GPU upgrade for (ancient) motherboard

[sniper7137]

I'm planning to buy a new GPU for my aged Gigabyte 945p-ds3 motherboard (its last BIOS update was in 2008).
It supports pci-e 1.1 x16. Its supposed to carry me over until I get a completely new system. Could anyone give me a suggestion for a DX11.1 graphics card that could run fine with this board.
I thought about an amd 7770 but people have reported trouble getting it to run on pcie 1.1 supporting boards.
Ideally I want a card that could run games like AC4, upcoming AC5, Crysis 3 at medium to high settings @720p without being overly power hungry.

Any suggestions?

 

[toyota]

cpu? memory? os? 32 or 64 bit? you have core 2 duo at best so you can forget about playing those games smoothly.

 

[sniper7137]

Core 2 Duo E 6400. I've got 4GB RAM and 64 bit Windows 7 installed. Please note that I'm not interested in going beyond a 1280x720 resolution (I'll settle for less if push comes to shove) and I'm OK with toning down the AA and AF settings. Basically this card is supposed to let me *just* play the new games while I save up for a total overhaul.

 

[toyota]

you can lower every setting to the lowest and none of those games are going to play smoothly on a Core 2 Duo E6400. you are at least 4 years overdue for an upgrade so if you cant do it now then it looks like never.

 

[sniper7137]

AC4 sample from YouTube (E6850 C2D + HD 5450). I've seen similar videos for Crysis3, Watchdogs and others.

 

[toyota]

a 6850 is slow but even that cpu is 50% faster than yours. and playing AC 4 with an ATI 5450? lol ok.

you clearly dont want to hear the truth so go ahead and waste your money trying to play demanding games.

 

[ShintaiDK]

GPUs should work fine with 1.1. If you worry about power consumption in relation to performance. Maybe look at the GTX750/GTX750Ti.

Are you getting the HD7770 cheaper than it is on Newegg? Else its an obsolete product. And you can more or less buy a HD7850/R series for example for the same price.

 

[RussianSensation]

That CPU can overclock to 3.2-3.4 Ghz. Get a $30 cooler and overclock the CPU. Then try to find a 750Ti for $120-125. if the experience is not satisfactory, you will have to upgrade the CPU platform. This way, you can reuse the CPU cooler and GPU just in case E6400 @ 3.4Ghz doesn't meet your desired fps.

 

[sniper7137]

@ShintaiDK @RussianSensation
What I'm worried about is whether the board itself will have compatibility issues due to an out of date BIOS. Because I've come across several cases of people not being able to run 3.0 cards on old 1.1 mobos (the most recent bios update for my board was back in 2008). The new cards such as the GTX 750 Ti or R7 260x would be my first choice.

And I was indeed intending to do some overclocking to get a little more juice out of the CPU

 

[ShintaiDK]

Well, you could also consider a total upgrade to a modern platform. Ypu can always start with a Celeron Haswell thats a good upgrade to any C2D, OC or not.

Ofcourse its more $$$. But your old platform isnt getting any younger either.

 

[sniper7137]

I'm planning to do the upgrade in phases as I can't dish out $600 for a modern rig all in one go. Right now I was thinking about getting a GPU that could work with my current set up as well as the new one. But if that is out of the question, then I guess a few months of patience are in order

 

[RussianSensation]

If the GPU doesn't work, you can return it to the store and just say it is not compatible with my motherboard. This is not actually fraud by any means. There are cases where modern cards aren't compatible with X58 chipset. It happens sometimes that a GPU could be incompatible with certain boards.

 

[sniper7137]

@RussianSensation @ShintaiDK thanks guys. Much appreciated

 

[toyota]

even at 3.2 you will not play those demanding games smoothly on that old Core 2 duo. I got rid of an E8500 at 3.8 over three years ago because it was no longer sufficient for most games I was playing then. your cpu even at 3.2 will be quite a bit slower and the games you are wanting to play are much more demanding than ones back then. I guess you will see for yourself though.

 

[sniper7137]

@toyota I have taken your advice pretty seriously and done my research. There are videos all over YouTube. And like I said. I'm ok with *just* playing them. Nothing fancy. And people are doing fine with slower cards and clock rates lower than 3.2 Ghz.

 

[VirtualLarry]

@toyota I have taken your advice pretty seriously and done my research. There are videos all over YouTube. And like I said. I'm ok with *just* playing them. Nothing fancy. And people are doing fine with slower cards and clock rates lower than 3.2 Ghz.

I've got one word for you - "slideshow".

 

[NTMBK]

I have an HD7770 on an AM2 PCIe 1.1 board, and it works alright.

 

[Techhog]

Just save up for a full system upgrade. You really need it.

 

[mirageracerx]

my buddy was piecing together a new system and put his r9 280 on his old quad core2duo setup. i thought it would be bottlenecked by the cpu so badly, but in the end he was able to play titanfall on ultra settings. *shrugs*

 

[mistersprinkles]

That CPU can overclock to 3.2-3.4 Ghz.

I got my E6550 up to 4Ghz.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=670304&highlight=fast+conroe

 

[wilds]

Games that have really good multithreading support like Titanfall can be smooth with a relatively low clock speed.

How does Core 2 Duo perform with Mantle support? If you OC your CPU and get a R9 265 or 750 ti, it should be a pretty good combo except for games that are single-threaded bound.

I'd personally get a cheap aftermarket cooler, r7 250x, and then see how long it can last. 720p gaming kinda sucks imo.

 

[tweakboy]

Why upgrading to junk on top of junk you have you get nothing. Time for a higher model of Intel or AMD. like quad 4 + threads 8 core

4670k cpu and rest you can choose or us help you get.. gg gl

 

[sniper7137]

@ZGR alright, say I do get an R7 250X and the cooler, the real question is. Will this graphics card, a PCI-E 3.0, work with my PCI-E 1.1 compatible motherboard?

And this 720p thing is just for a few months while I make the dough for a full upgrade!

 

[wilds]

@ZGR alright, say I do get an R7 250X and the cooler, the real question is. Will this graphics card, a PCI-E 3.0, work with my PCI-E 1.1 compatible motherboard?

And this 720p thing is just for a few months while I make the dough for a full upgrade!

I can't say with confidence how saturated the GPU will be with PCI-E 1.1
Heck, even an older 5000/6000 series or 400/500 series could be plenty fast.

Maybe for you, a cheap dGPU from craigslist or ebay would be better. Since you do plan on upgrading in a few months, used electronics aren't a bad idea!

 

[sniper7137]

It isn't the saturation that I'm worried about, its the blue screen or complete non-detection that some people report with older PCI-E motherboards. I've done some research and my heart is set on getting an R7 250 since it will be a massive step up from my... 8600GT. And it consumes only 65 Watts.