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Is this worth keeping?
SlickShoes
Member UncommonPosts: 1,019
Hi Folks,
I got lots of great advice for building a computer from here so thought i would come back, I did end up buying a new house instead of a computer last time which was a bit disappoint from my gamer point of view but the wife was happy!
Anyway i have acquired a test machine from my work for the house and currently have it connected to my TV for watching movies and stuff but i was wondering if i could get it playing MMOs at any sort of good settings by adding a good video card.
Currently the computer as in it:
Processor - http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/components/processors/intelcore2duo/intel/bx80570e8400.html
8GB DDR2 Ram, not sure what brand
a fairly poor quality motherboard that i havent removed to see what kind it is but it looks cheap.
PSU - http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/components/powersupplies/corsair/cmpsu-650txuk.html
Graphics card is an HD5450 which is fine for watching movies but it doesnt do much of anything else.
So would a graphics card upgrade allow me some decent quality gaming in an MMO or am i as well just saving up for a some months and starting from scratch?
Comments
Without knowing the motherboard specifications and available expansion slots it is difficult to answer. We have to ask what speed, if any, PCIe slots are available for a video card. You may be able to run some older MMO titles, or even a few recent ones, depending on minimum specifications.
It has one PCIe slot which currently has the lame graphics card in it so i would swap that out. Otherwise all RAM slots are full 4 x 2GB ddr2.
Its a pretty basic looking mobo and i honestly cant be bothered taking the thing apart just to find out yes it is pretty poor.
I'd think that you should be able to play just about any game on that computer right now. The issue would be that, due to the video card, you'd need low settings in an awful lot of games. That's what you're trying to fix, I take it?
If you've got the case airflow to handle more heat, then you should be able to upgrade to a much more powerful video card and get much better gaming performance. A Core 2 Duo is somewhat dated, but should still be more or less adequate for a while longer.
Cheers mate, thats what i was thinking of doing.
The graphics card that is in it is pretty much trash, but my main wonder was about the core2duo. I am only hoping to get maybe 6-9 months out of this and then I will be in a position to start from scratch. With the card in it any modern game goes to the worst settings and looks horrific, although the rift beta was actually playable it was very drab and used about the same 5 colors on everything.
The computer was getting thrown out of my work so i thought i could salvage it and use it for this since i never ended up building one myself.
Any recommendation on which card would be good value for money right now? I have noticed the 5770 seems pretty cheap just now. It must have an HDMI port too so that i can connect it to my TV. Cheers
It depends on what you're planning on doing with the computer you have now. If you're planning on taking the video card you get now from it for use in the new computer, then you might want to pay more than if you were going to replace the video card when you replace the computer.
To answer your question directly, a Radeon HD 5770 is often a good deal if that's your budget.
I take your point on that with getting something that will be useful in the future, i think my budget will be around £130 max for the card, having just moved house money is a bit tight. I saw a 6850 for £130 is that a large increase over the 5770?
Yes, a Radeon HD 6850 is quite a bit faster than a Radeon HD 5770. Getting a 6850 for £130 sounds like a good deal to me.
There will be new cards from both AMD and Nvidia on new 28 nm HKMG process nodes around the end of this year. That's going to be a huge deal. There are no important new desktop video cards coming before then, though, but only a few minor things that aren't worth waiting for. If you're going to wait at least a year to replace the system outright, you might want to save some money on the video card now and buy a new one then. If you're going to replace the system this summer, then the video card options available then would be basically the same as today, and for nearly the same price, so you might as well just buy it today.
Cheers mate, i will have think about it and decide when i am likely to be replacing it. The cheapest i could find the 5770 was £100 so only a £30 difference seems like it may be worth the money.
AMD 5770 and nVidia 450 are both in the same price range, and same performance bracket.
The 6850 is a tier up from that, a bit more expensive, but a good deal more performance.
All 3 cards are very low power for the performance they give (all are under 110W at full load), and in most cases require no power supply upgrades to run.
I think almost every MMO out there today (including FFXIV, which is notoriously bad on hardware) can run on those 3 cards.
If you found that deal on a 6950, then Id go for it, those cards typically run about $60 (US) more than the 5770/420. Not sure how the typical prices and monetary conversions run, but it sounds like good deal.
The GeForce GTS 450 is more comparable to a Radeon HD 5750 rather than a 5770 in both price and performance. It's only particularly comparable to the 5770 in power consumption.
The 5770, 5750, and 450 are all running around $120 on Newegg right now.
For performance, it depends on which fanboy you believe, but from the benchmarks and numbers, the 450 and 5770 appear to go back and forth to me. I'm not very familiar with the 5750 numbers though.
If you read a review of a particular factory overclocked GTS 450 compared to a 5750 and 5770 at the stock clocks, then that might make it more competitive with the 5770. But at the reference clock speeds, the GTS 450 is only infrequently competitive with a 5770, and on average, is maybe a hair faster than a 5750.
Easy summary charts:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Axle/GeForce_GTS_450_OC/28.html
Or if you want to dig through game by game:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3909/nvidias-geforce-gts-450-pushing-fermi-in-to-the-mainstream/1
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gts-450-gf106-radeon-hd-5750,2734.html
Regardless, if the 5750, 5770, and GTS 450 are all the same price, then getting the Radeon HD 5770 is a pretty easy choice. The GTS 450 needs to be significantly cheaper than a Radeon HD 5770 to be a decent value, and it rarely is. You could say the same of the Radeon HD 5750 (as compared to the 5770, I mean).
Mostly I just throw the 450 in there to satisfy the fanboys anyway, who think that AMD can't make a competitive product even if it ran off cold fusion and made you ice cream while you played. I guess PhysX is just that darned important, in all both games that use it.
If I were getting a low power card I'd look at the 6850, the 450 is the only card nVidia has that's low power with any performance at all. The <$150 price point I don't think is really worth the money - the video card bang for the buck has always been more towards the $200-250 range. But for casual players, the lower tier cards will perform well enough, and they don't always need to spend the cash, so I just try to keep up on reading.