Please recommend a video card....

A

Alvein

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 22, 2004
Messages
223
....that does not bottleneck this system:

P4 3GHz on Biostar P4M900-M4 (I think this MoBo is PCIe 1.0, but not sure).
2GB RAM.

Thanks. :)
 
The Biostar P4M900-M4 has a single PCI-E x16 Slot, so in theory you're free to put whatever you find in there. But a card that won't bottleneck your system with a P4? I use a P4 in combination with my AGP HD 3650 and performance improved notably compared to the 7600 GS I used to use. However, I think I am already bottlenecked with that card, but I don't know for sure (I don't think the power supply could handle an AGP HD 3850 anyway). I suggest you get a passively cooled Radeon HD 4650 at max - that P4 of yours won't let anything bigger appear useful ;)
 
15", 1024x768
PSU is OCZ StealthXStream, 500W

....

I don't know much about games. I don't play since two years ago, maybe.
I was offered a BFG 7600GT. Would it run fine? What kind of games could I run with that?
 
Alvein said:
15", 1024x768
PSU is OCZ StealthXStream, 500W

....

I don't know much about games. I don't play since two years ago, maybe.
I was offered a BFG 7600GT. Would it run fine? What kind of games could I run with that?
Click to expand...

Free 7600gt?

Take it, it matches the rest of your system and with that 15" monitor, 1024x768 and 800x600 won't be a huge difference in quality at all.

Otherwise, I would get something like this at most.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121320
 
Don't get that card; it delivers insufficient performance to play newer games even at that small resolution (I used to play with a massively overclocked 7600 GS at that resolution on a 15". New games were practically unplayable, Rainbow Six: Vegas for example...). You'll be fine with a GeForce 9500 GT or a cheap HD 4650 if you can find one; your power supply should be fine with that as well... :D

However, I would not recommend putting anything bigger in there as your P4 can't handle it anymore...
 
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Personally, at that monitor size and resolution, perhaps a monitor upgrade is a better investment? As much as I hate 16:9 TN monitors, there are 24" 1920x1080 (full 1080p) monitors regularly for around $200. :D
 
Hello,

Thanks for the answers. First of all, let me say that I'm not interested in buying a new monitor or so. I plan to keep this machine running the best it can, with no overkill of any kind. Thinking on upgrading the rest of the hardware is something to do in the near future, I hope, but not now.

So, now about my doubts:

I gather that having a P4 @ 3GHz isn't much of a problem to play current games and the point is about video card and resolution? Also, isn't there a way to know *for sure* if the CPU will bottleneck a given video card?

Now about the real deal, the games. I've been checking the minimum system requirements of some well known games I could be interested in. According to those, even with the 7600GT, I should be able to play with no problems. I'm not interested in max. details or so, and for me, medium specs @ 1024x768 (or even 800x600) with anything above 40-50FPS would be OK.

Clear Sky needs a P4 2GHz with a DX 8.0 card.
L4D, a P4 3GHz, with a 6600/9600 or greater card.
Crysis, anything above 2.8GHz with a 6800GT/9800Pro or greater.
F.E.A.R.2, P4 2.8GHz, 6800/x700 or greater.

Should I trust those requirements or that's bs and the games are unplayable with such configurations?

Thanks.
 
7600gt, 8400gs, or X1650pro would be my suggestions. I wouldn't expect any magic though.
 
my son plays Clear Sky with an 8600GT 1GB and it is very playable but he also has a E6600, Crysis will probably chew up your system something fierce...
 
Alvein said:
I gather that having a P4 @ 3GHz isn't much of a problem to play current games and the point is about video card and resolution? Also, isn't there a way to know *for sure* if the CPU will bottleneck a given video card?
Thanks.
Click to expand...

A 3ghz P4 will be a bottleneck in every game. 9500gt or 4650 would be the max. Anything above would be a waste. I would just see how far a 7600gt will get you, because I put my old 7800gt in a 3ghz p4 system and didn't care for it much on source games. It was playable but there was a huge difference of smoothness between the p4 and athlonx2 2.6ghz with the same video card, which is expected.
 
if you were offered a 7600GT, grab it! its free and if you find there is still some "chug" then look to another card. i would personally look to the cheapest 256-bit mem interfaced card i could get. heck even an old x1950Pro/GT or 7900GT/GS etc would be fine, and i see em for cheap in the FS section (25-40 bucks shipped is a nice deal from a good trader).

there are specs and facts regarding video performance to be sure. but there is also more than enough subjective opinion here as well. what i would find playable could be horrendous to someone else or the inverse be true. start with the 7600GT and play some games. its free and you have nothing to lose.
 
That P4 isn't going to run games well. Older ones will be okay but newer games will be too laggy to play. 500$ will net you a pretty decent computer these days and if you look for old IPS panel 20" monitors on ebay, you can get a reasonable non TN panel monitor for around 150$

As for the video card...I think just about every card will be a bottleneck for you so just get whatever.
Try looking at ebay for deals on the geforce 9600 or Radeon 4670 or something
 
Alvein said:
Hello,

Thanks for the answers. First of all, let me say that I'm not interested in buying a new monitor or so. I plan to keep this machine running the best it can, with no overkill of any kind. Thinking on upgrading the rest of the hardware is something to do in the near future, I hope, but not now.

So, now about my doubts:

I gather that having a P4 @ 3GHz isn't much of a problem to play current games and the point is about video card and resolution? Also, isn't there a way to know *for sure* if the CPU will bottleneck a given video card?

Now about the real deal, the games. I've been checking the minimum system requirements of some well known games I could be interested in. According to those, even with the 7600GT, I should be able to play with no problems. I'm not interested in max. details or so, and for me, medium specs @ 1024x768 (or even 800x600) with anything above 40-50FPS would be OK.

Clear Sky needs a P4 2GHz with a DX 8.0 card.
L4D, a P4 3GHz, with a 6600/9600 or greater card.
Crysis, anything above 2.8GHz with a 6800GT/9800Pro or greater.
F.E.A.R.2, P4 2.8GHz, 6800/x700 or greater.

Should I trust those requirements or that's bs and the games are unplayable with such configurations?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

At that kind of resolution, the P4 will bottleneck those games like hell. Anything over 7600GT would probably be a waste.
 
Hello again,

Just to be clear, the BFG 7600GT is not for free, but it's cheap because it's 2nd hand. In fact, the same guy is also has another card, an EVGA 8800GTS which I guess it should be a bit better.

However, I'm worried about stability and of course, performance. What kind of software (a small one, I hope) could I run to check for this, in case that I have a chance to check both cards?


Thanks. ;)
 
you can run any number of 3D benchmarking software to test performance and stability. however, there are caveats.

you will get more accurate assessments if you play the games you like. you can run a 3D Mark for instance (pick your flavor) in loop to test how stable your system is, and it would give you a ball park indication of performance. the numbers are not truly indicative of what you will experience in a specific game, but a range of where your system will perform in relation to DX9, DX10 or OpenGL etc as well as shader and pipeline through put.

i say get the 8800GTS and play! and play and play some more. :D

some games do have benchmark ability as well. some easily available as a download others thru the game itself.
 
Alvein said:
Hello,

Thanks for the answers. First of all, let me say that I'm not interested in buying a new monitor or so. I plan to keep this machine running the best it can, with no overkill of any kind. Thinking on upgrading the rest of the hardware is something to do in the near future, I hope, but not now.

So, now about my doubts:

I gather that having a P4 @ 3GHz isn't much of a problem to play current games and the point is about video card and resolution? Also, isn't there a way to know *for sure* if the CPU will bottleneck a given video card?

Now about the real deal, the games. I've been checking the minimum system requirements of some well known games I could be interested in. According to those, even with the 7600GT, I should be able to play with no problems. I'm not interested in max. details or so, and for me, medium specs @ 1024x768 (or even 800x600) with anything above 40-50FPS would be OK.

Clear Sky needs a P4 2GHz with a DX 8.0 card.
L4D, a P4 3GHz, with a 6600/9600 or greater card.
Crysis, anything above 2.8GHz with a 6800GT/9800Pro or greater.
F.E.A.R.2, P4 2.8GHz, 6800/x700 or greater.

Should I trust those requirements or that's bs and the games are unplayable with such configurations?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
now actually go play those games with the min requirements and tell me what you think. most of those dont even begin to look or more importantly play well until you meet the recommended requirements.

your cpu is super slow. not only is it slow because its single core its also ridiculously slow clock for clock compared to modern cpus. just ONE core of a Core 2 duo at 1.6 would run rings around that 3.0 P4. throw in the fact that most games utilize two cores and you are just asking for a bad experience in many new games.

a 9500gt is the absolute most I would get for a system with an old slow single core cpu. an 8800gts in that system would be beyond silly as you would not even get 50% of what that card could do in newer games because of your cpu.
 
Take it from someone who had it...

P4HT 3ghz
2GB DDR-400
Radeon 4850

And gameplay was utter crap. Yes it would hit 60 FPS in games I played... namely COD4 and GRID at the time... but the bottom would literally drop out of it, hitting the less than 15 FPS when things got frantic...

Turning down graphics settings did nothing really.

Made playing on my rig at the time inconsistant and frustrating. Even moving to a single core AMD 3500+ (running @ 2.75ghz) vastly improved gaming, tho at the expense of multitasking capability. I'm looking on Getting a Phenom II sometime in the future to rectify that issue tho.

Seriously...You'll still see GFX performance issues with a 7600, but anything over a 9600GT or 4670 is overkill.
 
Get the 8800 that guys has for sell.
It will run any game now days and thats about the max for your PSU.
 
Asylum1 said:
Get the 8800 that guys has for sell.
It will run any game now days and thats about the max for your PSU.
Click to expand...
with a 3.0 P4 that would be a VERY stupid waste of money. surely you have enough sense to know that a video card alone isnt the only factor for playing games.
 
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