Upgrading from an HD3870

[saiga6360]

My goal really is to upgrade to at least an HD4870 1 GB but not sure how realistic it may be. I have a HP M8100y PC and I managed to upgrade the GPU to HD3870 by also replacing the stock PSU with a Corsair HX520. Anyone think this is possible? My concerns are power, and depending on the size perhaps air flow as well. Will the HX520 hold up? It comes only with one fixed power connector for the card, I need two right? How much bigger is the HD4870 compared to the HD3870? I may have another half inch clearance but it will be really snug.

Also, if this goal is unodable, any other suggestions for an upgrade would be welcome. I would like to be able to play some of the latest games on my 1920x1200 display at a comfortable frame rate (60+high, 25+low) preferably with high details.

Thanks in advance.

Desktop: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfr...ang=en&product=3463405
2 GB RAM
XP Pro

 

[toyota]

yeah things might get toasty in there with a high end card. I bought a 92mm fan and zip tied it on the inside bottom of my HP case to bring in fresh air and temps went way down.

your power supply is way more than enough to power any single card made so dont even worry about that. since you cant oc your cpu it will start to become a slight bottleneck in a couple of games with anything stronger than a 4870.

 

[saiga6360]

Originally posted by: toyota
yeah things might get toasty in there with a high end card. I bought a 92mm fan and zip tied it on the inside bottom of my HP case to bring in fresh air and temps went way down.

your power supply is way more than enough to power any single card made so dont even worry about that. since you cant oc your cpu it will start to become a slight bottleneck in a couple of games with anything stronger than a 4870.

I may just try adding a fan as well, should be crucial during hot summer days.

Thanks for the reassurance on the PSU. I just need another connector I suppose.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: saiga6360

Originally posted by: toyota
yeah things might get toasty in there with a high end card. I bought a 92mm fan and zip tied it on the inside bottom of my HP case to bring in fresh air and temps went way down.

your power supply is way more than enough to power any single card made so dont even worry about that. since you cant oc your cpu it will start to become a slight bottleneck in a couple of games with anything stronger than a 4870.

I may just try adding a fan as well, should be crucial during hot summer days.

Thanks for the reassurance on the PSU. I just need another connector I suppose.

I think you can get what you need straight from Corsair.

 

[SlowSpyder]

My 4870 is identical in size to my previous 2900 Pro. I'm pretty sure that the 3870 is the same size as those two cards. I run the rig in my sig on a 550 watt power supply, I would think your 520 should do fine as I'm willing to guess my system uses more power then yours. You can get a converter that will take a molex connector or two and convert it to a 6-pin PCIE connector.

 

[saiga6360]

Thanks for the input guys, I think I can go ahead with my plan then. I just added another 2 GB of RAM and after an initial burp when the CPU fan started rattling to a fail, I stopped and reconnected everything and now it is running normally. Do you think having done this and upgrading a 1 GB card would cause any instability? I don't intend to do any OS tweaks. I figured I have 2x1GB of RAM lying around after I upgraded my other Vista machine, I might as well put them to some use. I figure heat will definitely be an issue so I will order a 92mm fan as toyota suggested to get around that.

 

[Antman56]

Are you interested in selling that 3870? I know someone who could abuse it!

 

[saiga6360]

Nah sorry dude, I am keeping it for my other Vista machine. I've only had it for about a year so I get to abuse it first.

 

[Soulkeeper]

i got a 3870 as well, think i'll hold out for 40nm tho
performance/watt hasn't advanced enough yet imo

 

[saiga6360]

You got a point there so I will probably hold off as well. I'm hoping the added 2 GB of RAM will be good for now. I have learned to value stability after years of going over so many hardware changes. Maybe I am getting old.

 

[AstroManLuca]

3850 512MB owner here, thought about upgrading to improve performance in some games, but I decided against it because there'll always be something better around the corner and my card is doing fine for the time being.

If I had SLI, I'd just get a second 3850, but I don't, so I'll just stick to what I have and make sure the next motherboard I get has SLI.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
3850 512MB owner here, thought about upgrading to improve performance in some games, but I decided against it because there'll always be something better around the corner and my card is doing fine for the time being.

If I had SLI, I'd just get a second 3850, but I don't, so I'll just stick to what I have and make sure the next motherboard I get has SLI.

ati cards dont do sli so you mean crossfire. also once your card gets too slow it usually makes more sense to just sell it and apply that money towards a newer faster single card that will also have better technology and features.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
3850 512MB owner here, thought about upgrading to improve performance in some games, but I decided against it because there'll always be something better around the corner and my card is doing fine for the time being.

If I had SLI, I'd just get a second 3850, but I don't, so I'll just stick to what I have and make sure the next motherboard I get has SLI.

ati cards dont do sli so you mean crossfire. also once your card gets too slow it usually makes more sense to just sell it and apply that money towards a newer faster single card that will also have better technology and features.

Ah, yes, I meant Crossfire. I know SLI is only nVidia, but can any SLI motherboard also do Crossfire? Or do you have to specifically get a motherboard that is CF-supported?

Mine is a couple years old, a DFI with the nForce 570 chipset. Not sure if the SLI version of my board also supports Crossfire. Either way it doesn't really matter since I don't have it and it's not worth upgrading my mobo for SLI unless I also upgrade my processor, which I also wasn't planning on doing just yet.

 

[saiga6360]

Hate to bump an old thread but I bit the bullet last week and ordered the stock Sapphire 4870 1 GB card from Newegg. Got it in a couple of days and I just installed it today and to my dismay, the card runs too hot on load! Running Furmark temps top off at 109 C with the fan predictably full throttle and really loud. I am getting 2x as many FPS but I'm afraid this won't last much longer and will eventually kill the card or worse. I am using just the 9.2 version display driver, idle temps are at 65 C. This card is wider than my old 3870 from end to end so I had move my SATA connections around to make it fit just barely.

Anything I should try before RMA? Thanks.

 

[spittledip]

Originally posted by: saiga6360
Hate to bump an old thread but I bit the bullet last week and ordered the stock Sapphire 4870 1 GB card from Newegg. Got it in a couple of days and I just installed it today and to my dismay, the card runs too hot on load! Running Furmark temps top off at 109 C with the fan predictably full throttle and really loud. I am getting 2x as many FPS but I'm afraid this won't last much longer and will eventually kill the card or worse. I am using just the 9.2 version display driver, idle temps are at 65 C. This card is wider than my old 3870 from end to end so I had move my SATA connections around to make it fit just barely.

Anything I should try before RMA? Thanks.

If the readings are correct, you should RMA it.

 

[saiga6360]

Yep, I figured it's just a bad card but I am not going to risk a replacement so I went for the refund. These cards are bigger than I thought they would be. Those temps were crazy, and I had the case open too. Oh well, back to waiting for 40nm.

 

[Qbah]

My HD4870 was hitting 90C regularly under load in a P182 Antec case with several 120mm fans with fan profile on auto. I made sure all the cables are out of the way (mostly by putting them behind the mobo) so there's plenty of space for the air to circulate. If your case is really cramped, I'd say 109C sounds about right - though it is obviously too much. I don't think there's anything wrong with the card. I applied a 3rd party cooler and now my card loads up to 60-ish C. There's a small problem with the VRM temps, but they still seem to be within safe temps.

And if the fan hits 100% it's REALLY loud, like an old vacuum cleaner. THough your temps should drop drastically then... (my stock cooler caused the card to not go over 50-ish C at full load and 100% fan). But even if the fan is running at 35%+ it's really loud (at least in my opinion). Try going to CCC, enable Overdrive and slide the fan speed to 100% and see if that's the sound you're getting

EDIT: I see you already gave it back, oh well.

 

[saiga6360]

Actually, I did try your suggestion before I packed it up. I also used GPU-Z to log the fan speed and loads while running the Furmark stress test. Everything was just shooting up, temps and fan speed to full. The temps weren't dropping either, and this is with the case open. I see your point about this being normal for my machine, it is small and cramped since it is designed primarily for HTPC use.

I guess I will wait for better card design; smaller, cooler but still packs a punch. Hopefully it's not a far off dream.