Video card blasted, worth keeping the rest?

[joris267]

Hey,

A couple of days ago my monitors stopped reviving any signals from my desktop. After some research it turned out my video card, Geforfe GTX 280 was broken. My pc is quite old but was great when I bought it. My question is, which parts are worth keeping and which ones should be replaced.

I'll be using it for programming and work in general. I'd like to be able to play some games on it (Dota 2 i.e.) but not that extensive. I do have two screens however (1024x768 and 1920x1080) which I use at the same time. They both are VGA but I have two adapters one to DVI-I dual and one to DVI-A. Still being able to use both monitors is more or less a must for me.

What I have left:
processor: AMD phentom II X4 955
RAM: 3x2 GB
Motherboard: Asus M4A7BT-E
powersupply : Cooler Master Real Power M700
Drive: WD5001AALS 7200 RPM

My budget is quite flexible, I'm willing to spend about €400 for decent and €700 for a good gaming system. It can be more if it's really worth the price.


ps. I live in the Netherlands, Amsterdam and I'll be buying my parts from tweakers

 

[DSF]

The real question is whether your computer was comfortably able to do all the things you used to do before your video card broke.

If you have no complaints other than a defective video card then you may as well just replace the video card with something modest and save up money for an upgrade down the line when it will actually be necessary.

On the other hand, if there's something that you actually wish your computer could do better, then specifically explain what that is and we can help you figure out a build to address the issue.

 

[joris267]

Thanks for your reply. My computer was oke for what I wanted it to do but it was quite slow. I know I could just replace my video card but I don't want to spend money on a video card that I'll have throw out when I do replace my whole system which I'll do in the next two years tops.

sorry I can't really be more specific on tasks I want it to do better besides better overall performance. I'm just curious if my parts are still any good and if its worth buying a new card or if I just should replace the whole thing.

 

[DSF]

Thanks for your reply. My computer was oke for what I wanted it to do but it was quite slow. I know I could just replace my video card but I don't want to spend money on a video card that I'll have throw out when I do replace my whole system which I'll do in the next two years tops.

sorry I can't really be more specific on tasks I want it to do better besides better overall performance. I'm just curious if my parts are still any good and if its worth buying a new card or if I just should replace the whole thing.

There are two problems with buying a nice video card now without replacing the whole system.

1) Your processor is probably not going to be able to take full advantage of a modern video card. You would be paying for performance that you can't realize because your processor is holding you back.

2) If you wait two years to do the whole upgrade and you want to continue to play new games you may be looking at buying another video card in two years even if the one you buy today is pretty nice.

If your computer is slower than you'd like I think it's completely justifiable to do a whole-system upgrade now. A new Intel chip could roughly double your CPU performance (give or take depending on the chip), although that doesn't necessarily mean exactly double the frame rate in games.

For E700 I think you could get something that would be noticeably faster than what you have, but you'd be leaving a lot of performance on the table vs. a E1000-1200 build if you're willing to go that high.

 

[DominionSeraph]

A 955 shouldn't be slow for general use. Far from it. I'd wager you just have an old Windows install and fragmented drive. (Or are on a slow 5400 RPM drive)
I'd suggest you get a SSD and a new video card.

There are two problems with buying a nice video card now without replacing the whole system.

1) Your processor is probably not going to be able to take full advantage of a modern video card. You would be paying for performance that you can't realize because your processor is holding you back.

You don't know what either a 955 or DOTA 2 are, do you?
We were perfectly happy putting together 955 + GTX 460 builds every day back in the day, so a 955 will work perfectly well with a 7790/260X.

 

[DSF]

You don't know what either a 955 or DOTA 2 are, do you?

There's no reason for a post like this. I know what both are, which is why I suggested he might be fine with a modest video card replacement in the first place. If you think I was recommending that he pair his 955 with an R9 280X, that's not at all what I meant. Perhaps "modern" was a poor choice of words. Cutting edge is more to the point of what I meant. Either way the point is that if the most stressful thing he intends to do is DOTA 2 he just needs a low-mid level video card and he can call it a day.

On the other hand, he later suggested that he finds his computer unacceptably slow and that he would be planning to buy a new video card in a couple years anyway. That suggests to me that he would like to keep the possibility of future releases open, although of course I could be wrong.

Back to directly helping the OP, DominionSeraph is right that a generalized feeling of sluggishness is often memory or storage-related. 3x2GB ought to be enough RAM for what you're doing, so it would make sense to look at your drives. What model hard drive do you have?

 

[joris267]

Thanks a lot for the input. I have an WD5001AALS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Hard drive.

So the way I understand it keeping some parts and upgrading the older ones isn't really an option. I thought as much because of compatibility between different generations of hardware.

So I have two options:
1) I can get the GTX 955 again and maybe a ssd for my operating system. Then if I reinstall windows (which, to be honest, I should have done long ago) my pc should run smooth again. Cost: about E 200.

2) I get a completely new system, and give my old parts to friend/family. Cost: about E 1000

I'm not planning on doing much more than Dota 2 anytime soon so I guess option one gets me the best value for my money. The only last worry I have is that other parts will brake down soon and that I'll be patching a sinking ship. I bought this pc about 5 years ago and I've used it quite consistently for at least 5 hours a day.

 

[mfenn]

GTX 955? Looks like you've got a mashup between your GPU and CPU thoughts there. What GPU were you thinking of?

EDIT: I agree with Dominion and DSF that a Phenom II X4 955 shouldn't feel slow in general usage. An SSD and a clean Windows install will work wonders.

 

[VirtualLarry]

While the Phenom II X4 955 isn't nearly as fast as a 4770K, it's definitely not "slow" either.

I would be curious about a HDTune benchmark screen from the HDD. That might tell us if the HDD is going. (They can tend to slow down, if they are about the fail, and if the rig is 5 years old, and the HDD is too, then it might be time to go.)

Consider an SSD, definitely. They make a pretty decent amount of difference, as far as day-to-day booting and starting programs.

 

[joris267]

GTX 955? Looks like you've got a mashup between your GPU and CPU thoughts there. What GPU were you thinking of?

Oeps, I meant the GTX 280, Which is the one I had before it broke. Or should I get another one?

I'll probably stick to my current CPU (Phenom II X4 955) because, as far as I could find, anything that is compatible with my motherboard isn't much of an upgrade.

I would be curious about a HDTune benchmark screen from the HDD. That might tell us if the HDD is going. (They can tend to slow down, if they are about the fail, and if the rig is 5 years old, and the HDD is too, then it might be time to go.)

I'll try to do a benchmark later today and upload the results. By "time to go" do you mean time to go get a new pc or go back all my files cause my Drive is about to burst?

 

[DominionSeraph]

You don't have to replace it with another GTX 280 (which is going to be difficult to find.) There have been 4 generations of cards since then.
All of these are going to be in the same performance range as the GTX 280:

GTX 460
GTX 560
GTX 650 Ti
GTX 750

5850
6850
7770
7790
260X

Buying new, this will do you:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814487026

 

[joris267]

Buying new, this will do you:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814487026

Thanks for your suggestions. The GTX 750 you suggest only supports one of my monitors. After some looking I think I'll buy the Asus GTX750TI-PH-2GD5 or the MSI GeForce GTX 750. The second one is cheaper but has one VGA (perfect) and one DVI-D port while my second screen is either VGA, DVI-A or DVI-I (have two adapters). Can I just remove the extra DVI-I pins to get DVI-D?

Below is the benchmark test of my HDD. My hardware knowledge is insufficient to know what it means, but a declining line looks bad no?

 

[DominionSeraph]

A declining transfer rate is normal. (Hard drives are fastest at the outer perimeter.) The big dips throughout and the scatterings of 25ms+ access times looks like your OS is quite busy with something, though.
Were you browsing during the scan?

e: Holy cow, that website has a Matrox G450! ^^
e2: And a G550!

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Thanks for your suggestions. The GTX 750 you suggest only supports one of my monitors. After some looking I think I'll buy the Asus GTX750TI-PH-2GD5 or the MSI GeForce GTX 750.

The reason the MSI is cheaper is because it only a regular 750 without-the-TI (512 shaders, lower memory clocks). The ASUS is a 750TI (640 shaders, faster memory).

The second one is cheaper but has one VGA (perfect) and one DVI-D port while my second screen is either VGA, DVI-A or DVI-I (have two adapters). Can I just remove the extra DVI-I pins to get DVI-D?

I'm not sure I get this correctly, so please feel free to correct me...

You write that you have two monitors, both of which are connected by VGA? I find it hard to believe the high resolution one doesn't have some kind of digital input (DVI/HDMI). If it has a DVI/HDMI port, why are you connecting it with analog VGA? Is there some special reason? If there is not then you're much better of connecting it digitally, as the DAC/ADC conversion is eliminated.

To answer your second question, DVI-D is digital only. It has to be a DVI-I port to have analog capability.

 

[joris267]

A declining transfer rate is normal. (Hard drives are fastest at the outer perimeter.) The big dips throughout and the scatterings of 25ms+ access times looks like your OS is quite busy with something, though.
Were you browsing during the scan?

e: Holy cow, that website has a Matrox G450! ^^
e2: And a G550!

Not really, I did some browsing but nothing heavy, to be sure I did the check again while doing absolutely nothing. Results are bit more consistent but not much.

The reason the MSI is cheaper is because it only a regular 750 without-the-TI (512 shaders, lower memory clocks). The ASUS is a 750TI (640 shaders, faster memory).

Ok, I see that there is a difference. Can you explain in laymen terms how big/important the difference is. The best I find on google is about shader programs in games. A 20% improvement for E30 sounds good.

I'm not sure I get this correctly, so please feel free to correct me...

You write that you have two monitors, both of which are connected by VGA? I find it hard to believe the high resolution one doesn't have some kind of digital input (DVI/HDMI). If it has a DVI/HDMI port, why are you connecting it with analog VGA? Is there some special reason? If there is not then you're much better of connecting it digitally, as the DAC/ADC conversion is eliminated.

hmm.... actually, you're completely right. My HD monitor does have HDMI capability. When I plugged it in the first time I just used VGA because that was the cable I had. It worked perfectly fine so I never considered changing it. Thanks!

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Ok, I see that there is a difference. Can you explain in laymen terms how big/important the difference is. The best I find on google is about shader programs in games. A 20% improvement for E30 sounds good.

Generally speaking more shaders means higher performance. The more execution resources the chip has mean that it can do more work in the same amount of time. Which leads to higher performance. That's the short non-technical version. It can be summarized in the sentence: "more shaders = higher performance..."

A graphics card should also have as much memory bandwidth as possible, there are a couple of things to watch there. Including width of the memory bus (higher=better) and the frequency of the memory (again, higher=better). Normal bus width for mainstream cards is somewhere between 128- and 256bit. At the high-end you might see 384- or even 512bit buses, and the low-end might be restricted to 64bit. Memory frequency is a science onto itself, because it depends on the type of memory used (DDR3, GDDR5 etc.).

The 750(TI) is something of an oddball in Nvidia's line-up, simply due to the fact that its the first chip to use the brand-new "Maxwell" architecture. Therefore its not directly comparable to the other 700-series that uses the Kepler architecture. Or AMD cards for that matter. You have to be very vary of comparing the number of shaders between different architectures.

 

[joris267]

Hey guys, I just finished installing windows 8 on the new ssd card. And I must say that it is f*cking Awesome!!! thanks a lot for helping me decide what to do an how to do it.

 

[mfenn]

Glad it worked out for you!

 

[Insert_Nickname]

And I must say that it is f*cking Awesome!!!

I remember feeling about the same back when I got my first X25M. Best upgrade I ever did. Glad to have helped...