Advice on Upgrading Integrated Graphics (760g Motherboard)

[FitzGerald]

Hello All,
Long time registered lurker, but not as frequent of a poster here. I am looking for advice as far as upgrading from my integrated graphics. My 6-year old son has 2 games he wants to play, "Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars" and "Cars 2: The Video Game".

Here are computer specs, it never occurred to me I would need to transform my budget web-surfing, word processing, computer into a gaming rig.
PSU: Seasonic 300W Fanless
Motherboard: Asus M4A78LT-M, AM3 760g (I have no idea why it's not called M4A76 as in 760g)
CPU: Athlon 2, X2, 250 Regor (stock 3.0 Ghz)
Video Card: None
Hard Drive: 500 GB Seagate, 7200 RPM SATA
Case: Cooler Master Elite 343, Mini-Tower.

The minimum requirements for Cars 2 (looks like the most stressing) is: 256 MB (Radeon X800 or Nvidia FX 6600), and the box claims it requires dedicated video card. I don't care about gaming at 1080p.

I'm not averse to going with a used video card. I'd like to keep the budget more around the $50 range, if possible. Reading forums, system guides and left to my own devices I'd probably get a new 6670... not even sure if my PSU supports it.

I do have a Gigabyte 7300 GT leftover from my old computer. It never occurred to me that I'd be putting that into my new build, but apparently it does perform better than the IGP I've got now.

 

[Cerb]

If it is a dual-channel 7300GT, give it a whirl, and see. It can't hurt. If not, a 6670 or so aught to do the job. If you aren't overclocking, and you have a dedicated case exhaust (to make up for the fanless property of the PSU), your PSU should be fine.

Nvidia FX 6600

Its minimum requirements include a video card that doesn't exist?

Asus M4A78LT-M, AM3 760g (I have no idea why it's not called M4A76 as in 760g)

It's called that because it has a 780L. Before AMD decided that the name 760G was so last year, Asus sold them starting with M4A76.

 

[FitzGerald]

Cerb,
Thanks for the response; turned out to be good advice. I'm able to run Lego Star Wars 3 at 1024x768 on low settings. Cars 2 also runs, but at some point in the game the screen just freezes... so it does appear that integrated graphics aren't working.

I'm going to resurrect the 7300 GT and see how it goes. I do need to add a bit more cooling and air flow into the case. If I'm not happy with that, it does appear that there are a number of online sources I can get Radeon HD 48xx or 38xx for $50 (4000 series) or less, which is within my budget and the used market.

 

[KingFatty]

You can get an idea on the performance level of the various older graphics cards here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-radeon-hd-6870-geforce-gtx-570,2834-7.html

Looks like the integrated motherboard graphics are more than a couple tiers below the GPUs recommended by the games. A general advice when it comes to the chart is that it's not really worth upgrading your graphics unless you move 3 or more tiers on the chart, as less than that is not very noticeable.

The 7300 GT DDR3 is on the same tier of performance as the X800 discrete card and 2 tiers above the 6600. But the 7300 GT DDR2 is below the X800. however, perhaps that game gets a performance boost when running NVidia cards, so you should be OK regardless of the memory type in your 7300 GT.

 

[blckgrffn]

If you do decide to upgrade, I have been very happy with the 6570 running in my work box. Folding all day long (~97% GPU utilization), the fan stays 15%, temps stay under 55c, it is very good about power utilization and I was able to get it for $40 AMIR. I would use it even in a case with little airflow - which is what I am doing

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102934 <--that's the one...

As a bonus, it should play every casual game you need it to for the next five years

I had a 7300GT DDR3 passively cooled, good little card. It lives on in my mom's PC back at the farm... compared to your onboard graphics, I believe that guy is going to be a beast.

 

[FitzGerald]

6 month plus bump and update.
This week I jumped and purchased a Gigabyte AMD Radeon 6670 (DDR3), for $50 after rebate. Was able to go for so long because my son was enjoying the games (except Cars 2 was crashing).

Lego Star Wars III looks awesome... felt like we were playing the game on a PS3.
Cars 2 graphics; even though I set them higher were not that impressive. Additionally the game was still crashing... so it may actually run on a 760g chipset.

I'm going to reinstall Cars 2 and see how it goes... but that's another story.