Upgrading my desktop, need advice plz

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thomaswenzel

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I'm wondering which video card to get for my Gateway DX4380G-UW308. Got my eye on a EVGA GeForce GT 730 2GB GDDR5 64bit DVI/HDMI/VGA Low Profile Graphics Card for sale at amazon for $70. Other threads I've seen suggest this model or a Sapphire Radeon HD 7750 1GB DDR5. My question is really this, the Nvidia card with 2 gigs of memory is like $10-$100 cheaper. I thought Nvidia cards were usually more than ATI Radeon cards. So why is the bigger card is so much cheaper, like does it not have all the advanced hardware the Radeon has? It appears to have a PCIe x16 2.0 connection, the other Radeon card has a PCIe x16 3.0 interface, is that difference, and how much of a difference are we talkin? I believe my computer supports 3.0 on its one PCI expansion slot, but I"ve had no luck there confirming if its 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0. Thanks for any help you can provide :)
 
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More VRAM and higher clock speeds take more power, but the Gigabyte one *may* still work. They tend to overestimate the size of power supply required, but the EVGA one is still safer. It's up to you how much of a risk you want to take. If your PC starts shutting down randomly, you'd need to replace the power supply unit, which would be more work and more money.


Also be aware, some video cards require a 6-pin power connector. The EVGA GTX 750 does not need one, it gets all its power from the PCIE slot. However, if you try any other cards you'll need to check whether they need a 6 pin power connector, and whether your PSU even has one.

PCIE 2 versus PCIE 3 barely affect any cards. It'll matter more in 3-4 years, but right now it's...
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Tanner Fredrickson

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VRAM (1gb, 2gb, etc) does not measure card speed. A 1GB card can easily be faster than 2GB card.

There is literally no difference from PCIE2 to PCIE3 on cards that weak; it only matters at all for the upper end cards. PCIE3 cards can still plug into PCIE2 slots without losing a noticeable amount of performance.

The HD 7750 will be faster, but they're both fairly low end.
 
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thomaswenzel

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That's depressing lol. I know my comp is low end for a gaming machine, but what would you guys recommend for the best upgrade my machine can handle, without having to get a new power supply. Already plan to get another 2gb and a 4gb chip to fill my empty ram slots, so that will double my ram, but im stumped on which video card to get. So I guess my question should be, what do I look for when shopping around for a video card.

 
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Tanner Fredrickson

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Sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound depressing. I figure being honest is better than leading you towards a card that'll disappoint you after you buy it and install it.

What games are you trying to run, and what settings are acceptable to you?

The GT 730 and HD 7750 can be decent at 720p, and there are fun games meant to run on that hardware (example, Killing Floor or CSGO) but those cards still aren't meant for graphically demanding games.

How much RAM do you have... 6GB? If it's 6GB or more, don't bother upgrading it, put the extra money towards a graphics card instead. 6GB of RAM is fine for the mid range, it's really probably the best part of your PC right now.
 
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thomaswenzel

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Thank you for your help thus far, and I wasn't depressed about your answer, just the thought that the cards I was looking at for decent prices were all low-end; I had no idea. I have 6 gb of ram yes. As far as acceptable, I would like to be able to play mid range, I don't expect to turn all the graphics on full and have an ideal playing setup; however, my monitor runs at 1920x1080, and turning down the resolution just makes my screen smaller, it doesn't scale out and fill the monitor. I'm playing WoW and Planetside 2 atm. WoW runs fine on middle settings, and Planetside runs well enough when its just me and < 20 people in my vicinity, (by fine I mean at least 20 fps, which i consider acceptable) but the frame rate can't climb over say 5-8fps when there is any real firefight going on (basically unplayable in a fps). And I have to turn the resolution down to 1600x900 which makes this annoying black border around my viewing area, instead of filling the screen area at a lower resolution. I'd like to be able to play GTA5 on low settings in the future. Also when I'm loading into a new territory on Planetside, there is alot of HDD activity as it loads the area, so I figured doubling the ram would mean less time spent waiting on the HDD.
 
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Tanner Fredrickson

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Well, your PC has a 300 watt power supply unit. They never add the best power supplies to prebuilts, so chances are it doesn't have much spare power left, and if the power supply blows your PC can sometimes fry (though more often it just shuts down). You'll need to find a card with low power draw... That mostly disqualifies AMD cards, as for the last few years they've been taking a lot more power to run than Nvidia cards.

The GT 730 is a 25 watt card, so it'd easily run, but it's low end. The GT 740 is a 65 watt card, which is likely too high. The GTX 750 is another step up in performance, and is only a 50 watt card. The reason the GTX 750 takes less power than the GT 740 is because the GTX 750 was the first card Nvidia made that uses the newest Maxwell architecture, which is extremely energy efficient. It outperforms the GT 740 by a wide margin, and takes the least power of any gaming video card.

So, if you don't have the money to replace your power supply, a GTX 750 is pretty much your only option. It's a bit more expensive (typically $110-$120) but would be much more worthwhile than adding RAM.

It looks like your case (if I'm looking at the right one) can support a double slot video card. You might want to measure to be sure how much room you have, but this card is actually pretty good.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00IDG3NDY/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1423421467&sr=8-1&keywords=gtx+750&dpPl=1&dpID=51NYzIQ7z7L&ref=plSrch&pi=AC_SY200_QL40

Don't worry about the RAM. Right now your PC is using RAM as gaming VRAM, but as soon as you add a dedicated video card it'll use its own VRAM instead, freeing up more of your RAM for the purposes it's meant for. 6GB is really not bad.

In theory, the GTX 750 should be able to put Planetside 2 on high-ish settings above 30 fps, and should max WOW. However, in reality you might have different results. Your CPU is likely to hold it back somewhat, but hopefully not too noticeably. The games you're playing both rely heavily on CPU performance as well, so it's hard to say exactly how far you'll be able to push them.
 
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thomaswenzel

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awesome info, thx! Ok so my motherboard is a AAHD3-VC (http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c02967715), the psu is a FSP300-60EP. I see an awesome looking GTX 750 with 2GB made by Gigabyte that is within my budget, but it says in the description requires a 400w psu so that'll prolly be too much then? Is it better to get one with 1GB instead of 2GB? Also I see from the above link, that my PCIe x16 is generation 2 speed, so 2.0 not 3.0 right? Or are these cards still low end enough that it wont matter? Also I've read another thread saying I should upgrade the cpu to a lower end quad core and get a low power graphics card, would I be better off looking into a new cpu as well? I'm trying to keep this upgrade under $250, so any thoughts are apprectiated.
 
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Tanner Fredrickson

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More VRAM and higher clock speeds take more power, but the Gigabyte one *may* still work. They tend to overestimate the size of power supply required, but the EVGA one is still safer. It's up to you how much of a risk you want to take. If your PC starts shutting down randomly, you'd need to replace the power supply unit, which would be more work and more money.


Also be aware, some video cards require a 6-pin power connector. The EVGA GTX 750 does not need one, it gets all its power from the PCIE slot. However, if you try any other cards you'll need to check whether they need a 6 pin power connector, and whether your PSU even has one.

PCIE 2 versus PCIE 3 barely affect any cards. It'll matter more in 3-4 years, but right now it's meaningless.

If I was in your position, I'd start just with one of the GTX 750s. That way you have some budget leftover, and can decide at that point whether you even need to replace the CPU or power supply, or whether it's working fine as it is. You're definitely going to get a nice performance boost from this, the only question is how big it'll be.
 
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thomaswenzel

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Thanks again for the speedy and helpful advice, just one more question and I think I can make a decision with confidence. What's the main difference(s) between the 730 and 750? is the 750 w/1 GB better than the 730 w/ 2 GB? I think if I get the EVGA brand I can get a 750 w/2 GB that will use less that 300w, so is it just me or does EVGA make the more power efficent models out there? Also back to the question of ram, I have a 4GB and a 2GB stick, and I read somewhere that you get maximum effeciency with matching pairs. My local computer store will let me trade in old ram, so I can trade in my 2GB stick for a 4GB stick and end up with 8 total, but more importantly I'll have a matching pair, so is there any merit to this line of thinking?

 
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Tanner Fredrickson

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As mentioned, VRAM size isn't a direct measure of performance. Games use VRAM as storage, and unless 1GB fills up, 2GB won't increase the performance. Other things matter much more, and a 1GB GTX 750 will be way faster than a 2GB GT 730.

The only time 2GB will help is if you're playing a game that wants more. Neither Planetside 2 nor WOW will use more than 1GB. However, if you can afford a 2GB version of GTX 750 that recommends 300w, there's no downside to getting the 2GB version. It will help in certain circumstances.

If you see a "Ti" after the card name, like "GTX 750 Ti", that stands for " Titanium", and it's just Nvidia's way of labelling a card with enhanced specs and performance. The GTX 750 Ti does take a little more power and is typically more expensive.

How it works is, Nvidia designs the GeForce GTX video cards. However, Nvidia doesn't manufacture them. They have other companies manufacture the cards, like Asus, Gigabyte, or EVGA. EVGA is actually partnered with Nvidia, so they stick closest to the original Nvidia designs. That means EVGA cards are very efficient and official, but the other versions sometimes have other features or slightly faster performance. Last time I checked, the Gigabyte GTX 750 was clocked a bit higher than the EVGA version.

I typically buy EVGA, but there won't be a big difference either way as long as you get one that'll work with your case and PSU. Usually people seem to pick what they think looks coolest.

You're generally supposed to have RAM sticks with matching size, speed, and latency. If not, I've heard problems can occur, but I've never tested it, as I just buy matching RAM...
 
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thomaswenzel

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Dude you are awesome, you answered everything I can think off, thank you very much! Im either gonna grab the 2 GB EVGA card sold as used for $90 or the Zotac card marked as new for $120 if its sold out by the time I buy it lol. And I'm gonna see about getting a second 4GB ram stick so I have a matching pair. Thanks again.
 
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