gtx 950 still worth it for an old system?

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edm

Senior member
Mar 7, 2000
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I know the gtx 950 is a generation behind the current crop of cards, and may soon be two gens behind, but I have a 10 year old "gaming" system in serious need of an overhaul. (I'm running a gtx 260, phenom x4 940 (at 3.4 and could probably do 3.6 ). 4 gigs of ram, and 120gb ssd.)

Unfortunately I can't afford to do a complete rebuild right now, and a video card will obviously give me the biggest boost.

So I can get a gtx 950 (evga's ftw gaming version) new for $120. Is this a good price? Looking around at some benches it compares to the 1050 vanilla, but that's still $150 or so. Is there any reason to spend the extra money on the 1050?, other than the slight performance increase? I assume my processor will bottleneck any performance increase anyway.

I understand I wont be able to play current AAA games with either card, but I have a lot or older titles I need to catch up on anyway. heck, I still haven't played the original crysis yet lol. And I'm only expecting 1080p as well.

Hopefully by next year ram prices will be lower and I can upgrade my mobo, cpu and ram as well.

Opinions?

thanks.
 
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alcoholbob

Diamond Member
May 24, 2005
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The original Crysis is no joke, even though it's 11 years old. In fact a $3000 Titan V can barely hit 60 average fps at 4K with the original Crysis.

The first game to actually hit a 60 fps average on Crysis 1 at 1080p was the Kepler GTX Titan, comparable to a GTX 1060.

A 1050 or 950 definitely isn't enough to hit 60fps at Crysis 1 at 1080p without turning some settings down.
 
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Insert_Nickname

Diamond Member
May 6, 2012
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One thing to consider for older systems is the 900-series has Vista/XP drivers. The 10-series does not.

If you're running 7 on it, no worries.
 
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SPBHM

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2012
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also the 1050 doesn't offer analog video output while the 950 does,
 
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scannall

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Jan 1, 2012
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Guru

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May 5, 2017
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With that system neither a GTX 950, nor GTX 1050, nor 1060 will do you much good. First of all 4GB of ram is just way too little for anything other than light browsing, watching movies and listening to music. Win10 by itself uses almost 2GB of ram, win7 is not that far behind with close to 1.5GB.

You won't even be able to start most modern games with only 4GB of ram, those that you can will stutter like crazy even on the lowest settings.

The Phenom is not THAT bad, but again its essentially an i5 750 equivalent. That processor is over 10 years old.

I think a GTX 1050 which you can find for around $130 will be your best bet, but don't expect miracles. You will have issues running most games on that system. Adding another 4GB of ram can alleviate a lot more of the performance issues with that system, but that is essentially all you can do to have about 35-40% better performance on that system.

Ultimately that CPU is going to bottleneck even a GTX 1050.
 
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happy medium

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
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Grab another 4gb stick of Ram and a used gtx960 4gb off eBay for about 125$.
Overclock your cpu as high as possible.

You should be able to play games at 1080p on high settings ,except a few of the most recent games .
 
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Headfoot

Diamond Member
Feb 28, 2008
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Yeah I was gonna post the same, you're gonna need at least 8GB of RAM. 4GB can't cut it. I'd still get the 1050, so that whenever you upgrade the CPU/MOBO/RAM platform, you get a nice boost on the 1050 by removing the bottleneck while only spending a little more than for a last gen 960.
 
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edm

Senior member
Mar 7, 2000
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Ok, appreciate the advice all. I went ahead and ordered 4 more gigs of ram. Found some for $20 bucks off ebay. I'll hold off on the 950 and will keep a look out for the 1050 or 1050 ti.

Thanks again.
 
happy medium

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
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Headfoot said:
Yeah I was gonna post the same, you're gonna need at least 8GB of RAM. 4GB can't cut it. I'd still get the 1050, so that whenever you upgrade the CPU/MOBO/RAM platform, you get a nice boost on the 1050 by removing the bottleneck while only spending a little more than for a last gen 960.
Click to expand...
Remember the gtx960 4gb is faster than a gtx1050 and cheaper.
Gtx960 4gb = gtx1050ti
 
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psolord

psolord

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Sep 16, 2009
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OP you can look at my signature for a test with my 970 on three older cpus. The oldest one was my Q9550@4Ghz which did not do too bad. Again with a GTX 970@1.5Ghz mind you. There are video links included so you can see how they actually run and how the results came to be.

Your Phenom X4 940 shouldn't be far behind, even lower clocked, especially with its integrated memory controller.

Keep in mind that the video ram is very important on systems with limited ram. It can be properly used and store up valuable game data, so your lesser ram even at 8GBs will be even less of an issue.

For me don't fear to get even a 1050Ti.
 
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Insert_Nickname

Diamond Member
May 6, 2012
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psolord said:
Your Phenom X4 940 shouldn't be far behind, even lower clocked, especially with its integrated memory controller.
Click to expand...

My old Athlon II X3 system + a GTX970* can run The Witcher 3 @ 1440p@30Hz with ultra detail flawlessly (minus hairworks), so there is definitely still some milage out of a Phenom II.

*don't ask... :D
 
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Spjut

Senior member
Apr 9, 2011
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Yeah a 1050 Ti and 8GB+ RAM would bring that PC from useless to fully ok for modern gaming. You could expect around 30 FPS for most games, in many cases similar to the original PS4.

The big problem Phenom II is facing right now though is that there have come a few games that won't even start due to requiring SSE4
 
PingSpike

PingSpike

Lifer
Feb 25, 2004
21,749
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SPBHM said:
this is one of the common "fakes" from China that people have been making videos and posts about,
look at the specifications, this is probably a GTS 450 or GTX 550 TI, with a modded bios
Click to expand...

How the mighty have fallen, newegg pedaling obvious fake product. I was not a fan when they introduced the marketplace.
 
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Insert_Nickname

Diamond Member
May 6, 2012
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ao_ika_red said:
I think Phenom already supports SSE4, it only lacks AVX.
Click to expand...

It supports SSE4. However it only supports the AMD specific SSE4a, not Intel SSE4.1/4.2. Support for the Intel variety was only introduced with Bulldozer.

This shouldn't be an issue for older games. They mostly run SSE2 code, and even old x87 occasionally.
 
ao_ika_red

ao_ika_red

Golden Member
Aug 11, 2016
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Insert_Nickname said:
It supports SSE4. However it only supports the AMD specific SSE4a, not Intel SSE4.1/4.2. Support for the Intel variety was only introduced with Bulldozer.

This shouldn't be an issue for older games. They mostly run SSE2 code, and even old x87 occasionally.
Click to expand...
Thanks for correction. Didn't notice that at first.
 
S

SPBHM

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2012
5,061
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it's interesting that the Athlon XP suffered with the lack of SSE2 before it was completely useless due to its speed for some games, maybe the same is happening with the Phenom II but with SSE4.1 being the problem
 
happy medium

happy medium

Lifer
Jun 8, 2003
14,387
480
126
dark zero said:
Found this on AliExpress for 180 dollars...
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/pr...228.html?spm=2114.12010608.0.0.4e956757ypcHF7

Now I am tempted... and thinking that I was coming from a Gigabyte GT1030

Maybe that would be a better deal?

And sorry to steal the thread, but the i5 2400 can support it without problems?
Click to expand...
A gtx1050ti is 2x faster than a $95 gt1030. $188 is not a bad price.
If you game at 1080p,I would buy the 1050ti. It would be good with an i5 2400.
 
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