Logicial upgrade from a 4830

[BUTCH1]

Hello all, I'm still clinging to 775 LOL as I just bought a xeon E5450 for $40, did the socket modification and it's running well, I am planning a mild OC to 3.6 but my real bottleneck it seems is the 4830. I'd like to stick with AMD because then I would avoid the dreaded driver uninstall LOL, any suggestions?. Oh, the PSU is an Antec Earthwatts 430, thanks in advance, Butch.

 

[Piroko]

What is your budget?

The most decent cards I would recommend are:
Below 200$ you might be able to find used 7970, HD280 or HD280x cards
At 200$ you can get a HD380 4GB.
At 220$ there's the HD380x 4GB.
Between that and the next one you might find used HD290s.
And finally, at 300$ there's the HD390.

 

[Seba]

Something like HD 7790 2GB/R7 260X 2GB. At max a HD 7850 2GB/R9 270 2GB/R7 370 2GB. Anything better than that would be limited by your CPU.

 

[crisium]

In this order of preference, based on what I suspect is a 1x6pin limitation on your PSU (and no need to get much faster on that CPU anyway).

Radeon 270 (non-X, you need to make sure it has 1x6pin)
Radeon 370 / 265
Radeon 7850
Radeon 260X / 7790
Radeon 360 / 260
Radeon 250X / 7770

On the new market it may be challenging to find anything other than the 370 or 360, however. Some of the older 200 and 7000 series may be available in 1GB or 2GB, so make sure you get 2GB or higher only.

 

[BUTCH1]

Something like HD 7790 2GB/R7 260X 2GB. At max a HD 7850 2GB/R9 270 2GB/R7 370 2GB. Anything better than that would be limited by your CPU.

Thanks, yea, I was thinking possibly 7790 or 7700 as long as I can keep power draw to around 120-125 watts max. While Antec makes a very solid PSU I don't want to push it to the point of almost zero headroom either.

 

[BUTCH1]

In this order of preference, based on what I suspect is a 1x6pin limitation on your PSU (and no need to get much faster on that CPU anyway).

Radeon 270 (non-X, you need to make sure it has 1x6pin)
Radeon 370 / 265
Radeon 7850
Radeon 260X / 7790
Radeon 360 / 260
Radeon 250X / 7770

On the new market it may be challenging to find anything other than the 370 or 360, however. Some of the older 200 and 7000 series may be available in 1GB or 2GB, so make sure you get 2GB or higher only.

Thanks, I will be doing a lot of checking on those today, yea, I feel like Barney Rubble still running 775 but I just couldn't resist getting a chip that once cost $1000 for $45 LOL...

 

[Piroko]

I don't think it'll limit a HD280/HD380 class card by much in most games. The HD290/HD390 class might be a bit of a stretch for your PSU (as well as OCing the HD380 and especially the 7970/HD280 class), I didn't think of that. Do check the connectivity of your PSU before buying.

The cards Seba recommended aren't bad and a solid upgrade to your current card, but they're also starting to show their age (older video decoder, rather small vram) and they will likely be replaced by a card from the next generation (Polaris) within the next two to three months.

 

[BUTCH1]

Well I got one just now, a 7790 powercolor card just got listed on Ebay for $59 BIN price, I like the fact that it actually uses LESS power than the 4830 I'm running now. As noted by others you get to a point when throwing $200 at a 775 system is not such a great idea, eventually I will have to sell my beloved Barney Rubble rig LOL but it will be a few years down the road now that I've got the xeon quad and a reasonable vid card installed. Thanks to all who offered their help/suggestions..