** UPDATE**Looking to upgrade X850XT PE, want quiet and not too power hungry

[Budmantom]

I recently purchased a Lenovo desktop with an Intel Pentium Dual Core E5800 (3.2ghz), 4gb, 1tb hd :

http://outlet.lenovo.com/desktops/i....lenovo.com/desktops/ideacentre/k-series.html

I upgraded it to 8gb, 2.5tb and a Radeon X850XT PE while it does the job fine it's a bit on the loud side, the only "game" I every play is Nascar Racing 2003 (http://www.amazon.com/NASCAR-Racing-.../dp/B000077WA5).

What I'm lookinng for is an affordable video card that doesn't make a lot of noise, doesn't take too much power and will be a decent performance upgrade.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Tom

 

[Blue Shift]

Something like the Radeon HD 6670 might work well for you. It's a decent card for light gaming, and doesn't require a separate power plug.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150542

There's also a version of this card with no fan on it at all, but it costs a bit more and might run hotter.


Edit: Do you need something that fits in a PCI-Express port, or AGP?

 

[Budmantom]

It's PCI-Express.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll do a little bit of research on it.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

HD 4650, 4670, 5570, 5550, 5670, 6570, 6670
GT 220, 240, 430, 440
9500 GT

Any of these models should get the job done and be performance upgrades (so long as you avoid any 64-bit models).

 

[Budmantom]

HD 4650, 4670, 5570, 5550, 5670, 6570, 6670
GT 220, 240, 430, 440
9500 GT

Any of these models should get the job done and be performance upgrades (so long as you avoid any 64-bit models).

I take it the 6670 is the most powerful?

 

[toyota]

I take it the 6670 is the most powerful?

yes

 

[MangoX]

Wow ancient ... I have a X1900GT and I feel it is insufficient ... even for CPU heavy games like WoW and SC2 on Low settings, albeit at 1200p. Still... can't imagine how that card is faring for ya!

I just picked up a 6870, but even a 6670 will be leagues better than that X850XT!

 

[rockyjohn]

You might be able to get something a little more powerful - probably the two limiting factors are your power supply and your budget. Please provide both if you would like a more thorough review - its hard to interpret what "affordable" means to you - and provide the make and model of your PSU.



The good news is that even the 6670 will be substantially faster than your current card.

 

[Budmantom]

Wow ancient ... I have a X1900GT and I feel it is insufficient ... even for CPU heavy games like WoW and SC2 on Low settings, albeit at 1200p. Still... can't imagine how that card is faring for ya!

I just picked up a 6870, but even a 6670 will be leagues better than that X850XT!

Yeah the x850xt is a few years old now but as far as performance it does ok (between 50-120fps in NR2003 and that's all that I play) but it's on the loud side.

You might be able to get something a little more powerful - probably the two limiting factors are your power supply and your budget. Please provide both if you would like a more thorough review - its hard to interpret what "affordable" means to you - and provide the make and model of your PSU.




The good news is that even the 6670 will be substantially faster than your current card.

The PS is stock and I think it's either 300 or 350 watt as far as budget maybe $125, I'm just not sure I would see much of a benefit in getting a high end card when the only thing I use it on is a 8 year old sim.

 

[Arkaign]

The better video card will do a lot of cool things for you, lower power, lower heat, lower noise, much more efficient in Windows / Video usage (hw acceleration for many many more common tasks), it's just a huge upgrade.

Given that you only want to currently play NR2003, you could get away with a cheaper card though.

This is $50 AR

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102930

It's only DDR3, but this would still be a tremendous upgrade from the X850. Having HDMI/HDCP is nice as well.

 

[Budmantom]

The better video card will do a lot of cool things for you, lower power, lower heat, lower noise, much more efficient in Windows / Video usage (hw acceleration for many many more common tasks), it's just a huge upgrade.

Given that you only want to currently play NR2003, you could get away with a cheaper card though.

This is $50 AR

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102930

It's only DDR3, but this would still be a tremendous upgrade from the X850. Having HDMI/HDCP is nice as well.

Is there a big difference between the 6670 and the 5670, all the performance charts that I've see compare a 6670 1gb and 5670 512mb.

OK finding better comparisons.

 

[Budmantom]

The better video card will do a lot of cool things for you, lower power, lower heat, lower noise, much more efficient in Windows / Video usage (hw acceleration for many many more common tasks), it's just a huge upgrade.

Given that you only want to currently play NR2003, you could get away with a cheaper card though.

This is $50 AR

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102930

It's only DDR3, but this would still be a tremendous upgrade from the X850. Having HDMI/HDCP is nice as well.

The 5670 is very tempting my only concern is a performance decrease, I know in the past I've upgraded my aging x850xt only to take a performace hit and I ended up with an expensive paperweight. It would be nice to replace a $200 card with a $50 one.

Any thoughts on DDR5 I see a 6670 with it and it's priced close to DDR3 and I don't think it takes any more power. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150545

Will I realize a performace increase with the 6670 DDR5 or do you guys think that my cpu will be the bottleneck?

 

[cusideabelincoln]

DDR5 over DDR3 makes a big difference in the 5670 and 6670. You should potentially see the performance benefit, but in an old game like NR2003 I doubt you will tell the difference.

 

[Arkaign]

That 6670 is definitely faster than the 5670, both are hugely faster than the X850.

X850 was ~2005?
X1800/etc was 2006
HD2900 was 2007
HD3xxx was 2008
HD4xxx was 2009
HD5xxx was 2010
HD6xxx is 2011 (but some HD6xxx variants are little more than rebadges like 5770 > 6770).

In any case, most of the benefits to getting a new card like the 5670 or 6670 is in secondary areas such as heat/noise/1080p video/multimonitor/current drivers/etc.

Also should you decide to give any more recent titles a whirl, you can do so at modestly decent details, which is basically impossible to do with the 850.

 

[Budmantom]

That 6670 is definitely faster than the 5670, both are hugely faster than the X850.

X850 was ~2005?
X1800/etc was 2006
HD2900 was 2007
HD3xxx was 2008
HD4xxx was 2009
HD5xxx was 2010
HD6xxx is 2011 (but some HD6xxx variants are little more than rebadges like 5770 > 6770).

In any case, most of the benefits to getting a new card like the 5670 or 6670 is in secondary areas such as heat/noise/1080p video/multimonitor/current drivers/etc.

Also should you decide to give any more recent titles a whirl, you can do so at modestly decent details, which is basically impossible to do with the 850.

Well I'm leaning towards the 5670 especially if it will be faster than my current video card (at a bargain price).

I'm not sure what you mean by the last paragraph referencing the 850?

 

[Termie]

The 5670 is very tempting my only concern is a performance decrease, I know in the past I've upgraded my aging x850xt only to take a performace hit and I ended up with an expensive paperweight. It would be nice to replace a $200 card with a $50 one.

Any thoughts on DDR5 I see a 6670 with it and it's priced close to DDR3 and I don't think it takes any more power. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150545

Will I realize a performace increase with the 6670 DDR5 or do you guys think that my cpu will be the bottleneck?

Don't worry, you're not even close to buying a paperweight.

The HD5670 is at least 2.5x faster than an x850xt.

See the following graphs:
(1) The HD5670 is ~10% faster than the HD3870: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2917/5
(2) The HD3850 was 60% faster than the x1950xt: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2376/9
(3) The X1900xt was 20% faster than the x1800xt: http://www.anandtech.com/show/1930/8
(4) The x1800xt was 30% faster than the the x850xt: http://www.anandtech.com/show/1810/10

Oh, and the HD6670 is 20% faster than the HD5670: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4278/amds-radeon-hd-6670-radeon-hd-6570/4

So what's that come to? Hmmm, let's see, the HD6670 GDDR5 is 3.3x faster than an x850xt.

Rough yes, close enough to the truth, most definitely. The x850xt was a fine card. In 2005. It's not hard for today's $75 cards to kill it. And yes, get the GDDR5 to make the most of it, and no, your CPU won't bottleneck it. The HD6670 is a good match for the dual-core pentiums, but I see you're considering the HD5670 as well, and I'd actually recommend that card for you, because you'll be saving over 30% and it will be close enough to the 6670 for your purposes.

 

[Budmantom]

Alright I think that's what I needed to make me pull the trigger, 2.5X increase would be great but I'm doubtful with this sim, I will be blown away with a 50% increase. I have my fingers crossed.

Thank you all for your help and I will report back with how much of an actual increase this cards has in an older game.

 

[Leyawiin]

I built a PC from leftover parts for my sister. I used a Sapphire HD 4670 with the exact same HSF as the HD 5670 that was linked. Its extremely quiet. The HD 5670 looks like a very good buy.

 

[Budmantom]

I found my back-up card (8800gts 320mb) so I found some comparisons of it and the x850xt and it appears to be about 50% fast, my "Windows Experience" score went from 49 to 67 but it's about 15% slower on NR2003, the good part is that this card is super quiet.

Tuesday I should get the 5670 so it will be interesting to see how it stack up.

 

[Termie]

I found my back-up card (8800gts 320mb) so I found some comparisons of it and the x850xt and it appears to be about 50% fast, my "Windows Experience" score went from 49 to 67 but it's about 15% slower on NR2003, the good part is that this card is super quiet.

Tuesday I should get the 5670 so it will be interesting to see how it stack up.

Wait a minute...the 8800gts was your backup card? It's way better than an x850xt. But you're saying it's not performing as well in NR2003. That concerns me. I wonder if newer cards just don't have the drivers for that game (no pun intended).

What really concerns me is that you just bought a 5670 when you had a 8800gts, which is dead-on equivalent in performance to the 5670 (thought it uses far more electricity).

Am I missing something?

 

[Budmantom]

Wait a minute...the 8800gts was your backup card? It's way better than an x850xt. But you're saying it's not performing as well in NR2003. That concerns me. I wonder if newer cards just don't have the drivers for that game (no pun intended).

What really concerns me is that you just bought a 5670 when you had a 8800gts, which is dead-on equivalent in performance to the 5670 (thought it uses far more electricity).

Am I missing something?

Yeah I forgot about that card and from day one it wasn't an upgrade(in that game).

From what I remember NR2003 ran(looked) better in opengl than Directx and Radeon cards were better in opengl, the 8800gts looks and performs better in directx and the x850 does better in opengl.

At this point I hope that it's an upgrade...

 

[DominionSeraph]

A 8800GTS should have no problems with OpenGL.

Hell, the 5900 Ultra would get 50 FPS at 1600x1200 on an Athlon XP 2700+.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-detonator-fx-45,668-19.html
With 4xAA it would still get 35FPS.

Your Core processor and 8800GTS should absolutely blow that system away.
Something's wrong with your setup if that's not the case.

 

[Via]

The 8800 GTS 320 was my backup card until a bit ago.

That thing played the Crysis demo mediumish vey well.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

You probably need to run Driversweeper.

 

[BFG10K]

Get a 6850 - it's dead silent under load and it'll blow away your old card.