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Upgrading An Old PC: Teaching Old Dog New Tricks

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  • RAM
  • Intel
  • Graphics
  • AMD
  • ATI
  • Nvidia
  • Asus
  • Radeon
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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April 7, 2014 7:17:39 AM

I have 3 PCs at home:

#1 is my main rig, and I am happy about it for now, will upgrade the GPU in the future (it's an Asus GTX 670 D2T).

The 2nd - is the older PC, that has a balanced build for its age. I use it mainly for LAN and coop games with my brother, and some studies.

The 3rd PC however is really old, but it's the source of the problem: It's GPU just died! And it is too old to actually upgrade...

So basically: my 3rd PC had an old AMD Athlon quad core x64 cpu. I don't remember which.
It also had a Radeon HD 4850 -> which was transferred from the 2nd PC when it was upgraded.
The HD 4850 just dropped dead one day. Without fair warning or any apparent reason.


Now, the 2nd PC currently has:
ATI Radeon HD 5850
Intel Core 2Extreme CPU X9650 @3.00GHz
4 GB of DD2 RAM Gskill
1 TB HD
Running on Win7 64 bit

So my plan is: upgrade my 2nd gaming PC's GPU ----> then take the HD 5850 and put it in the 3rd PC.
It might be somewhat of a bottleneck, but what can I do!?

When upgrading my 2nd PC's GPU: I thought either upgrading something up the tier of the HD series: for example:
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 7850 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E
Or going higher into R5/7 series.
Alternatively I can buy an equivalent of Nvidia.
I liked the HD 5850 for its cool temps even when running at maximum. And my 2nd PC is lacking serious cooling so that helps.

I don't want to buy something too powerful: that might be seriously bottlenecked with the rest of the 2nd pc's components.
I might need to upgrade the RAM though, but I rather not for now...

What do you guys think?
Can I teach this old dog new tricks?


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Best solution

a b Ĉ ASUS
April 7, 2014 7:36:38 AM

5850 is about 25% slower than a GTX460. you can get a 460 on ebay used for $50-$60 all day long.

So grab a 460 for your 2nd machine... move the 5850 to the 3rd. and you just upgraded both for $50.
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April 7, 2014 7:51:31 AM

lowriderflow said:
5850 is about 25% slower than a GTX460. you can get a 460 on ebay used for $50-$60 all day long.

So grab a 460 for your 2nd machine... move the 5850 to the 3rd. and you just upgraded both for $50.


Well that might be a good choice, but:
a) I never buy used hardware.
b) I am from Israel, so it will be even harder to buy something - reliably and safely - or even at a decent price (shipping price + taxes are huge) - and get it shipped safely to Israel.

So I rather just search the local market for a good card, that will be optimal for my 2nd rig without going into bottleneck. And if I spend that money, I am thinking 25% upgrade is perhaps too low?
If I buy something brand new, I might as well pick something better for the $.
What about the HD 7xxxx or something from R5/7?
I don't have enough experience in those cards....
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