Best card to pair with athlon II x2 240

[fragmental]

I have a compaq with an athlon II x2 240 and 3 gb of memory

Right now it has integrated video only, but I've bought a good corsair 430w psu for it and I plan to put a new video card in it.

I was using the tomshardware http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html "best graphics cards for the money" article to try to decide which one to get, but I don't know how fast of a graphics card I can get before I start getting bottlenecks from the system memory or the processor.

Ideally I would build a new pc, but I don't know when I will be able to afford to do that. In the mean time I would like to upgrade what I have to play the latest games at 1920x1080 resolution, if possible.

 

[lavaheadache]

Gaming comfortably at 1920x1080 isn't really a reality for your set up. Unless you are going to upgrade the rest of your sytem its hard to recommend a card since anything I could recommend would be contingent on your system.

 

[fragmental]

The system can only handle a total of 4gb of memory, so there's not much point in sinking a lot of money into upgrading the cpu.

 

[tweakboy]

Grab a 460 1GB for 120 bucks or less OR buy a 9800GT if your on budget, that you can have for 40 bucks.

Now ATI boys can tell you your options with ATI . But with that CPU I would only buy those 2 cards I mentioned. gl

 

[lavaheadache]

There really isn't a viable cpu for that socket anyways.

 

[lavaheadache]

If you were close to microcenter you could pull off a fairly decent hyper threading I3 barebones for $200

 

[DooKey]

AMD 7750 is probably your best bet. Your cpu will bottleneck it, but it will still perform much better than your integrated graphics.

 

[Leyawiin]

AMD 7750 is probably your best bet. Your cpu will bottleneck it, but it will still perform much better than your integrated graphics.

This is my thought (maybe an HD 7770). He may not be able to play the latest games full on @ 1080p, but it would be infinitely better than IGP. Considering he doesn't have any dedicated graphics card at the moment I think it would be $90-120 well spent.

 

[fragmental]

At first, I was looking at the gtx 650 ti, but I thought that might be over kill.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[CRCSUX]

I have a X2 245 and 2gb ram + 4890 vapor X.
Cpu bottlenecks most of the time.

I try run most games @ 1080p, D3 was playable.
The witcher 2 was not (1/2 frame per sec).
CSS/CSGO, sweet frames.
2 worlds 2, very playable too.
Sorry I dont have any more modern games to try out.
I could install modern borefare 3 and test it if you want.

 

[daveybrat]

I'd go with this:

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-D...rds=gtx+650+ti

EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1024MB GDDR5 128bit, Dual Dual-Link DVI, Mini HDMI, Graphics Card (01G-P4-3650-KR) Graphics Cards 01G-P4-3650-KR

You'll still be cpu bottlenecked a little, but the 650 card consumes very little power and should work well with your system until you do a complete upgrade later on.

 

[DominionSeraph]

6770 for $70 is going to be your best bet outside the used market:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...904&CatId=7005

It's as fast as a GDDR5 7750, the cheapest of which is $86 after a $20 rebate.

If you're looking for something to grow into, get this 7870 for $195 after rebate with free Farcry 3:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202010

 

[DominionSeraph]

I'd go with this:

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-D...rds=gtx+650+ti

The overclocked version is $10 cheaper after rebate ($10 more before), with Assassin's Creed 3:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130839

1071MHz vs 928MHz says it's probably a higher binned chip.

 

[VirtualLarry]

6770 for $70 is going to be your best bet outside the used market:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...904&CatId=7005

It's as fast as a GDDR5 7750, the cheapest of which is $86 after a $20 rebate.

I would do this.

 

[jacktesterson]

7750

 

[DominionSeraph]

7750

Why?

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/538?vs=535

 

[Blitzvogel]

Why?

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/538?vs=535

Newer, more modern DX11 performance, no PCI-E power connector required.

And if the OP is on a super tight budget, an upgrade to an Athlon II x4 ($75) or Phenom II x4 would do wonders, and make every game under the sun playable.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Newer, more modern DX11 performance, no PCI-E power connector required.

DX11 performance is DX11 performance. There is no "more modern." 5-dimensional output, time travel, or universal health care isn't a part of the DX11 standard.

He has a CX430. Guess what that has? A PCI-E power connector. He doesn't win points by leaving it unconnected.
5770/6770 is a pretty low power part itself.

And if the OP is on a super tight budget, an upgrade to an Athlon II x4 ($75) or Phenom II x4 would do wonders, and make every game under the sun playable.

I would not suggest an Athlon II X4. Most games are going to be limited by the single-threaded performance, so that's no upgrade at all.
Phenom is probably not going to be supported by his motherboard. It would probably be limited to 95W anyway, and good luck finding one of those.
If he has a CQ5320F, it does look like it supports 95W Phenom II's: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01925534&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=4107708#N95
He could make an offer on one of these:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2291099&highlight=phenom
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2292047&highlight=phenom
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2288019&highlight=phenom

 

[Jimzz]

I also would go 7750/7770. Low power and newwer core.

You can get them pretty cheap after rebate.

 

[fragmental]

DX11 performance is DX11 performance. There is no "more modern." 5-dimensional output, time travel, or universal health care isn't a part of the DX11 standard.

He has a CX430. Guess what that has? A PCI-E power connector. He doesn't win points by leaving it unconnected.
5770/6770 is a pretty low power part itself.




I would not suggest an Athlon II X4. Most games are going to be limited by the single-threaded performance, so that's no upgrade at all.
Phenom is probably not going to be supported by his motherboard. It would probably be limited to 95W anyway, and good luck finding one of those.
If he has a CQ5320F, it does look like it supports 95W Phenom II's: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01925534&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=4107708#N95
He could make an offer on one of these:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2291099&highlight=phenom
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2292047&highlight=phenom
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2288019&highlight=phenom

Right, right. I have a cx430 and a cq5320f. I would have mentioned that, but I didn't know if it was relevant. Also, the links to forum posts don't work for me. They say I don't have permission.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Also, the links to forum posts don't work for me. They say I don't have permission.

Oh, you need something like 10 or 25 posts to see the For Sale/Trade forum. Those were links to forum members with Phenom II X4 945's/ Phenom II X3 720's for sale.

 

[Blitzvogel]

DX11 performance is DX11 performance. There is no "more modern." 5-dimensional output, time travel, or universal health care isn't a part of the DX11 standard.

Bring tessellation into the mix, and Cape Verde will generally beat Juniper hands down.

I would not suggest an Athlon II X4.

Athlon II x4's are not that bad. While I never got a chance to run BF3 on one, a computer I used to have with one did just about as well as my Phenom II x4 in GTA4 and Metro 2033. Any real single thread performance gain requires switching to an Intel CPU which of course means spending more $$$$$. Athlon II x4s are still handy little budget processors.

 

[fragmental]

Thank you for all the suggestions so far. Everyone has been very helpful.

The 6670 is a really tempting offer.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...904&CatId=7005

I looked at a lot of 7750 and 7770.

But, I'm thinking about getting this card. A 650ti

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

It's overpowered for my system, as it is ,and I don't know if I'll buy a new cpu. Best cpu upgrade on newegg is $100. Maybe I'll have to post on this forum more so I can check out the for sale/trade forum(I guess I could split longer posts up into short posts, but that seems kind of lame).

The main reason I'm thinking about buying this card is that I think I want to play with gpgpu rendering. I didn't mention anything about gpgpu rendering before because it wasn't something I was thinking about at the time. I work in 3d sometimes, and the more I thought about gpgpu rendering the more I decided I really want to try it. From what I've read, cuda is much better supported in 3d rendering software. The 650ti seems to have a pretty decent number of cuda cores as well. I doubt I'll use it much, and I'll probably just be bitter later about spending $40-100 more on features that I never use. It also comes with ac3 which probably won't run great on my computer, but it will be nice to have.

The rebate offer expires tomorrow so I will have to buy it by then if I want the $30 rebate. That's the main reason I'm looking at this 650ti in particular, but also because it is supposed to be pretty quiet.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Bring tessellation into the mix, and Cape Verde will generally beat Juniper hands down.

He has an Athlon II X2. Name a title where this would be relevant. We're not debating 5870 vs 7850 to go with an i5 3570k here. An X2 would hold back a 8800GT.
Even if he can afford both a processor upgrade and a 7750, it's still highly debatable whether the 7750 is worth the $17 premium (and hassle of rebate to not make it $37), because performance-wise that's really all we're talking about. I'm running a Phenom II X4 and a 6770 and never once have I said to myself, "You know what this needs more of? Tessellation performance."
Before this I was running a 2.6GHz Athlon 64 X2 with a 9600GT, and you know what I never said to myself? "This graphics card is holding me back."

Athlon II x4's are not that bad. While I never got a chance to run BF3 on one, a computer I used to have with one did just about as well as my Phenom II x4 in GTA4 and Metro 2033.

The problem was he already has an Athlon II X2 and an apparently very limited budget, so going off into an X4 which will only give him a performance gain in games that use 3+ cores is dumping quite a bit of money for only occasional gains. He'd be better off putting that ~$75 towards a $150 FX6300 + mobo than only adding moar cores. The Phenom II, OTOH, not only has the cores but the cache. While not everything is cache starved on an Athlon, enough things are to make the Phenom a significant upgrade.

 

[Blitzvogel]

The 7750 and an Athlon II x4 would give him some legs for a while. Your FX6100 idea is a horrendous one at best because ironically it's pushing towards the "moar cores" aspect you seemingly want to avoid, but we all know that the individual Bulldozer cores in each module suffer from worse IPC than the individual Stars cores in an Athlon II or Phenom II CPU. If a Phenom II x4 is marginally more expensive than the Athlon II x4, I'd say go for it, but if it's more than $20 or so, the lack of the L3 cache isn't going to hurt as much as you'd assume. In fact, it was pretty well proven that losing the L3 cache didn't effect the performance as much as expected compared to the Phenom IIs.

His best fix is just to go with an Intel i3 system, but obviously that will cost quite a bit compared to just dropping in the Athlon II x4 and 7750. They are cost effective upgrades to his current situation. I also don't think the Athlon II x2 would bottleneck the 7750 in the manner you expect. The 7750 would be bottlenecked at 1080p + AA + high AF in many titles before the Athlon II x2 would.