Can I upgrade my acer desktop with ati radeon 4670 pci expres card?

bondja80

Hi there,
I am thinking to bay ati radeon 4670 1gb pci expres card on amazon.
Can somebody please give me advice and tell me, if this graphic card will work without problems on my pc?

And will I be able to play newer games on my pc with my single core amd 2,7ghz processor and this card?

Or maybe I will need to upgrade my existing processor also?



My current pc system:
Acer extensa e420
amd athlon 1640b 2,7ghz procesor
2gb ddr2 ram
Serial ata hdd 160gb
amd780g chipset
power supply 250w

Solitaire

What kind of games are we talking here? And what resolution is your monitor?

Personally I'd go with a HD5670 at this point - quite a bit more powerful and consumes less electricity but it could be just a little more expensive.

CPU could be an issue though - a 1640b is pretty dire in this day and age. I'm not sure if you could upgrade that PC to a 45nm CPU though - it has the right chipset but they might not be supported in the BIOS. If they were a cheap X2-250 or similar would be perfect.

bondja80

Thanks for fast answear.

Well, I want to play new action games cod4 modernwarfare 2, batman arkham asylum and another new games and also racing games nfs shift and sport games.
On my current pc system I could play fifa 10, left4dead, but I can not play left4dead 2, batman arkham asylum, nfs shift, game is going too slow. Is that because of my bad graphic card or procesor?
In my amd780g chipset is ati radeon 3200 320mb card integrated, and that is bad card, on windows 7 aero scores only 3,3.

If I bay ati 4670 1gb graphic card only, without procesor, and instal in my pc, will I be able to play all those new games, will that bring me much improvement in game play?

I dont know about bios and other things, because I am not expert for this things, and I had never upgrade any pc before.. But on amd site write that I can upgade my cpu with athlon x2 and phenomen.

Also my power supply is only 250w, Is that enough for ati 4670 in my current system?

Solitaire

It depends on what resolution you want to play those games at... and if you have a flat screen (LCD) you kinda have to play at its maximum resolution

The HD4670 takes about 40-50W at full load, HD5570/5670 a fair bit less. But how much of that 250W can your PSU supply as 12V current? That's the important bit but you'd need to check it (the rating label on its side, to be precise) and tell me how much it can handle for me to know for sure what it could and could not handle.

And the problem with Phenom CPUs is that they're old, scarce and pricey now. I'd much rather swap in an Athlon 2 or even a very cheap Phenom 2, but I can't be sure if they'd work correctly - if at all - with your PC.

bondja80

Hi Solitaire.
I got next infos wich are on my computer case. It says rating: 22-240Vac, 3,15A, 50hz.
Are that information that you need?
Or maybe I need to open my pc case and seek informations inside od pc case?
My computer is still under warranty and I didnt open case still.

Solitaire

Does opening it void the warranty? (sticker on edge of case side)

The info would be on a big sticker on the PSU itself, hidden inside the PC.

bondja80

yes there are sickers on the side. But only 5 months left to the end of warranty. Maybe I will open soon and give you infos.
I found on komplett.ie saphire radeon hd 5670 512mb pci express 2.0x16 for 77e. Is that good price? and is big difference in game preformance between 512mb and 1gb card?

bondja80

I will play my games on small resolutions. I dont like to play games on big screen. All my games I played on 800x600 ussualy, or bit higer.
But not biger then 19inch monitor 1440x900.

Solitaire

HD5670 would be okay, but a cheap HD5750 would be even better at 1440*900 (I strongly suspect you don't have the spare PSU capacity to run a cheap HD4850 or GTS250) although they've got rotten expensive of late (>€110 )

A 1GB card would give you no advantage with these GPUs and at these resolutions, so don't waste your money on one.

bondja80

Hi Solitaire. I found out what psu I have inside. and here is spec:
DC OUTPUT: (250W (+3,3V) & +5V= 110W MAX) (+12V1 & +12V2=180W MAX)
+3,3V==14O.A ORG, +5V==16.0A RED, +12V1==6.0A YEL, +12V2==10.0A YEL/BLACK +5Vsb==2.OA PURP, -12V==0,5A BLUE

This is all what is on ps written. And have next connectors: [FONT=arial, helvetica]1 x 20/24-pin ATX Connector
1 x 4-pin P4 Connector
2 x Molex IDE Connector
1 x Floppy Connector
2 x SATA Connector[/FONT]
[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/5star/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.png[/IMG][IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/5star/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.png[/IMG]

bondja80

sorry is not 140.A is +3,3V== 14.0A

Solitaire

15A to play with... pretty dire even as Acers go

I'd stick with the HD5670, probably the best graphics card that PSU can safely power.

bondja80

On gamespot site they say that ati 5670 hd has a maximum power consumption of 75W (minimum of 14W)

So you think that ati hd 5670 will have enough power, and my computer will work well?

Solitaire

They're talking out of their arses. If the TDP reached those levels AMD would have a PCIe power connector on it!

Look here for a more realistic measurement. HD5570 not even hitting 20W in Crysis, or 30W for the HD5670. And the synthetic OCCT benchmark is pretty much unrepeatable in real life anyway!

bondja80

Ok, Thanks.
I will order this days one on komlett.ie they have for 77e, thats cheper then in uk. It is saphire 5670 512mb. Do saphire produce good cards?

Can you tell me, if I bay also with this card and amd athlon II x2 250 3.0ghz wil be this ok for my pc and power supply?

Or maybe you can advice me for some better processor, who can suit my pc and power supply?

Thanks again.

Solitaire

I can't be sure that the X2-250 will work on your motherboard (due to BIOS issues, PSU won't be a problem) but it would provide a huge improvement and not just in games!

bondja80

I dont know how can I find out that if my bios support this. Maybe I can call acer and ask them if I can upgrade my pc with this processor?
My motherboard is amd 780g chipset. do you know maybe some software who can find out all this infos about my pc?

Solitaire

Your chipset should support it, but the BIOS may have been tinkered with by Acer to stop you from upgrading it. Bear in mind companies like Acer don't want you upgrading their machines; they'd rather con you into dropping another €600 each 18 months on a whole new machine of theirs :rolleyes:

bondja80

Yeas thats right.

And is it difficult to instal new procesor in pc? I know that with pcie cards is easy, just plug and play.

I have one 160gb hdd from old laptop. Is it possiblle to instal this hdd in my acer desktop?

Solitaire

Slightly trickier with a CPU. You need to remove the cooler, take out the old CPU, clean the base of the old cooler with isopropyl alcohol if you're reusing it, install the new CPU, put new thermal grease on the bottom of the cooler and spread it out (you only need a tiny amount, as you need to spread it very thin) and reinstall the cooler.

As for HDD, if its from a laptop it will be a 2.5" model. Most desktop cases have no mountings for 2.5" drives, so you'd need to buy or fabricate your own if you don't want it hanging about loose in there Also note you would need to buy a mIDE-IDE adaptor if its an old mIDE drive; if its SATA it will probably work with regular cables.

bondja80

I am thinking to flash bios with the newest one version from acer site? Current bios in my pc is from 2008. Would you recomend me this?

I got this Acer desktop with classic ps2 keybord. But when I listen music on Windows Media player or realplayer and type on the keybord at same time, the music breaks for short. Also when I was playing games, also sound breaks and picture freeze for short and repeat this all the time. Also I tried another ps2 keyboards and result was same. And my ps2 keybord works fine on another pcs.

That's why I bought a usb keyboard, and now I have no such problems.

I was thinking maybe is that because of bios.
Because, When I bought this pc, it was with linux, and after that I instaled windows 7.

What do you think, what can cause this problems with my ps2 keyboard?

bondja80

My saphire ati hd 5670 graphic card will arrive this week.

But I have this amd 780g chipset motherboard with integrated ati radeon hd 3200 graphic card, and it is possible to make crossfire with this motherboard.
Do you advice me to make crossfire with ati 5670 and ati 3200?

Or is better to swith off this ati hd 3200 graphic card. And how can I swith off this card, because it is integrated in motherboard chipset?

Solitaire

You can't crossfire any non-entry-level graphics card with an onboard solution.

Once you make the HD5670 your primary graphics adaptor the onboard should switch itself off IIRC.

bondja80

I plan to overclock my amd athlon 1640b 2,7ghz cpu. I have read on internet that somebody overclock this cpu to 3,3ghz very easy with temperature 38c max. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16819103262

Can you give me some advice how to overclock this cpu?
During the overclocking, I need to add more Volt (to increase core multipiler) if I want to speed up my cpu to 3,3GHz. Will that reduce power in volt for graphic card and other components in pc?

Maybe after overclock my graphic card or other pc components willl not have enough power to run ok? Can be that dangerous for pc system?

Also on internet they say, that during overclocking is important to look on cpu temperature all the time.

But I am confused how much is my cpu core temperature. Because aplications: Speedfan and Cpuid(HWMonitor) hardware monitor shows that my cpu core temperature is 25c on 20% and 30c on full load 100%, but software "Core temp" shows 45c and 50c on full load. So I dont know what is right temperature of cpu core?

And very strange Amd Overdrive utility(amd tool for overclocking) dont show cpu temperature. Column for cpu temperature is empty.

And during overclocking do I need to look on cpu temerature or cpu core temperature?

bondja80

I have instaled saphire hd 5670 card before 2 days in my pc. And graphic card temperature is ussualy 40c, now is 44c.
Yesterday I was playing FIFA10, after 2 hours playing this game, the temperature went to 48C.

Should I be worry about this or this is normal temperature for graphic card? And what is max allowed temperature for this card?

Also softwear pc wizard 2010 shows me now: processor temeperature 35c, power/ aux temperature 45c, mainboard temperature 42c, hard disk temperature 37c, processor core1 temperature 12c.

Solitaire

Unless you live in a freezer I doubt the last temp is right

And that's a dead low temp for a graphics card, you can see them exceeding 90c in some cases!

bondja80

What do you think about overclocking this card? With ati catalyst is very easy to do that.
Gpu clock from 775mhz to 850mhz, and memory clock from 1000mhz to 1050mhz.

Will that bring me some improvement during gameplay?

Solitaire

Maybe another ~10% FPS so long as your CPU isn't limiting you, and it could be