for $40 with a $20 MIR at Newegg. That's what I'd call a deal myself.
 
I have a 5670 on my wife's computer, bus powered. I think that's about as powerful as you'll get for a bus-powered card.

We play lots of games on it, finished Portal 2 last week. Played OPF: DR, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Swat 4.
 
I have a 5670 on my wife's computer, bus powered. I think that's about as powerful as you'll get for a bus-powered card.
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The 6670 is the next generation of it. It has more shaders and is a little faster.
 
If you are on a budget then get the HD 5670 for around $75. If you can stretch your budget, then get the HD 6670 for around $100. The cost of a HD 6670 is 33% more than a HD 5670, but performance increase is about 10%. Therefore, you need to decide if spending an extra $25 is worth getting 10% better performance.
 
450 said:
Used HD4670.
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with a cheap old oem 300 and possibly even 250 watt psu? not a good idea plus with a single core cpu and 1gb of ram he might as well get the lowest power consuming card he can since its obviously just for casual use.

OP, why dont you make sure what the power supply actually is instead of just guessing? most of those old HP comps with single core Athlons had 250 watt psus. plus whatever is in there is very cheaply made and quite old by now so it will not even come close to making what was already overrated power. tbh you should probably just stick with the onboard graphic because I doubt gaming even factors in.
 
Ya ur right... Il get to my.workshop at some point today and see what the psu actually says.. Good suggestions so far guys and like a lot of people said.. Very casual since she is 7.. As far as monitor.. I have a 19" lg lcd laying around here somewere
 
K at the shop.. Finishe cleaning it all out... Holy dust... Its a hypro 300w psu... Lucky tgere I guess.. While im at it the pc is a hp a1130n... I put all the cables together for slight cable management.. About all u can do in this thing.. I dont see any 6pins.. So it would have to be powered by the bus
 
those cheap hi pro psus are junk and overrated even when new so after 5+ years it probably can barely handle half its rated load. its a single core cpu and 1gb of memory so why even bother upgrading from onborad video for a 7 year old kid's computer?
 
cannondale06 said:
those cheap hi pro psus are junk and overrated even when new so after 5+ years it probably can barely handle half its rated load. its a single core cpu and 1gb of memory so why even bother upgrading from onborad video for a 7 year old kid's computer?
Click to expand...

All things considered, pretty much this.
 
cannondale06 said:
those cheap hi pro psus are junk and overrated even when new so after 5+ years it probably can barely handle half its rated load. its a single core cpu and 1gb of memory so why even bother upgrading from onborad video for a 7 year old kid's computer?
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Good point. I initially said the HD4670 because you can get them pretty cheap used, and it might be nice to have for future upgrades, but when she's only 7, eh. Core 2 Quad stuff which is already ancient, will be dirt cheap by the time she's 10.
 
As per original posts.. I got the thing running wow.. Cause she like running around on my toons and such and looking at the enviroments and random critters in game... Its getting like 10fps.. Id like to see if getting a low power card can get her more for 3d rendering... I know wow is cpu intensive if anything.. But if this will get her to 20 or so fps.. It would do.. And I dont have to have her try to take over my main rig from time to time...

Its either gonna bump up the fps for $40to $60 bucks or its not gonna help at all... If its the latter then its a simple return to the retailer
 
And exactly lije u just said... I dont know were her interests will be in a year or 2.. Hell even 6 months from now... If she gets into gaming like I did.... Its a good excuse to gove her my main rig next year or the year after and I can get ivy bridge or whatever is after ivy bridge... Heh maybe amd will be the best at that point... Doubt it but u never know...
 
OK in that price range, a 5570 with DDR3 for $50, I think will be good. Most importantly, it will have DX11.

Honestly, if you upgraded the PSU to something like a CX430 or VX450 during a deal and got a card off here for $30 like a 9600GT (which I've sold) it would be a good investment in the long run, but if you opt to save the money now that's fine too.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_6790_IceQ_X_Turbo/25.html

TPU says that it consumes ~35 watts on average in 3DMark at 1280, which is probably the highest load you'll realistically ever see while using it. It only uses 8 watts in desktop and 15 watts accelerating Blu-Ray, which is more intensive than Flash. What do you all think?
 
Revdarian said:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-directx-11-performance,2793-4.html

Well that is a small comparison of some cards in wow at the moment.

For cpu and ram i would recommend to try and just diminish how far everything can be seen, set it at good or one below good (fair?), should help quite a bit to diminish the hit on those two fronts.
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HD4770 is a great card and like I posted earlier I put one in a Dell cheapy desktop with a cheap stock PSU and it works fine.


Used HD4770 would be a good choice IMO.
 
SonDa5 said:
HD4770 is a great card and like I posted earlier I put one in a Dell cheapy desktop with a cheap stock PSU and it works fine.


Used HD4770 would be a good choice IMO.
Click to expand...
no way would the 4770 be safe with a 5+ year old hi pro psu. honestly about 5-6 years is usually what those psus make it to even without having a video card to power.
 
Talked to a friend today that does it work.for verizon in one of theyre corporate offices since I knew he had a garage full of parts hes keept that they a. Didnt need or b. Were gonna be tossed.. So I called him since.most.people thought the psu would be an issue (vzw doesnt really have a need for gpu's so didnt.call him about that) anyways if the psu cant handle.it or dies soon on this rig he said he would throw me.one... Also alot of people think the psu in this old machine might have.lived its life... This machine was used for about 4 months in the past before I.got into building.my.own rigs due to wanting bigger!! Better! Lol so it actually might not have an issue for quite some time
 
Oh with that said im problably gonna try a 4770 and see what it does.. Thanks.for all the replies and reccomendations
 
that 4770 is still going to really tax that old cheap psu. parts age a bit even if they are not used too. not to mention a single core cpu is only going to give you about half of what the 4770 can do anyway. and again make sure you get more ram because 1gb will not cut it at all.
 
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