Upgrade from geforce 6800 to what?

[Arkaign]

I only use chrome,and when i was using that system my resolution was at 1280x1024 and yeah chrome did bog the cpu down,when youtube would stutter,cpu usage was damn near 100% until i dropped it to 360p then it was buttery smooth.

Netflix and hulu ran good then again cause i have the worlds worst dsl isp provider,i tend to run low quality just not to buffer let alone not lag which ended up not being a issue there.

Aero i have always left off,set windows to run for best performance over letting it decide so maybe your right.

Tower isn't something i could really wanna use myself even if it did handle hd,its something i was stuck with using for a bit till i got my core i5 back up.:biggrin:

Understandable Yeah I always like getting back to my main system.

I refurb so many old boxes for a local charity that I've really gotten used to squeezing the max performance/usability that I can possibly achieve out of them in order for them not to simply become landfill material. A lot of the tweaks seem unintuitive coming from high-end systems.

For example :

*- Aero actually enables you to offload more of the display rendering to the GPU rather than the CPU.

*- 32-Bit OS vs. 64-Bit OS actually reduces system overhead by a marginal but very real number (slightly lower ram usage as well).

*- Chrome is an outstanding browser, but is actually fairly CPU-intensive in OOB state. There are various guides on how to make it smoother on low end systems, but the easiest solution is just to deal with IE for low-end PC duties. There are better options for more experienced users, but as I'm dealing with utter novices, I find that IE serves as a 'good enough' browser.

 

[Dean407]

Look, yes...I'm aware I have an "ancient" system. However, for my needs at this time it works great. I'd just like to squeak a bit more video performance and overall life out of this system if I can.

I boot to the XP desktop within 25 seconds. It's a solid WinXp system.

Yeah, I know the CPU will be the bottleneck. I'm pulling 50%-80% on CPU on netflix best quality. I have been watching stuff on the lowest setting full screen. Mind you, that's 1920x1080.

I'm not expecting miracles. Video that is a *bit* smoother would be a win in my book.

I may get a SSD if I'm happy with the video. I'll order the video card next Friday and will post back my findings.

 

[nemesismk2]

Although i also have windows 7, windows xp and ubuntu 12.04 if had to choose just one operating system to keep then it would have to be windows xp which has proven to be the most reliable operating system

To be honest i would actually like support for windows xp to continue and i am willing to pay for support. What i would like is for microsoft to release service pack 4 as well for windows xp.

 

[Dean407]

Os/2 warp

 

[spaceman]

it isnt even worth this thread

 

[Magic Carpet]

Want to get a bit more life out of my old PC. Dell Dimension XPS Gen 4.

For the most part I watch movies online...netflix and amazon prime. I have a 24in monitor.

Don't care much about games anymore.

What's the best card I can get for $150 and under?

Given my mediocre requirements, would I even be able to tell the difference between a $100 card and $150 card? Or for that atter a $50 card?

Thanks,

Dean

If you intend to make full use of your upgrade video card, like it or not, you have to upgrade your OS as well. As much as I love Windows XP, it's already seen the better days.

If you must retain Windows XP, CPU upgrade is highly recommended. You can of course try, and later transfer that PCI-E graphics onto another computer, in case, it doesn't work out, but buy at least a modern low/mid-range card (Geforce 6xx / Radeon 7xxx series).

Alternatively, just buy a Windows 8 retail license and see how it goes. I know that, Geforce 6600 LE is capable of playing HD 720p YouTube video just fine (using Chrome). You have a much faster card

Speaking of modern video cards, I like Zotac's Geforce 650 Ti 2GB model, it's very compact, very quiet and doesn't use much juice (I think it's one of the best performance per watt cards around today).

 

[nemesismk2]

Os/2 warp

i've never used os/2

 

[bononos]

Os/2 warp

Does Warp support more recent video cards like the 5450/6450? Warp has been eol'd for a since 06 which is way back.
I think its better to get a new pc.