Graphics card upgrade, will this be worth it?

TwoShedsJackson

I put my last PC together 4 years ago and have periodically upgraded the odd bit so it still runs pretty well. It has a GeForce 9600 GT video card which is obviously pretty ancient.

Thinking about getting a Sapphire HD7750 Ultimate as an upgrade and have waded through some of the specs but am not sure just how much of an improvement it will be. It's only about €120 online which I have no objection to paying.

The only game that I regularly play that would see a likely improvement is Civilization 5. I don't need cutting edge graphics as I don't play Modern Warfare or the latest and greatest FPS's, usually, and I do want it to be as quiet as possible or ideally silent as I hate noisy graphics cards.

Would this be a worthwhile upgrade, do you reckon? If not, any useful alternative?

ED E

What are the rest of your specs? It depends on the rest of the rig.

Civ5 can be turned down a fair bit, so its just CPU heavy then.

TwoShedsJackson

Four year old motherboard, 4 gigs of RAM (running XP though so I think it can only access 3.5 gigs), CPU is 2.6 GHz I think, so long since I put it together have half-forgotten (and it's at home so can't check right now).

Procrastastudy

Buy yourself a 6870 or 5870 (or 5850 or 6850 if the price is good enough) for under a €100 of adverts imho.

ED E

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

Four year old motherboard, 4 gigs of RAM (running XP though so I think it can only access 3.5 gigs), CPU is 2.6 GHz I think, so long since I put it together have half-forgotten (and it's at home so can't check right now).

If its a quad you can still do a fair bit with it. If its 2.6 dual, check to see if you can fit a quad in that slot. If its a single, you're gonna want a new machine, dont waste money on parts for obsolete tech.

Procrastastudy

ED E wrote: »

If its a quad you can still do a fair bit with it. If its 2.6 dual, check to see if you can fit a quad in that slot. If its a single, you're gonna want a new machine, dont waste money on parts for obsolete tech.

You can always move a GFX card to a new machine if you don't like the performance gain you get. One persons choppy mess is another's happy gaming.

That said if it's a single core at this stage yeah its pretty damn old and doesn't really matter what you do with it.

ED E

GCDLawstudent wrote: »

You can always move a GFX card to a new machine if you don't like the performance gain you get. One persons choppy mess is another's happy gaming.

That said if it's a single core at this stage yeah its pretty damn old and doesn't really matter what you do with it.

Yeah, but for immediate effect a GPU will do little to none on a single, and buying a cheapo GPU only to then get a new i5 system in a few months and then have to get a decent GPU to match would be very wasteful.

All I'm saying is look at the big picture long run.

Procrastastudy

Steady on there my 6870 serves me well on my i5

While this is all some good natured joshing there is something to be said in regards to quality settings and how much you game. There are quite a few people in the enthusiastic bracket that look for 50+ FPS on ultra high quality settings. Most people are quite content with lower settings and frame rates. If you're happy with XBOX 360 type graphics you can get some life out of old hardware.

That said I do have to agree that if its a single core system it isn't worth trying to upgrade it.

TwoShedsJackson

The board is a Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. EP35-DS3 (socket 775) which they say supports a 'Intel Core 2 Quad processor', will that do for the current quad core CPUs?

The CPU in it right now is a 3 gigahertz Intel Core2 Duo.

Procrastastudy

Nope - The current gen are LGA1155 the previous gen (first i5s) were LGA1156.

I'm not great on those CPUs as I think there is some issue dropping in the current 775 chips. That said if you get an updated BIOS it should have a compatibility list and you can pick up a cheap quad core on adverts.

uberpixie

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

The board is a Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. EP35-DS3 (socket 775) which they say supports a 'Intel Core 2 Quad processor', will that do for the current quad core CPUs?

The CPU in it right now is a 3 gigahertz Intel Core2 Duo.

You are well set with 3 Ghz dualie....

Throw in a dacent newgfx card and there are very few games on the market that will not run well.

I had a Q6600 @ 3Ghz and my mate had a e8400 3.0ghz, but ran games pretty much the same... (we both had the same gfx cards)
Get a new gfx card first and see how you gaming. After that you can decide to upgrade to an i5 now or wait for the new Intel stuff in a years time.

EDIT: AFAIK a P35 mobo will only take 1066 Mhz Bus speed quads. e.g. Q6600, Q6700 etc.... The later quads were 1333 Mhz bus speed if I remember correctly....

ED E

Yeah, get a Q6600 and a new GPU, you wont know what hit you.

TwoShedsJackson

Got the card, installed it, it's fine in Vista desktop but as soon as I try to run any game the PC crashes after a couple of seconds, usually with a solid screen of colour or the like.

Thought the card might be over heating, tried it again with the case side off, same problem. When the PC reboots some letters are corrupted and when it gets to the Vista login screen there's random jags of colour all over the screen.

Switching the PC off for 30 seconds and rebooting sorts that but then it crashes again as soon as the card is put under stress. Could it be just this card or am I missing something else?

challengemaster

Could be a power supply issue, what's the current PSU you're using?

TwoShedsJackson

700w PSU and this card is supposed to use very little power, certainly less than the card that was in it. Old card is back in for the minute, and working fine.

ED E

Is it new?

Make sure you have the latest Catalyst CC and GPU drivers themselves.

TwoShedsJackson

Yes it's new. Card doesn't connect to the PSU directly, takes it's power from the PCIe slot, could there be an issue there somewhere?

challengemaster

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

Yes it's new. Card doesn't connect to the PSU directly, takes it's power from the PCIe slot, could there be an issue there somewhere?

Eh.... yeah, there's your problem. Graphics cards usually have 2 slots on them for power from the PSU. Not a hope it's drawing enough power straight from the PCI slot, I'm surprised it's even managing to boot.

TwoShedsJackson

This is the card: http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/sapphire_7750_ultimate/2.htm

As with other HD 7750s, the HD 7750 ULTIMATE will draw all of its power from the PCIe X 16 slot. This is also what it will use to transfer data if you wanted to crossfire it with another HD 7750. In other words, you won't find a crossfire connector on this card.

Am I missing some connection I'm supposed to be making from PSU? The old card has one, this one doesn't have any.

challengemaster

Hmm, apologies if that's the case, new one on me.

TwoShedsJackson

challengemaster wrote: »

Hmm, apologies if that's the case, new one on me.

It's the case, just checked it again to make sure I wasn't going insane

Procrastastudy

What was the old card - what is the new one?

Did you remove the drivers for the old one?

TwoShedsJackson

Old was card was a GeForce 9600, uninstalled it and removed drivers before installing new card. Have since reversed the procedure and the 9600 is back in and working fine, beginning to think it could just be a duff card, might try a replacement.

Procrastastudy

Whats the new one?

TwoShedsJackson

GCDLawstudent wrote: »

Whats the new one?

Sapphire Ultimate 7750 1gb http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/sapphire_7750_ultimate/2.htm

Procrastastudy

Hmm could be duff then did you use something like driver sweeper to make sure the drivers where completely gone?

TwoShedsJackson

Have sent it back for a replacement anyway, have to do a clean install to upgrade to Win 7 64-bit so that's a good chance to clear out old driver remnants etc.