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I am not real knowlageble about computers. I just bought a used computer to upgrade ours becuase we have some games and applications that would not run or run way too slow on any of our current computers. Further we like to watch netflix over the internet and our computers keep interrupting the movies for "buffering". Finally we wanted something that will carry us into the future for a while and still be able to run the newer programs that we might want.
We got a gateway with Phenom x4 2.6 Ghz processer and 6 GB Ram (DDR3 I think). It has an ATI Radeon HD 5450 video card. I was told that we will probably not be happy with the performance using this videocard.
Does anyone know of an affordable videocard that will perform significantly better than the Radeon HD 5450 and does not cost too much? I wold like to find something that costs around $200 new so that i can find one on E-bay or elsewhere for less than $100.
I read somewhere that using two lower powered videocards in SLI mode provides better perfomance than a single more powerful and expensive videocard. How can I tell if my motherboard will support SLI? If it will, is it difficult for a novice like me to set it up in SLI mode with two videocards? If we can do SLi, what card(s) do you suggest we look at? Can we use a second HD 5450?
Second question, this computer does nto have a Bluray player. Are they really worthwhile? They seem to be a passing fad (like the old Beta disks for movies) and I cannot see all that much benefit from them.
as far as the blue ray player they will be out for a while and 50 gigs to a disc os great for storage iv'e been hearing that everything will be going to smart cards and blue ray will be faded out.
I am not real knowlageble about computers. I just bought a used computer to upgrade ours becuase we have some games and applications that would not run or run way too slow on any of our current computers. Further we like to watch netflix over the internet and our computers keep interrupting the movies for "buffering". Finally we wanted something that will carry us into the future for a while and still be able to run the newer programs that we might want.
We got a gateway with Phenom x4 2.6 Ghz processer and 6 GB Ram (DDR3 I think). It has an ATI Radeon HD 5450 video card. I was told that we will probably not be happy with the performance using this videocard.
I like the overall setup, but the video card is definitely a weak link.
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Does anyone know of an affordable videocard that will perform significantly better than the Radeon HD 5450 and does not cost too much? I wold like to find something that costs around $200 new so that i can find one on E-bay or elsewhere for less than $100.
The good news here is that just about anything is better than a 5450, so you have a lot of options. The first question that needs to be answered though is what can the power supply handle.
For reference, given the processor you are using, the type of graphics slot your motherboard has is called PCIE x16. Now, that slot will power the card when it is plugged in. However, some cards require an additional power cord to be plugged into them from the computers power supply. Many OEM power supplies are made to simply handle what they come with and have little room for expansion. Basically, your power supply may or may not have the extra connector needed for more powerful video cards and it may or may not have enough wattage to power a better card. So, the first step here would be to figure out whether or not your power supply has the capability of supporting a more robust card.
If your power supply can handle it, than you want to look for either a Radeon 5770 or 6850 or a Nvidia GTX460. All are currently sub-$200 cards new and are capable of running anything you can throw at them. The 5770 is the weakest of those three, but still a good card. The 6850 and GTX460 are roughly equal and I would pick between them based on price. These cards are also all capable of using the new Direct X 11.0 standard that many games will be using in the future.
However, never fear because even if the power supply isn't up to spec there is at least one strong contender that you can buy new in your budget that will be a big improvement over the 5450. The Nividia 9500GT and 9600GT are very budget friendly cards that provide strong performance for the buck. These can be picked up many places for under $100 brand new. They don't require any extra power and either is roughly double the performance of the 5450.
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I read somewhere that using two lower powered videocards in SLI mode provides better perfomance than a single more powerful and expensive videocard. How can I tell if my motherboard will support SLI? If it will, is it difficult for a novice like me to set it up in SLI mode with two videocards? If we can do SLi, what card(s) do you suggest we look at? Can we use a second HD 5450?
There are two different versions. SLI is used on Nvidia cards and Crossfire is used on ATI/AMD cards. You would need to know what type of motherboard you have in order to find out if they are supported (FYI, the 5450 is an ATI/AMD card, so it uses Crossfire). In general most people don't feel that running SLI/Crossfire is really worth it for the minor performance bump. It is doubly not worth it on a card like the 5450 that is already bottom of the barrel. I would basically not consider it to be an option as power supply and motherboard configuration, etc. become more of an issue. There are also occasional compatability problems with games and programs using SLI/Crossfired cards...bottom line, more hassle than it's worth.
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Second question, this computer does nto have a Bluray player. Are they really worthwhile? They seem to be a passing fad (like the old Beta disks for movies) and I cannot see all that much benefit from them.
I don't personally think Bluray is a passing fad at all. There was a format war between Bluray and HD DVD that was reminiscent of VHS vs. Beta. Well, Bluray won and that is the future. I think part of the issue with it catching on is tied to the economy and people not investing. However, prices for players have dropped and they are becoming more and more common, especially since they are backwards compatible with regular DVD's.
All that aside, I would still say, it isn't needed on a computer. While the drives have been offered for a while now, I haven't seen any software released on Bluray format. The drives seem to pretty much exist just to play movies.
Wow. You certainly seem to know this stuff. Thank you.
I will look at the power supply to see whether it has any slots of wires for direct powering a video card. Maybe I can find something online that will say. It was not a great computer when it was new (it is an A4300 or something like that) so I suspect that the power supply will be minimal.
Wow. You certainly seem to know this stuff. Thank you.
I will look at the power supply to see whether it has any slots of wires for direct powering a video card. Maybe I can find something online that will say. It was not a great computer when it was new (it is an A4300 or something like that) so I suspect that the power supply will be minimal.
Thanks again That is very helpful.
It is most important to determine what the wattage rating for the power supply is, as that will determine how much it can handle. When it comes to the actual connector for a video card, they are simple six-pin connectors that are two rows of three with a clip. Even if you don't have one of those, it is possible to repurpose a regular line for that job, but it isn't an ideal choice as some of those cards need a lot of amps on that line and better power supplies with dedicated connectors take that into account.
This is the adapter I was talking about, but it shows you what the 6-pin connector looks like:
Regardless of what happens with the power supply though, an inexpensive card like this Nvidia 9500GT will provide about double the performance of the 5450 and will pretty much be guaranteed to be a drop in. I personally am still using a 9500GT in my system and find it more than capable of regular tasks and watching videos. It is also capable of playing modern games, though not at optimal settings. However, you can't beat it considering the price:
The power supply is 300 watts. THe 5770 card needs 450 watts according to some website that I saw. I am not sure about the others. I will probably just get the Nvidia 9500 if it will run on 300 watts.
It looks like I can get a compatible replacement 400 watt power supply for about $53, but that is still not enough for the 5770. I am not interested in spending a bunch more money on this right now, but someday, maybe I will upgrade the power supply and get a better video card then. However by that time I may as well buy a bunch of better parts and just build a computer from scratch. seems like that would be fun, but I am sure there is a lot more to it than just buying compatible parts and plugging them in and screwing them into place.
The games that gave us trouble are Civilization V and Age of Empires. THe second one runs ok, it is just slow. The water and ship scenes tend to freeze for a long time and it gets really messed up. Civilization is incredibly slow (like go walk the dog between turns slow) and sometimes the graphics fritz out and then the thing crashes. Sometimes the video card overheats according to my son. We also had problems with some of my sons action games, with multiple PDF files open at once, and with a large management program. I think there were a few others that our computers cannot handle. Also the computers often crash if the antivirus software begins a scan when you have other programs open. Hopefully this will be an improvement.
Thank you for the links. Is NEwegg going to be better prices than E-bay?
Memory is DDR 2 not DDR 3. I hope that does nto make a huge difference. At least it is cheaper if I have some need to buy more, but i cannot imagine needing more than 6 gb.
Another quesiton: The Nivdia 9500 card is 128 mb while the Radeon 5450 is 512 MB. I though that the amount of memory on the card was controlling of performance. Why is the 9500 card twice as fast? (I do nto doubt it, I just want to learn).
The power supply is 300 watts. THe 5770 card needs 450 watts according to some website that I saw. I am not sure about the others. I will probably just get the Nvidia 9500 if it will run on 300 watts.
It looks like I can get a compatible replacement 400 watt power supply for about $53, but that is still not enough for the 5770. I am not interested in spending a bunch more money on this right now, but someday, maybe I will upgrade the power supply and get a better video card then. However by that time I may as well buy a bunch of better parts and just build a computer from scratch. seems like that would be fun, but I am sure there is a lot more to it than just buying compatible parts and plugging them in and screwing them into place.
The base parts you have aren't bad at all and will serve you well in the future. An upgraded power supply and vid card in a couple years, may extend the useful life of that PC for a few years. For right now, I can appreciate not wanting to spend too much more right now.
As for building something, it really isn't much harder than plugging them in and screwing them into place. If you can swap a vid card, you aren't too far away from building a system from scratch these days.
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The games that gave us trouble are Civilization V and Age of Empires. THe second one runs ok, it is just slow. The water and ship scenes tend to freeze for a long time and it gets really messed up. Civilization is incredibly slow (like go walk the dog between turns slow) and sometimes the graphics fritz out and then the thing crashes. Sometimes the video card overheats according to my son. We also had problems with some of my sons action games, with multiple PDF files open at once, and with a large management program. I think there were a few others that our computers cannot handle. Also the computers often crash if the antivirus software begins a scan when you have other programs open. Hopefully this will be an improvement.
Your new PC is similar to what I have and I can guarantee you it will be a large improvement. The game I play most often is Empire: Total War and it is a quite demanding game, but perfectly playable on my system with a 9500GT.
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Thank you for the links. Is NEwegg going to be better prices than E-bay?
I'm not sure that Newegg is really going to give you a better price. What I can tell you is that they are generally the most competitve retail price around and they have excellent customer service/support, which is something you won't necessarily get with E-Bay. Most people who build systems and buy parts get them from Newegg.
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Memory is DDR 2 not DDR 3. I hope that does nto make a huge difference. At least it is cheaper if I have some need to buy more, but i cannot imagine needing more than 6 gb.
I wouldn't be too overly concerned with that. Obviously DDR3 is better than DDR2, but we are talking negligible differences in the real world. Also, my current system is running 4GB of RAM and is doing just fine, so 6GB should be more than enough for regular things.
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Originally Posted by Coldjensens
Another quesiton: The Nivdia 9500 card is 128 mb while the Radeon 5450 is 512 MB. I though that the amount of memory on the card was controlling of performance. Why is the 9500 card twice as fast? (I do nto doubt it, I just want to learn).
The card I linked to is a 1GB model. The 128 part is referring to the processors bit. When it comes to video cards, think of them as mini computers dedicated to processing the graphics. Just like in a regular computer, not only does the size and type of RAM effect performance, so does the processor and the coding behind it. In this case the 9500GT is faster not just do to the RAM, but the fact that it has a much more powerful processor.
Also, the size of the RAM only begins to effect performance, in terms of resolution. For instance, if we are displaying in 1280x1024 there is almost no difference between say a 512mb card and a 1gb card. However, if we scaled up to 1920x1080, there would be a big difference.
Also, I should asterisk the twice as fast comment. In benchmark tests, the 9500 is only about 25% faster. However, in games it routinely runs at 1.5 - 2 times the frame rates you can get on a 5450, hence the "double" comment.
Given what your power supply is, there really is no other option outside the 9500GT even though there are a ton of better cards for not much more money.
1) 300 watts isn't enough for power for what you're wanting to do. You'll need to swap that out.
2) As mentioned, you don't need to Crossfire/SLI. Those are for people who want to maximize performance on their machines
3) http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...-570,2834.html Go find the graphics card that fits your price range best. Trust the article to let you know which one is best in class for that price range.
4) BD is not a fad. It's going to be with us for a very long time. People can talk about direct-2-download and streaming all they like, but it won't be a reality in this country for at least a decade because our infrastructure sucks
1) 300 watts isn't enough for power for what you're wanting to do. You'll need to swap that out.
2) As mentioned, you don't need to Crossfire/SLI. Those are for people who want to maximize performance on their machines
3) Best Graphics Cards For The Money: January 2011 : January Updates Go find the graphics card that fits your price range best. Trust the article to let you know which one is best in class for that price range.
4) BD is not a fad. It's going to be with us for a very long time. People can talk about direct-2-download and streaming all they like, but it won't be a reality in this country for at least a decade because our infrastructure sucks
I would agree on the upgraded power supply being nice and definitely something the computer needs in the future. The problem is if he doesn't want to go through the hassle and expense of upgrading the power supply, he can still run a 9500GT and get much better performance than what he has right now.
FWIW, I like the recommendations from Tom's, but just about any of those is going to kill his PSU, adding significantly to the cost given what he is looking for the PC to do.
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