Upgrading from Geforce GTS 8600

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

MrTeal

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2003
3,554
1,658
136
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optipl...819625?hash=item3abcb0ffe9:g:3GIAAOSwfZ1WacRO

Dell OptiPlex 790 with i5 2400 (3.1GHz quad), 4GB RAM 250GB HDD W7Pro64 installed) for $190. One note - you will have to remove the HDD cage to fit the video card in this case. A drill with long bits is your friend! :)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gigabyte-RA...532782?hash=item35fa797dee:g:GkAAAOSwT~9Wi~o~

Gigabyte 7970 GHz Edition for $153. I've seen similar cards go for $130-135 if you're a little patient and wait for it.

You'll need a new PSU, something in the 400-500W range from a reputable maker (Seasonic, Corsair, etc). Likely pick up new for like $30-40AR.

Total cost around $370, maybe $350 if you're willing to scour for deals. Very solid gaming build, far better than most anything else at this price range.

I'd suggest an upgrade to a cheap 120-250GB SSD and then the free upgrade to Windows 10.

I would avoid buying a 7970 from anyone on eBay selling 4+ of them. There is a very good chance that those cards have been running at 100% power 24/7 for the last three years. Definitely wouldn't pay $160 for it.
 

xorbe

Senior member
Sep 7, 2011
368
0
76
Yeah that's a problem with used Radeons ... they were wildly popular for mining. I'm glad mining isn't a PC thing any longer.
 

buklau

Member
May 4, 2012
135
0
76
For $300, I think you are better off getting a pentium g3258, h81 board, 8gb ddr3 1600 and then maybe a used r9 290. The pentium g3258 can be overclocked to at least 4.5ghz.
 

Pyramix

Senior member
Jan 11, 2001
671
0
0
7 years? don't buy nvidia, ever. go with amd.

What am I missing? I see a lot of people recommending AMD, but it's not clear why. For me, the performance between AMD and nVidia is about the same (my system is CPU bottle-necked anyway, so any minor performance difference is not going to matter). So, I am looking at other features to distinguish the two. nVidia has lower power draw and it puts out less heat. Plus, some video review mentioned the AMD cards don't have an HDMI 2.0 socket or something. How is AMD better?
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,443
2,083
126
the integrated graphics on a skylake are 2x faster than a 8600. not strictly relevant, but fun fact.

personally, i don't think a C2D system can be upgraded - any money spent on it is essentially wasted. i would save the cash and put it towards building a $500 basic gaming PC.

that cpu is an actual bottleneck (a term that often gets overused, around here), you would see little difference between video cards, and even budget cards would basically be idling, waiting for the cpu to get something done. you really, really need a better cpu.

so, you will need to make some sacrifices; three options:

1) spend mo' money. $500 should get you a system which would humiliate the machine you are gaming on now.

2) buy a CPU, mobo and ram, and play cpu-based games (i.e. minecraft); finish upgrading later.

3) buy a GPU, mobo, ram, and a celeron, and finish upgrading later.

since your pc is 7 years old, you will need a new PSU as well (PSUs from 7 years ago were inferior in quality to what they are now), you will most likely want an SSD, and probably a new case as well.

idk what the cost of a Q-series cpu would be, but i wouldn't spend more than ten bucks on it. seriously.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G4400 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($59.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110M-S2H GSM Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($61.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill NT Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($33.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Patriot Blast 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($57.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB SuperSC ACX 2.0+ Video Card ($161.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $375.85
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-06 07:50 EST-0500

this is a super-basic upgrade path you should be easily able to cope with. Skylake ram and motherboard, and cpu which you can replace later on with a $200 i5-6500, a SSD large enough to host the OS and a few games, and a 960 which should be able to coexist with a 2-core cpu without too much trouble .. unless you start tryin' to play Witcher.
 
Last edited:

xorbe

Senior member
Sep 7, 2011
368
0
76
personally, i don't think a C2D system can be upgraded - any money spent on it is essentially wasted. i would save the cash and put it towards building a $500 basic gaming PC.

that cpu is an actual bottleneck

I have this issue with an older ddr2 athlon system someone gave me. I tried both 760 and 960 cards in it, and while there is a boost, the gaming grunt is just not there due older cpu/mobo/ram. Left over small SSD + old 550Ti turned it into a nice spare desktop machine though, perfectly usable.
 
Last edited:

GodisanAtheist

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2006
6,715
7,004
136
I'm currently running an hd7950 + Q9550 @ stock speeds (board in my sig died, put in spare h41 and never upgraded) and frankly it's a remarkably decent rig for the amount of gaming I do (not much thanks to wife and kids). After monkeying with Mantle in a few games, I'm convinced that I'll be good for even a while longer if DX12 or other close to metal API support takes off.

Sure, a system upgrade is definitely due and the idea of keeping this system for another 7 years is almost stomach turning, I'm sure it's fine for someone that has been gaming on an 8600 this whole time.

TL:DR - pick up a cheap second hand q2q for your mobo and the most used graphics card for the buck you have left (preferably AMD as their arch seems to be more forward looking with better long term support, + you get more for your money) and sit on it for the next as long as you can manage.
 

SPBHM

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2012
5,056
409
126
Aah, would they work with my LGA775 mobo? They're not in the list of supported CPUs for my mobo. They do seem to be marginally better than the fastest LGA775 CPU I can buy, according to cpubenchmark.net.
C2Q: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Quad+Q9550+@+2.83GHz
771 Xeon: http://cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+X5460+@+3.16GHz

Edit: Looks like I can get an adapter to let me use the 771 processors. Great, thanks for the suggestion!
http://www.delidded.com/lga-771-to-775-adapter/

they are not faster, just cheaper, specially if you want something like a 3GHz+ model, C2Q q9650 is a lot more expensive than an e5450 and they are the same thing.

you can do the process described on the link or buy a moded CPU, but if you can get a C2Q for around the same price it's probably a better option, you don't need to worry about any bios issues, like I have an e5420 running on cheap g31/g41 boards for years, and they are fine, but there are some weird things like, after waking up from sleep SSE4.1 and a few other things are missing until the next reboot.

cpubenchmark is not reliable due to sample size/overclocks.
 

prtskg

Senior member
Oct 26, 2015
261
94
101
What am I missing? I see a lot of people recommending AMD, but it's not clear why. For me, the performance between AMD and nVidia is about the same (my system is CPU bottle-necked anyway, so any minor performance difference is not going to matter). So, I am looking at other features to distinguish the two. nVidia has lower power draw and it puts out less heat. Plus, some video review mentioned the AMD cards don't have an HDMI 2.0 socket or something. How is AMD better?
Since you want your graphics card to last long (7 years), he recommended AMD. It has been seen that AMD cards age well. They are hardware wise more robust while Nvidia is software wise. This makes managing old cards tougher for Nvidia than AMD. It also makes them more efficient (for example by not having parallel compute hardware and implementing it through software, they can save power. It's a good strategy as such hardware wasn't used in any windows api until dx12). It could also be business reason like if the old card is doing good, many would not buy new one.
Hdmi 2.0 is used in UHD TV. Adapters are now available for it.