I need a new video card please help.

[nx02nx02]

Hi. I was hoping I could get some help with getting a new video card for this computer.

Asus A8NVM mobo pci-e (not pci express 2.0)
400 watt power supply with 28A on 12+ rail (I think)
The power supply doesn't have a 6 pin pci-e power connector


So I want to get the very best card I can get for $80 or less
That will work on this mobo and power supply.




(Another thing, is it ok to put a PCI-E 2.0 card in this old motherboard?
This motherboard isn't PCI-E 2.0)


Thanks for the help.

 

[jjmIII]

Apollo AP-HD4670 256MB Radeon HD 4670.

The one I got was a 512mb...

 

[Marty502]

No problems with putting a PCI-E 2.0 card in a 1.0 slot. You won't miss a thing.

Also, without a 6 pin power connector, a Radeon 4670 is the best you can get by now.

 

[nx02nx02]

Thanks for the replies and information.

I have 1 more question about my power supply.

My power supply doesn't have a 6 pin pci-e connector but it seems that alot of cards come with the
adapter.

on newegg it says this on the specs of some of the cards:

An available 6 pin PCI-E power connector (hard drive power dongle to PCI-E 6 pin adapter included with card)


So my question is, is it safe and reliable to use this adapter? Your putting 4 pins into 6 and I thought the real pci-e cable on the higher
end PSU's send more power then a hard drive power dongle??

So wouldn't this adapter under power the card?

 

[brblx]

the adapers should use two 4 pin molex to one 6 pin pcie. if you tap from two different cables on the psu, there won't be a problem. if you split off the same 'artery' you'll probably be forcing all that current through two (three?) wires at some point. this is unlikely to matter, however, as that connector is for 75w max and i don't see 6a tops lighting decent guage wire on fire. just keep in mind that the more devices you have on one strand, the more likely you are to see voltage drop (bad).

i would buy a 4850 or 4770. the power difference is unlikely to matter but the latter would of course be slightly more desireable. i see no problems with a 4850 if your psu is a quality unit that does rated power. you could also go for a 4830 if you must have it under $80, but the other two cards are worth it.

also, no has asked what your processor is. if it's not at least in the 2ghz+ dual core range, it could be of some hindrance.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

What processor are you using? What is the PSU brand?

 

[evolucion8]

400W PSU of a good brand still a little too unsafe to run a HD 4870 or a HD 4850. You can get the HD 4770 which is not power hungry and runs quite close to the HD 4850 in performance.

 

[nx02nx02]

The CPU is a Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4 ghz and the computer has 1 gig of ram in it but I will probably upgrade it to 2 gigs soon.

Thanks for the information about the adapters.
That makes sense about the two different cables going into 1 6 pin pci-e cable.



This computer used to have a 7600GT in it but it quit working about a week ago.
I kind of want a faster card then the 7600GT but without replacing the power supply or mobo.


Thanks again for all the help everyone.

 

[nx02nx02]

I think it's a cheaper power supply. It ran the 7600GT good and it does say on it it has 28A on the 12+ rail.

The brand is Turbolink.

 

[yh125d]

a 4670 sounds perfect for you, and will be leaps and bounds ahead of the 7600GT. Just don't buy the apollo brand though. Go with something from HIS/sapphire/powercolor/asus/gigabyte (aka, brands which use the amount of VRAM ATI intended the 4670 for)

 

[brblx]

i would look into a PSU upgrade, then. you might get by with a newer card, but i'd rather play it safe. a 400-500w psu of a quality brand (antec, seasonic, corsair, et al) should be plenty.

i'm not sure the 4670 would be that big of an upgrade, but it would probably work fine on your current psu.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: yh125d
a 4670 sounds perfect for you, and will be leaps and bounds ahead of the 7600GT. Just don't buy the apollo brand though. Go with something from HIS/sapphire/powercolor/asus/gigabyte (aka, brands which use the amount of VRAM ATI intended the 4670 for)

with a single core cpu he would barely get half of what a 4670 is capable of. sure the 4670 might be low end now but its way way faster than high end cards from 4 years ago when his cpu was decent.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: brblx
i would look into a PSU upgrade, then. you might get by with a newer card, but i'd rather play it safe. a 400-500w psu of a quality brand (antec, seasonic, corsair, et al) should be plenty.

i'm not sure the 4670 would be that big of an upgrade, but it would probably work fine on your current psu.

a 4670 if paired with a modern dual core cpu would be about 3-4 times faster than a 7600gt. sticking a 4670 in a system with a single core cpu isnt going to let that card hardly come close to its potential though. even in single threaded games his cpu is fairly slow clock for clocked compared to Core 2, Phenom 2 and such.

 

[lifeblood]

I'm running a 4830 with a 430W power supply and have seen no power related performance issue. You can get the 4830 for near $80 if your patient and wait for a sale. Even if you won't see a big performance jump with your current CPU, you will when you finally upgrade your mobo and CPU.

 

[yh125d]

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: yh125d
a 4670 sounds perfect for you, and will be leaps and bounds ahead of the 7600GT. Just don't buy the apollo brand though. Go with something from HIS/sapphire/powercolor/asus/gigabyte (aka, brands which use the amount of VRAM ATI intended the 4670 for)

with a single core cpu he would barely get half of what a 4670 is capable of. sure the 4670 might be low end now but its way way faster than high end cards from 4 years ago when his cpu was decent.

Whether his CPU is slow by todays standards or not doesn't really matter, I don't know why you felt the need to quote me.


Regardless, my old rig a few years ago was an AMD athlon 4000+ (damn near the same proc as the OP) paired with a 7600gt. When the 8800GTs came out I upgraded to one of those and even though my CPU was really bottlenecking my system, I still saw huge improvements in all my games, and the OP will too by moving to a modern GPU, even if he doesn't have a very fast CPU

 

[Leyawiin]

An HD 4650 would probably be a decent fit for you. Its better by far than a 7600 GT, its thrifty on power (gets all its power from the PCI-E slot) and its cheap. Considering how cheap GPUs are now why worry about an academic situation like how much your CPU is going to hold back a low powered, cheap modern GPU? Its only 50 bucks and you have to replace a dead card. I wouldn't go scrounging for another 7600 GT. At least with something like an HD 4650 you know you're getting all the FPS out of your system that the CPU can possibly support.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814131133

 

[nx02nx02]

Originally posted by: brblx
the adapers should use two 4 pin molex to one 6 pin pcie. if you tap from two different cables on the psu, there won't be a problem. if you split off the same 'artery' you'll probably be forcing all that current through two (three?) wires at some point. this is unlikely to matter, however, as that connector is for 75w max and i don't see 6a tops lighting decent guage wire on fire. just keep in mind that the more devices you have on one strand, the more likely you are to see voltage drop (bad).

I have another question about this im hoping you could help me with.
You mentioned that you should use 2 different cables from the power supply
and not split off the same 'artery'. what im wondering is, my power supply only has '2 arteries'
or cables with two 4 pin molex power connectors on each. So a total of two power cables and four molex connectors.

So if I were to connect the 6 pin pci-e adapter this way what is the proper way to connect the hard drive and dvd drive? Do I use the extra molex on each 'artery' for the hard drive and dvd drive? But if I did do it that way the video card would be forced to share power with the hard drive and dvd drive??

Is this the correct way to connect it or is there some other way?

In other words, what is the exact way the manufacturers want these 6pin pci-e adapters connected?


I sure appreciate any help. I just want to be sure im connecting everything the right way.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: nx02nx02
I have another question about this im hoping you could help me with.
You mentioned that you should use 2 different cables from the power supply
and not split off the same 'artery'. what im wondering is, my power supply only has '2 arteries'
or cables with two 4 pin molex power connectors on each. So a total of two power cables and four molex connectors.

So if I were to connect the 6 pin pci-e adapter this way what is the proper way to connect the hard drive and dvd drive? Do I use the extra molex on each 'artery' for the hard drive and dvd drive? But if I did do it that way the video card would be forced to share power with the hard drive and dvd drive??

Is this the correct way to connect it or is there some other way?

In other words, what is the exact way the manufacturers want these 6pin pci-e adapters connected?


I sure appreciate any help. I just want to be sure im connecting everything the right way.

You have the right idea. Just connect one of the PCI-E female molex connector to each "trunk" and use the leftover "trunk" molex male connectors to power your DVD and HD.

Do you know what the brand and model number of your power supply is? Also, what is the resolution you normally game at? Those two items can greatly influence what card people will recommend to you.

As long as your power supply is halfway decent, I would think you'd be fine with a 4850/4830/4770/4670. Techport did a fairly comprehensive review with a system equipped with a Core 2 Extreme QX9650 3.0 GHz, 2 GB memory and a 320 GB hard drive and various video cards. You can see here the entire system load power consumption max out at around 200w.

Personally, for $80 AR, I would go with this MSI 4830 OC.

It is MUCH faster than a 4670. It has a 5 phase power design instead of the 4 phase found on the reference design. This design should reduce overall temps of the power circuitry since there is one additional phase. In addition, this card features mostly solid state capacitors and chokes.

Here is a review of the Legit Reviews - MSI Radeon HD 4830 512MB OC video card review

 

[Leyawiin]

Originally posted by: Creig

Personally, for $80 AR, I would go with this MSI 4830 OC.

It is MUCH faster than a 4670. It has a 5 phase power design instead of the 4 phase found on the reference design. This design should reduce overall temps of the power circuitry since there is one additional phase. In addition, this card features mostly solid state capacitors and chokes.

Here is a review of the Legit Reviews - MSI Radeon HD 4830 512MB OC video card review

An older Athlon64 single core is all that's behind it - an HD 4650/HD 4670 is most likely going to produce the same FPS under those circumstances as the more expensive HD 4830. While I don't think you should buy an antiquated GPU just because its an old CPU, there's no reason to spend more than you have to (and with those two there's no worries about power supply connectors).

 

[jjmIII]

Originally posted by: yh125d
...Just don't buy the apollo brand though. Go with something from HIS/sapphire/powercolor/asus/gigabyte (aka, brands which use the amount of VRAM ATI intended the 4670 for)

The Apollo is one of two 4670's on Newegg with GDDR4...the rest are GDDR3. The Apollo is cheap, within his budget, low power, and although it will max his single-core....who cares! Who would buy a card to fit the needs of that old cpu? For the price, you can't go wrong with the card I linked .