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Tom's Hardware > Forum > Graphics & Displays > Graphics Cards > Best gpu for a p4 system.

Best gpu for a p4 system.

Forum Graphics & Displays : Graphics Cards Best gpu for a p4 system.

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Well my awesome gaming laptop fried yesterday so all I am left with is an old P4 system.
P4 630 "Prescott" 3ghz 800mhz fsb (I can probably take it to 3.4ghz without breaking a sweat)
Asus p5gd1 pro mobo (has a pci-e slot :o )
2gb ram

 

Could anyone reccomend a pci-e card that would take full advantage of this system avoiding bottlenecks. I prefer ATI since the gaming laptop I fried had an 8800mgts (9600gt equivalent)

 


Thanks, Mike


Message edited by tbiggums on 12-20-2009 at 05:30:43 PM
Reply to tbiggums
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HD4670, HD4770 or HD4830/50 all based on the PSU power. The HD4670 is probably the only one that is going to run at full potential with your CPU.

Reply to rolli59

What about from the green team, if i find a good bargain i might aswell give them another shot.

Reply to tbiggums

Just checked the prices where I currently live and the 4770 costs 2x as much as the 4670. Since this is a p4 system I have here the 4670 is starting to look really good. Found one for ~ $70.

Reply to tbiggums

9800GT 9600GT or GT240. There are some power efficient ECO 9800GT out like this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814500113 on the performance you can use this review to help you bearing in mind that 8800GT = 9800GT http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2475.html

Reply to rolli59

tbiggums wrote :

Just checked the prices where I currently live and the 4770 costs 2x as much as the 4670. Since this is a p4 system I have here the 4670 is starting to look really good. Found one for ~ $70.


The HD4670 provides good gaming at lower resolutions like 1280 x1024.

Reply to rolli59

may I know yur resolution???

Reply to dead_95

Maximum resolution I will be using is 1280x1024. Keep in mind this is an oc'd P4 system. I think at this resolution a 9800gt might be overkill.

Reply to tbiggums

well if you look at the benchmarks in the test of the GT240 the 8800GT does a lot better than the HD4670 at that resolution but those were done on a I7 system which is not necessarily the truth for your P4

Reply to rolli59

BDDazza wrote :

Do not listen to the guys above me, with a single core processor there isnt much of an upgrade path that will aid your gaming experience. If it was a Pentium D with dual core perhaps, but a single core P4 its a waste of money trying to pimp it out.


The guy is trying to make a temporary gaming system out of what he has there is no reason not to do that with $60-80 card if possible.

Reply to rolli59

BDDazza wrote :

Do not listen to the guys above me, with a single core processor there isnt much of an upgrade path that will aid your gaming experience. If it was a Pentium D with dual core perhaps, but a single core P4 its a waste of money trying to pimp it out.



BDDazza wrote :

There is every reason not to do that.

There is no way a 6-7 year old single processor would be capable of supporting a video card of today's generation. Even at low resolutions and detail the frame rate would be unbearable.



+1!
Amen!
Listen to him at least some people around here still have some sense.

Reply to edeawillrule

get a new system ... i have an i5 but you could do very well with say an athlon x4 620/phenom x2 550 , 770t-ud3 mobo and 4 gigs or for a start even 2 gigs of ddr3 ram !

Reply to cyberkuberiah

It's one of the last P4 Prescott's made, 2mb l2 cache. Came out a few months before the Pentium D's. Its approximately 4 yrs old. Would not even a low end card like HD 4670 do it justice? Please understand, this computer is running a radeon x300. I don't expect to max crysis lol. Just looking to play wow at more than all low settings.

Reply to tbiggums

i dont , but someone who does play wow will pour in with suggestions soon ...

Reply to cyberkuberiah

BDDazza wrote :

There is every reason not to do that.

There is no way a 6-7 year old single processor would be capable of supporting a video card of today's generation. Even at low resolutions and detail the frame rate would be unbearable.


The change is he is playing a online game like WOW or EVE online that do not require much from his CPU. Not every body is playing Crysis, L4D 2 and all the other new games. Throwing in a $55 GPU like this one is a very viable option http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814127448
OP is looking into this because his LAPTOP broke!

Reply to rolli59

tbiggums wrote :

It's one of the last P4 Prescott's made, 2mb l2 cache. Came out a few months before the Pentium D's. Its approximately 4 yrs old. Would not even a low end card like HD 4670 do it justice? Please understand, this computer is running a radeon x300. I don't expect to max crysis lol. Just looking to play wow at more than all low settings.


It will work fine for WOW as in my answer above.

Reply to rolli59

edeawillrule wrote :

+1!
Amen!
Listen to him at least some people around here still have some sense.


It is not always sensible to recommend to people to build a new system when it is clear what their intentions are in their original post.

Reply to rolli59

Alright , looks like I'm going with the 4670. Should pull me through till I can save up for a proper rig. Thanks for all your help guys.

Reply to tbiggums

BDDazza wrote :

The P4 Prescott's came out in 2004, so its 6 year old processor and is a reworked P4 Northwood from 2001 :)

Even wow will play like crap, it was just the other day someone was in the TH forum complaining that WOW was running at low frames per second and his rig was midrange by today's standards.

I'd say if you are content with upgrading the GPU and know the bottlenecks involved get the cheapest video card available until you can afford a new gaming laptop or PC.

4670 or Nvidia 9500 GT should work a treat, but do not expect a good level of performance.




The difference is the guy from the other thread was trying to run high resolution at the highest settings. Wow is more dependent on your internet connection than anything. There are lots of people playing that game just fine on single core processors and lower end graphics cards. Its about your settings...I'm sure it will play as good with this setup as it did on his laptop, so if he was happy with that he should be happy with this.

Reply to belial2k

Well after some more research, all of you are wrong. :)

 

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/foru [...] _12_0.html

 

915p chipset is incompatible with pcie 2.0
So I guess my next question is, are pcie 1.1 cards compatible with pcie 1.0 mobos?

 

edit: or not, http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/foru [...] _15_0.html


Message edited by tbiggums on 12-20-2009 at 11:07:55 PM
Reply to tbiggums

all PCI-e cards are backward compatable. the PCI-e PCI 1.1 designations are just the amount of bandwith that they can transfer
aka PCIe 1.1 x16 = PCIe- 2.0 x8

------------------------------ i7-920 OC @ 3.6 ghz | CM Hyper 212+ |Asus Rampage 2 Gene | Asus enGTX 260 | Antec 300 | 9 gb ddr3-1333 | Hitachi 1TB HDD | Acer H223H 23" Monitor
Reply to lilotimz

Your motherboard shouldn't be the problem, it's the weak processor that is the issue.

Reply to jyjjy
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