Need help upgrading a graphics card in an old computer
creamsoda
Hey everyone,
I'm trying to upgrade an older computer for my son, but am unsure how much to spend on a graphics card, because I don't know how much the rest of the system will bottleneck performance.
Here's what's there now: Thermaltake 430W PSU AMD Athlon 64 3800+ CPU 2 GB PC 3200 DDR SDRAM GeForce 6600 GPU Windows XP
I'm think about one of these cards (after reading the latest Tom's rankings): Radeon 4650 Radeon 4670 Radeon 4850 GeForce 9800GT
Questions: How much performance boost will I see with each of these cards? Which cards will be bottlenecked?
Thanks for the help!
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shadow187
Grab an HD4670, it's the most you'd ever want to put into an older machine like that.
coozie7
@ Creamsoda: I'd go down one leval to the HD4650, but be very careful to make sure the card has the correct connection, you may have an AGP motherboard. If you are unsure, take a look here:
It's got a PCIe slot. The current 6600 is a PCIe. So anything above a 4650 to 4670 is a waste of GPU then? Should I go with 512 or 1 GB?
Also, how much boost am I going to see going from the GeForce 6600 to a Radeon 4650 or 4670?
shadow187
You'll see more than a 100% boost probably. Grab an HD4670, and a 512Mb version.
coozie7
There is not huge difference in prices between the two TBH, so yes, grab a cheap HD4670, but do not be afraid of the 1Gb cards, that said, do not pay more for a 1Gb card either, the HD4670 is just not fast enough to use all that memory.