Compatibility of modern graphic card with 3 yr old AM2 motherboard

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loosescrews

Junior Member
Apr 26, 2008
2
0
0
Hello friends,

It's my first time posting here. I have a small query, here is my existing system spec :

AMD Athlon X2 3600+ (running 2GHz stock)
Asus M2N-MX Socket AM2 (Geforce 6100 onboard and nForce430 southbridge)
2 GB RAM
450 W Generic SMPS

I know it is an antique by present standards. Just planning on upgrading the onboard graphics to something better.

PCI-E slot on my board is Version 1. Which Graphic card would be the best for 1366x768 gaming (Metro, Stalker:Call of Pripyat, Crysis series, Fall Out:New Vegas, Starcraft 2) ?
I won't be upgrading my screen for quite sometime. Which PCI-E 2 card would be most suitable for my system without the CPU being the bottleneck ?

Some of my choices are Radeon 4670, 5670 or the upcoming 6600 or 6700 series as none of these cards would warrant a power supply upgrade.

Thanks.
 
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cyrusfox

Member
Jun 12, 2010
91
0
66
your right on track with GPU's, I put a Geforce 250 in my Athlon X2 4400+ but I have an aftermarket PSU in there. You should be fine with any of the cards you listed. Either a Geforce 240, A radeon 5670 or one of the new Turks Radeon 6570 or 6670 I think is the way to go. CPU will always be a bottle neck for you unfortunately until you upgrade cpu. But its ok to have a bottle neck in the CPU, that means your getting the max performance out of it. I say go with one of the Radeons, higher the better, that way when you do upgrade(to like a cheap am3 board and cheap quad am3 chip), you can just carry the card across.

If you need single slot I recommend this card
If space isn't an issue in your case, this is cheaper
and if you need half height

SC2 is really CPU dependent most of the time, I went from a 5570 to a 5770 to a 6850 with a Phenom ii x4 965, and framerates are about the same across the line. I OC the Phenom to 4ghz, and the northbridge. Turns out if you want good FPS in all scenarios with SC2(4v4) you need to go intel, bummer. I'll just wait for BD i guess.
 
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cyrusfox

Member
Jun 12, 2010
91
0
66
tweakboy said:
For your config.. just get a 8800 GT or 9800 GT

45 dollars

thx
Click to expand...

Questionable if his PSU can handle that card. Don't believe he has any PCI-e 6 pin, and while he could use a molex adapter, depends on how much faith he has in his PSU. The 8800/9800 GT consumes 125W. The Radeon 6670 consumes 64W . Half the power for nearly identical performance(5670 wins some, loses others)

Its also nice to have a card with HDMI, I have a dead 8800gts, that card was just recycled too much, I think anyone buying a new card without a good PSU should avoid it.
 
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Vette73

Lifer
Jul 5, 2000
21,503
8
0
The 2 cards I listed do not use extra power other than what they get from the PCIe port and should work with a smaller PS.

The GT240 DDR5 I have in my HTPC
 
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loosescrews

Junior Member
Apr 26, 2008
2
0
0
Thanks everybody for your feedback.

It sucks to be in India for computer equipment. I wish retailers had newegg prices here. I asked around for a 5670 and the cheapest rate I could find was about Rs. 7000/- ie.,about US $159 at Rs.44 per $. :(

Waiting to see the performance improvements of the new Radeon 6570 and 6670 compared to the 5670.
The MSI R5670-PD512 Radeon HD 5670 512MB half height card looks good for transferring to a nice low profile HTPC case later on.

I don't think my power supply will be stable enough for a GeForce 9800GT.

Well I guess I have to find someone coming back from US to get myself one. :p
 
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