What is the best upgrade from a Nvidia 8500 gt graphics card & 300W Power Supply??

[mbhurri]

Hi,
ive been looking to replace/ update an old asus Nvidia gforce 8500 gt graphics card and even after spending hours of research stilll not sure which one is best to get (but have learnt about core clock speed and the bit rate, etc)..

My PC is a 5 year old HP a6335
PCI E connection for the graphics (DDR2)
300W power supply
going to upgrade from 3 to 4GB RAM
AMD Phenom X4 9500 (Quad core up to 2.2 Ghz)
M2N68-LA motherboard

Can spend about £50 at the most really, and I ought a Asus Nvidia GeForce GT 630 Graphics Card (2GB DDR3, PCI Express 2.0, HDMI, DVI-I, VGA, Nvidia 3D Vision, Dust-Proof Fan, Super Alloy Power) off amazon and installed it fine, but it was seriously noisey!
Read a review on dabs after this and they said the same.
Spent almost a day trying to find graphics cards with the right power supply, whihc is not always displayed, and the noisey one I bought said 300W on the amazon website and Nvidia, but on the bx its got 450W...!!

Was thiking of an Asus Nvidia GeForce 1GB GT 610 Silent Graphics Card instead, as really I am only getting it to run games better, namely the new sim city (2013)....can anyone please offer any advice or help??

Hope so

Thanks

 

[Midwayman]

Do you have 6/8 pin graphics card power connectors on your PS, and how many? Most likely you'll want to look at used cards at that price.

 

[biostud]

7750 @ £75 http://www.amazon.co.uk/VTX3D-Radeo...1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1360959542&sr=1-1
GTS 450 @ £65 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Palit-GeFor...1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1360959820&sr=1-1
HD 6670 @ £52 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-Radeon...1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1360959955&sr=1-1

Take a look on these Civ V benches:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU12/391

And system total power consumption:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU12/414
Actually the GTS 450 is the one drawing most power so either the 7750 or 6670 would be my recommendation.

 

[DooKey]

That GT 610 isn't going to be much, if any, faster than your 8500 gt. To quiet the 630 down just install MSI afterburner and lower the fan speed.

 

[Eureka]

biostud's got the right ideas... don't bother with the 610.

FYI, a 7750 will only draw around 80W or less, you should be able to run it on your 300W power supply.

 

[mbhurri]

Thanks for all the advice...its really appreciated.......had good reviews of the 610 on amazon..for what I do know my PC can handle anyway....
trying the beta today of sim city, and it is on the crappyiest graphic settings.....very lame and need to get one I can at least get the frame rate up ASAP.....also origin keeps logging out.....not sure if thats the beta or my sruggling graphics though

But with AMD cards, I looked at the 7750, but when I went on the AMD website, it said under specs, that they require a minimum of a 450W power supply...thats why I didnt think I could get one of them

Is this not the case??....
finding it a challenge to even find out the power requirements for graphic cards on the marketm let alone one that will work with my ancient set up

Over many years the only make of card I had fail on me was an ATI radeon...cant remember the make though

I could try and quiet down the fans on the 630, but wouldnt that risk the card to heat damage using MSI afterburner??...kind of already packaged it up...is there nothing quieter with similar specs?

 

[biostud]

You will be fine with the 7750. Your system without videocard will draw ~150W under load + 80W from videocard ~ 230W maybe 250W.

or you could just get a silent case fan an strap it to your current card.

Something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quGsDSaGyFI

 

[mbhurri]

Thanks biostud, is it worth getting the Asus AMD Radeon HD 6670 Graphics Card (1GB, PCI-Express, GDDR5) instead??

Its in my budget and has got pretty good reviews and ...I think...it will be ok with my power supply without sounding like an aircraft is landing in my room

-also will the DDR5 connection still be relevant on my system??...as there is a slightly higher 2GB version of the 6670......really the 7750 is out of reach for me just now

 

[mbhurri]

Do you have 6/8 pin graphics card power connectors on your PS, and how many? Most likely you'll want to look at used cards at that price.

I dont think I do have graphics card power connectors, I havent checked as yet, but most likely I do have them spare

 

[computerbuildin]

If you don't want to buy another GPU and your GT 630 fits all your needs perfectly fine, just install EVGA's precision X or something and turn down the fan.

 

[mbhurri]

If you don't want to buy another GPU and your GT 630 fits all your needs perfectly fine, just install EVGA's precision X or something and turn down the fan.

Thnaks, in all honesty that one is already on its way back, after looking around a lot more, looking a lot more at the band width....just wanted to stick Nvidia, as the last one is still working well and the only card I had go wrong was a AMD /radeon - but theyre getting lots of good reviews for waht I need

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Thnaks, in all honesty that one is already on its way back, after looking around a lot more, looking a lot more at the band width....just wanted to stick Nvidia, as the last one is still working well and the only card I had go wrong was a AMD /radeon - but theyre getting lots of good reviews for waht I need

IF you can afford it, a good bet is a GT640. Its the lowest-end card that has the new Kepler core. The alternative is, as other have wrote, a HD7750. It will perform slightly better then the 640.

Oh, and as others have said forget the 610. That's not meant for gaming at all, but as a cheap video accelerator...

 

[renz20003]

Just checked the recommend system requirements (GTX 275 or better, or ATI 5850 or Better) the way to go might be finding one of these cards used. You could probably find one for $100 and they both perform decent on newish games. Your power supply might be an issue though.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Just checked the recommend system requirements (GTX 275 or better, or ATI 5850 or Better) the way to go might be finding one of these cards used. You could probably find one for $100 and they both perform decent on newish games. Your power supply might be an issue though.

I'd be a little hesitant to run either of those cards on a PoS "300W" OEM PSU. That just begs to fry something...

 

[renz20003]

I'd be a little hesitant to run either of those cards on a PoS "300W" OEM PSU. That just begs to fry something...

Agreed if he could find a good price on a used card ($50-60) he could always find a decent quality 500 watt psu for $60 and still be within his budget.

Edit: I was a bit off on my conversion rates, £50 is only $66.00 so im alot higher then op's budget.

 

[Yuriman]

$66USD will get the OP an HD4870, that's probably the best card he can get for the price. If he shops around he might even be able to get a used one + a better power supply in that budget - I don't know that I'd trust a 4870 on a 300w PSU, as it draws close to as much power as an HD7850. A 5670/6670 runs about that price new here but it's only around half as fast as a 4870. I'd get a 4870/57xx/67xx/77xx if at all possible if OP wants to play games made in the past 4 years. The 5/6/7k cards should all be ok on a 300w PSU.

 

[parvadomus]

The best choice would be a 7750. Otherwise a GT640 or 6670 (they are on par on performance but much slower than 7750).
Any of them will run very well on a 300watts psu.

 

[mbhurri]

IF you can afford it, a good bet is a GT640. Its the lowest-end card that has the new Kepler core. The alternative is, as other have wrote, a HD7750. It will perform slightly better then the 640.

Oh, and as others have said forget the 610. That's not meant for gaming at all, but as a cheap video accelerator...

Cool...thanks for all this advice....deffinitely not getting the 610...

Keep looking at the 6670, as I can get it for £53 new and it seems to have great reviews and SHOULD be good with Power supply unit...I think...

Is it a good one you can run decent level of shadows and such on games?

Thanks again

 

[Yuriman]

My wife's PC has a 6670 in it, it's a decent card - but realize that it's only about fast as a 2900XT which came out in 2007, so expect to have to start dropping settings in games newer than that.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

My wife's PC has a 6670 in it, it's a decent card - but realize that it's only about fast as a 2900XT which came out in 2007, so expect to have to start dropping settings in games newer than that.

^^ This

It will run newer games, but you should expect to lower a few settings.

If you get a 6670, make SURE its the GDDR5 version. Some of the cheaper ones use more, but slower DDR3 RAM...!!! D:

 

[mbhurri]

^^ This

It will run newer games, but you should expect to lower a few settings.

If you get a 6670, make SURE its the GDDR5 version. Some of the cheaper ones use more, but slower DDR3 RAM...!!! D:

Will having DDR2 RAM effect the graphics card then?

I would love to get the 7750, but cant find it any less than £80 (think thats about $125)...where as the GDDR5 version of the 6670 is about half that (£53) -will the 7750 be ok and not burn out anything and be ok with a 300W supply??.......as I could go a little over drawn

I played the beta of sim city at the weekend and obviously the 8500 couldnt handle it, tried it on a laptop with a intel HD R or something and it looked like a crappy version of Somalia when I built my town....all setting s to lowest of the low.......really just want something that will allow the shodows and colours to be better without the game lagging

 

[darkfalz]

Gtx 650

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Will having DDR2 RAM effect the graphics card then?

Yes, and very much. DDR3 has half the bandwidth of DDR5 at the same clockspeed. F.x. lets say card A has 1000MHz(1GHz) DDR3 and card B has 1000MHz GDDR5. Card A would then have 32GB/s, while card B has 64GB/s available. That's somewhere around 30% (rough guesstimate) extra performance...

I would love to get the 7750, but cant find it any less than £80 (think thats about $125)...where as the GDDR5 version of the 6670 is about half that (£53) -will the 7750 be ok and not burn out anything and be ok with a 300W supply??.......as I could go a little over drawn

I played the beta of sim city at the weekend and obviously the 8500 couldnt handle it, tried it on a laptop with a intel HD R or something and it looked like a crappy version of Somalia when I built my town....all setting s to lowest of the low.......really just want something that will allow the shodows and colours to be better without the game lagging

Well if you can stretch your budget £27, definitely get the 7750. It really is a much better card. I don't think you'll have problems with your PSU. The 7750 is only rated for 55W maximum. That's 15W more then your 8500. The 6670 is actually rated at 66W maximum. Both new cards will actually use less power then the 8500 when idle, because of better power management.

Forget about using Intel HD Graphics for gaming. Its only the HD4000 that's borderline adequate, and even then it depends on the exact implementation...

 

[mbhurri]

Yes, and very much. DDR3 has half the bandwidth of DDR5 at the same clockspeed. F.x. lets say card A has 1000MHz(1GHz) DDR3 and card B has 1000MHz GDDR5. Card A would then have 32GB/s, while card B has 64GB/s available. That's somewhere around 30% (rough guesstimate) extra performance...



Well if you can stretch your budget £27, definitely get the 7750. It really is a much better card. I don't think you'll have problems with your PSU. The 7750 is only rated for 55W maximum. That's 15W more then your 8500. The 6670 is actually rated at 66W maximum. Both new cards will actually use less power then the 8500 when idle, because of better power management.

Forget about using Intel HD Graphics for gaming. Its only the HD4000 that's borderline adequate, and even then it depends on the exact implementation...

Thanks again

Sorry one last question, if I upgrade mt 4GB RAM all to DDR3 (unfortunately only have 32 bit windows vista ),
would it be ok with my motherboard/being recognised - and make the graphics card more efficient/better??


I only used that intel as I was desperate to test out the beta, just get so lealus seeing other people play on youtube

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Sorry one last question, if I upgrade mt 4GB RAM all to DDR3 (unfortunately only have 32 bit windows vista ),
would it be ok with my motherboard/being recognised - and make the graphics card more efficient/better??

32bit Windows is a little quirky in the memory management department. It has a hard limit of 4GB, but things don't work quite that way in practice. PCI devices use the last 1GB of the four for address space. And from there it gets worse. If you f.x. install a graphics card with 1GB RAM, Windows will subtract that 1GB from your total memory pool. That's only 3GB in size. In practice you'll end up with 2GB usable RAM. So in practice adding more RAM is marginal at best...