Need advice on replacement card

rjo98 · Sep 6, 2017

Need to replace a GTS 250 in an old HP p6310y. Would like to stick with nvidia, but also stay under/around $100. Most intensive thing this computer does is play the latest Sims games.
Someone suggested a GT 730 GDDR5 which I’m hoping would work with my computer, but when comparing spec sheets on that to the GTS 250, the 730 appears to have less
1) Memory Interface Width than the 250 (64 vs 256)
2) Memory Bandwidth (40GB/s vs 70.4)
3) For the width they appear to be different (dual-slot vs dual-width).
Should I be concerned about those 3 differences or not? Any other recommendations on a different card?

Kasper Jorgensen · Sep 6, 2017

In that price range you should look for a GTX 1030 (Around $70-80) which will be around 200% faster than the GT 730 http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GT-1030-vs-Nvidia-GeForce-GT-730/m283726vsm12582
Or look for a GTX 1050 (Around $110 for the cheapest) Giving like 460% more performance than GT 730
http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-1050-vs-Nvidia-GeForce-GT-730/3650vsm12582

rjo98 · Sep 6, 2017

Kasper Jorgensen :

Thanks for the suggestions. So all of those would work with the power supply in that machine though? The machine is all the same parts as it was originally, but it now has a SSD in it rather than a regular drive, so i think that saves on the power consumption.

Kasper Jorgensen · Sep 6, 2017

Which PSU and how many watt is it?

The GTX 1030 will work, no doubt as it is only eating 30W. The GTX 1050 will eat around 75w at most so you will probably be fine with that also.

dontlistentome · Sep 6, 2017

The thing is if you have an older system, GTS 250 era, newer Nvidia cards may not be compatible. The GT 730 DDR5 will be compatible. Same with requiring low power, if you don't have an adequate power supply then a low power demanding card is required. The 1030 may work, if it does that's the card to get.

The specs don't tell the whole story. For example, memory bandwidth helps when you increase resolution, more bandwidth is needed as resolution goes up. Once you reach the amount you need though, having extra bandwidth is meaningless. Memory bus width in turn affects bandwidth, wider= more bandwidth HOWEVER this can be mitigated by using faster memory. I'd rather have DDR5 w/64 bit bus than DDR3 w/128 bit bus, all other things being equal.

pete_101 · Sep 6, 2017

I would be very careful about putting a new 1000 series card in such an old machine, those cards don't have any legacy BIOS support. While I have seen Youtube clips of people using those cards with older computers, they never really tell too much about how long it took to get it to work or if they gave up on certain computers.

Personally, I would be looking at the 700 series of cards, like the 730, 750, 750ti, as these will work on older computers.

DSzymborski · Sep 6, 2017

Most importantly, a 730 isn't even an upgrade over a GTS 250, it does worse in benchmarks, generally speaking. All the 730s and even the 740s that aren't GDDR5 are below the GTS 250 in Tom's GPU tier list. A 750 or 750ti, on the other hand, would be a significant upgrade worth making and less likely to cause problems on the very old motherboard than a 1000 series GPU.

Kasper Jorgensen · Sep 6, 2017

As long as his motherboard has a PCI-E slot he will be fine. Even if it's an older generation PCIE it will still work as both cards and slots are both backward or forward compatible.

maxalge · Sep 6, 2017

Kasper Jorgensen :

this is not the case with old pre-made setups as they often do not bother with bios updates and may even have locked the bios preventing upgrading

Kasper Jorgensen · Sep 6, 2017

That would be the first time I have heard that. Also HP do provide bios updates.

rjo98 · Sep 6, 2017

Thanks for all the replies! I know it still has the original 300W PSU in it. I really do appreciate all the help you're providing here.

Kasper Jorgensen · Sep 7, 2017

300w is enough for both cards.

rjo98 · Sep 7, 2017

Hi everybody. I double checked the machine after my last post, and i was wrong, it now has a 500W PSU in it. I think the old one died or the fan got so loud it was replaced.

rjo98 · Sep 7, 2017

dontlistentome :

The thing is if you have an older system, GTS 250 era, newer Nvidia cards may not be compatible. The GT 730 DDR5 will be compatible. Same with requiring low power, if you don't have an adequate power supply then a low power demanding card is required. The 1030 may work, if it does that's the card to get.

The specs don't tell the whole story. For example, memory bandwidth helps when you increase resolution, more bandwidth is needed as resolution goes up. Once you reach the amount you need though, having extra bandwidth is meaningless. Memory bus width in turn affects bandwidth, wider= more bandwidth HOWEVER this can be mitigated by using faster memory. I'd rather have DDR5 w/64 bit bus than DDR3 w/128 bit bus, all other things being equal.

Thanks for explaining those differences

rjo98 · Sep 7, 2017

Kasper Jorgensen :

you said for "both" cards, but there's been more than two mentioned in this thread. which two were you specificially referring to? hopefully i can narrow it down and make the purchase today with your guys' help

Kasper Jorgensen · Sep 7, 2017

Gtx 1030 or gtx 1050

rjo98 · Sep 7, 2017

Kasper Jorgensen :

ok, thanks, I will take a look at them

rjo98 · Sep 10, 2017

well, bad news everyone, I'm told by a supposed HP guru that with such an old BIOS, that I could probably only run a 600 series card in there at best. only ones i can find that aren't very overpriced are used ones, so not sure if it's even worth it since who knows how long that fan would last before it would need to be replaced. maybe my best bet is to figure out how to unhook or break the current fan and just put a case fan on top of it, or something else.
I've already tried cleaning the 250 fan out the best I can, it's still too loud. I also tried installing the nvidia tools that let you control fan speed, but even when i set it to the lowest allowed setting, still too loud.

Need advice on replacement card

Distinguished

Estimable

Distinguished

Estimable

Glorious

Splendid

Curmudgeon Pursuivant

Estimable

Champion

Estimable

Distinguished

Estimable

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Estimable

Distinguished

Distinguished

Share this page