Gfx card replacement needed (was a 7600GT)

MOH

Think I knocked something loose when moving it, but my gfx card just fell apart, looks like the fan supports melted.

Rig's about 8 years old, but it's been my main work machine the last few months, so need to pick up a replacement pronto. Adverts being the obvious source, but I don't want to get something the PSU can't handle.

I'm just wondering what I could put into it, given the PSU is only 305W. There's 4 sticks of RAM in it (3GB), a couple of hard drives, a DVD drive and a modem (for some reason). Don't really use the DVD drive or the modem, so could disconnect those if I needed the extra power.

Any suggestions for a cheap semi decent card that might keep me going for now, and where to get one?

IrishMetalhead

anthing that only uses power from the pci-e slot and dosn't have any pci-e power connectors, take it your just looking for something to just give you decent video and not need gaming etc. at all?

MOH

Pretty much, few indie games here and here, but most of my Steam library wouldn't work on the old card anyway.
Plus I'm running Linux Mint on it since my HDD went a couple of months ago.

Still using the old Dell 17" monitor so it's not like I need massive resolution either.

I'll probably upgrade the whole thing next year before the rest of it packs in, just need a card to keep me going for a few months.

IrishMetalhead

just look out for a 5450, seen a few on adverts for €30 odd but they don't cost that much more news so try get one abit cheaper by haggling abit

MOH

Cheers for that.

bernardamaac.

I have a 8800gtx fairly powerful but good for hd movies runs around 40 fps stable on bf3 @1680 x 1050 low settings

marco_polo

At 8 years old there is a every chance that could be an AGP slot I would think? Any more details on the model/ motherboard OP?

bernardamaac.

marco_polo wrote: »

At 8 years old there is a every chance that could be an AGP slot I would think? Any more details on the model/ motherboard OP?

No sure he said he was running a pci slot card?

tuxy

bernardamaac. wrote: »

No sure he said he was running a pci slot card?

It wasn't the op that said anything about pci-e.
8 years would be right on the agp - pci-e transition point wouldn't it?

bernardamaac.

tuxy wrote: »

It wasn't the op that said anything about pci-e.
8 years would be right on the agp - pci-e transition point wouldn't it?

Yeah it would but all i was saying is in the heading it says 7600gt which is pci.

tuxy

marco_polo

Loads of cards back then came would have come in both flavors, which is why theres no harm in double checking

TerrorFirmer

It's probably a Dell with a 305w psu, and if so, it's also probably pci-e, I had a few machines from 2004 that were all pci-e.

bernardamaac.

marco_polo wrote: »

Loads of cards back then came would have come in both flavors, which is why theres no harm in double checking

Sorry man my bad!

IrishMetalhead

either way a 8800gtx would be useless to him since he only has a 305w psu and the 8800gtx was very power hungry and requires 2 pci-e power connectors

MOH

Sorry about the confusion, had meant to clarify earlier that it was PCI-e. Hadn't realised there was an AGP version of the 7600GT.
There's an older AGP slot in there too though.

@TerrorFirmer: yep, it's a Dell alright. In fact, I think you sold me the card a few years ago!
(I take full responsibility for destroying it though ).

bernardamaac.

IrishMetalhead wrote: »

either way a 8800gtx would be useless to him since he only has a 305w psu and the 8800gtx was very power hungry and requires 2 pci-e power connectors

Through but you'd pick up a 500 w psu for 20 quid and it would beat most €60-70 cards if not all of them.

tuxy

Beat them at what?

He wants the card to run linux mint desktop from what I gather.

Would a Radeon HD 5450 do the job? Under €30 new.

bernardamaac.

tuxy wrote: »

Beat them at what?.

in overall benchmarks.
[QUOTE=Would a Radeon HD 5450 do the job? Under €30 new.[/QUOTE]Any card would run well with any linux thats the whole point not costly or hard on hardware.It probably is the cheapest new you'l find around.

TerrorFirmer

MOH wrote: »

Sorry about the confusion, had meant to clarify earlier that it was PCI-e. Hadn't realised there was an AGP version of the 7600GT.
There's an older AGP slot in there too though.

@TerrorFirmer: yep, it's a Dell alright. In fact, I think you sold me the card a few years ago!
(I take full responsibility for destroying it though ).

Yup, I think so actually! Great to think it's lasted this long, I really put that card through it's paces back in the days when I used to play BF2 hours daily.

Don't think you can go wrong with something like this for 25 euro.

I know PC World/Currys are currently clearing out Asus 5450's at 29.99, which might be handier if your local store have them.

7600GT is still faster than a 5450 though...PC World also have 6670's for 59.99 or thereabouts in my local (I got one for 49.99, though the price went back up a tenner), so if you want something performance geared, you could do far worse.

tuxy

The OP was not even bothered changing the hard drive when it failed. I'd be very surprised if he liked the idea of changing the psu when it's not necessary and more costly overall.

TerrorFirmer

No need anyway. Even cards like 6670 which would be twice as fast as the 7600GT would work on that 305w psu, not to mention the CPU is probably a bottleneck even with a 6670 class card - so there's no logic at all for a PSU replacement.

MOH

tuxy wrote: »

The OP was not even bothered changing the hard drive when it failed. I'd be very surprised if he liked the idea of changing the psu when it's not necessary and more costly overall.

I did change the hard drive - didn't really have much choice, given the freezer didn't work.
I just didn't have the original Windows disks around to reinstall, thus Linux, and the OH uses it, hence something with a Windows like interface, hence Mint.

It's an 8 year old Dell mini tower case. I don't even know how much the motherboard would restrict me in terms of upgrading (I suspect the two AGP slots might be a liability!), but I'll probably treat myself to a HWVS build early next year. So for now, while being able to play a few games would be a bonus, getting something cheap and functional in the next day or so is the main priority.

I was going to chance a GT430 in it, but PC World in town (spit) didn't have it despite advertising it on their website. And then the guy there tried to convince me that something else (an 8800?) would happily run, even though the box specs are 350W min.

Maplin's had a 6450 for about €45, might fall back to that if I can't pick one up on adverts.

All the advice is much appreciated, thanks.

TerrorFirmer

I think you're confusing AGP with PCI - all mobos have PCI lanes (the white ones). What you have is a pci-e lane, and several pci lanes.

Don't worry about box requirements, they'll often state 400w is required when in reality, even a decent 200w psu would suffice. Often, cards that draw about 20-30w, will advise a 400w psu - my guess is that it's to cover themselves, given the abundance of low quality PSUs out there.

A GT430 should work fine on a dell 305w psu. But like I said, my local PC World has a few cards on clearance - 5450 and 6670 being the best reduced in my local, though they have gts450's sub 50 in there as well.

If you're stuck and don't like buying online, give me a shout, I'd be more than happy to buy a card for you and post it on.

TerrorFirmer

But if Maplins have a 6450 for 45, that's really not too bad at all.

TerrorFirmer

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

A GT430 should work fine on a dell 305w psu. But like I said, my local PC World has a few cards on clearance - 5450 and 6670 being the best reduced in my local, though they have gts450's sub 50 in there as well.

My brother has one of these BTX Dells with the 305W PSU and has a 6800 in it, has been in it from new. They're actually not bad PSUs.

TerrorFirmer

My secondary LAN machine has a 6670 on a 250w psu in a Dell vostro, and not a problem! Though the 6800 is an older card definitely more power hungry, so it's an even better testament. I've always maintained that Dell PSU's are rock solid reliable, thanks for their under rated PSU's.

smileyj1987

http://www.adverts.ie/graphics-cards/radeon-hd-5450-1-gb/2422471

A quick search of adverts and I found this .

MOH

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I think you're confusing AGP with PCI - all mobos have PCI lanes (the white ones). What you have is a pci-e lane, and several pci lanes.

Yeah, brain freeze there, they're PCI slots alright.

If you're stuck and don't like buying online, give me a shout, I'd be more than happy to buy a card for you and post it on.

Thanks a million for the offer. No problem buying online, it's just a bit time critical.

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

But if Maplins have a 6450 for 45, that's really not too bad at all.

Yeah, I reckon I'll pop back in and grab that, seems like the quickest solution.

MOH

OK, back up and running with that HD6450, thanks everyone.
One small problem though.

The new card has a DVI, HDML and VGA output
The old one had 2 DVIs, so I was using a DVI-VGA adapter.

When I tried that on the new card, the DVI output isn't working - monitor just goes into standby.
VGA works fine.

I've installed the latest ATI Catalyst drivers for Linux and rebooted, made no difference.

Just wondering am I likely looking at a driver issue, faulty card, or some other hardware issue (could low power mean the VGA connection is working while the DVI isn't?).

It's not a massive issue since if the VGA keeps working fine I'm OK, but obviously if it's a faulty card I'll need to bring it back.

Is it an Asus card? I came across an Asus HD6450 before, where although it physically had a DVI-I port, it was actually electrically DVI-D, so it would only drive DVI or HDMI displays.

MOH

Wow, great diagnosis.
That's it alright, thanks a million.

Now, what number am I thinking of?

marco_polo

Karsini wrote: »

Is it an Asus card? I came across an Asus HD6450 before, where although it physically had a DVI-I port, it was actually electrically DVI-D, so it would only drive DVI or HDMI displays.

Thats prettys extreme corner cutting but I guess since there is a VGA port on the card already they probably felt that DVI-I wasn't essential.

MOH

Last note in case anyone else has the same problem, once I got the video working found my sound had gone.

When I checked the sound settings I found Mint had picked up the HDMI output from the new card ahead of the built-in audio.

Landoflemon

There's a good chance you can't use the DVI and VGA at the same time, maybe DVI and HDMI is for dual screen with that card. I know with mine (5850) I can have 3 screens at a time (even though there are 4 ports), so with two of the ports, you can use one or the other, but not both at the same time. I needed 4 screens, so 3 are running off a 5850, and the 4th is running on a 5450.

MOH

Landoflemon wrote: »

There's a good chance you can't use the DVI and VGA at the same time, maybe DVI and HDMI is for dual screen with that card. I know with mine (5850) I can have 3 screens at a time (even though there are 4 ports), so with two of the ports, you can use one or the other, but not both at the same time. I needed 4 screens, so 3 are running off a 5850, and the 4th is running on a 5450.

Nah, I was unplugging the cable from the VGA and plugging it in to the DVI through the adapter.

Karsini's right - it's got DVI-D listed on the back of the box in a difficult to read 6px white font on light orange background, under the heading 'Powerful Features' :rolleyes:

It's not a problem, once I know the card's not faulty. Might bring the PC inside aand plug it into the TV through the HDMI and DVI just to be sure.