Pentium 4 ht 3Ghz and Radeon HD 5450 bottleneck?

[adamkhatab]

I have an old pc which has the Pentium 4 hyperthreaded running at 3ghz . I want to put a graphics card and may get the
Radeon HD 5450 or the Radeon HD 6450 . I want to know how badly the CPU will bottleneck these graphics cards.

Thanks.

 

[das_stig]

Any modem GPU will be crippled with that CPU. A good match for that cpu would be an older ATI 2000 series or nVidia 6/7/8 series GPU.

 

[adamkhatab]

how about this GIGABYTE GeForce 8400GS 512MB GDDR2 ?
i dont think my pc can handle ddr3 right?

 

[nukemaster]

Video card memory has nothing to do with your actual computer/motherboard memory.

 

[adamkhatab]

Video card memory has nothing to do with your actual computer memory.

oh that good because the card with gddr3 memory is actually cheaper

 

[amuffin]

They're all low end cards, game play wont' suck because of your processor, it will suck because of your card.

 

[nukemaster]

What games do you want to play and what screen resolution.

Even in the P4 days, you could get some fast cards(8800GTX for instance, but long discontinued and once a 600+ dollar card).

EDIT

What is the price you are looking to pay.

Even with a bit overkill, you can always keep it for a future system.

 

[adamkhatab]

i will play at 1280 x 1024
my budget is low which is why im deciding to use this system in the first place
so less than £50. Anyway im not looking to play anything graphically intensive . just MMO games at a reasonable setting

 

[adamkhatab]

also if its gonna cost so much it would be better to get a core 2 duo cos i have the LGA 775 socket?

 

[outlw6669]

With a £50 budget, a HD 6570 would probably be your best option.
It will be much, much more capable than a 5450, 6450 or 8400GS (performance should be similar to a 8800 GTS 640/320) and is priced within your range.
It is also quite low power, so you should not have any issues with your PSU.

As for the CPU, if you are on a budget, give it a try only upgrading the GPU first.
Many MMOs are not terribly high in the system requirements and you could probably get acceptable performance.
If it happens that your performance is unacceptable with the new GPU, a Core 2 Quad (or any Core 2 based CPU really) will offer you a massive performance boost.

Before you go out and purchase a new CPU however, make sure to post back your exact motherboard.
While it may be LGA 775, this does not guarantee that it is compatible with all LGA 775 processors.
We should first check if there is a BIOS available with support for which ever CPU you would want to replace the P4 with.

 

[adamkhatab]

thanks , i think for now I would get the HD 6570 or if I can push it up to the 6670 .
So the P4 wouldn't hold back the GPU too much then?

 

[outlw6669]

Yes, the CPU will probably hold your GPU back, especially at such a low resolution, but it should still give you a massive performance boost over what ever your current GPU/IGP is.
Even bottlenecked by the CPU, there is a good chance that you will get acceptable performance in the games you are looking to play.

 

[seumas_beathan]

you could go for the 6670

 

[adamkhatab]

Yes, the CPU will probably hold your GPU back, especially at such a low resolution, but it should still give you a massive performance boost over what ever your current GPU/IGP is.
Even bottlenecked by the CPU, there is a good chance that you will get acceptable performance in the games you are looking to play.

could you explain the resolution part.

sorry for being a noob

Also do GPU with fans generally perform better than passive GPUs ??

 

[nukemaster]

The lower the screen resolution, the less work the video card has to do. At low resolutions, so the cpu has to keep up. This was why when core2 cpus first came out many test posted had a screen resolution of something like 800x600 or something.

While many argue at higher resolution, the performance would be closer between systems(since you push the bottleneck onto the video card it self).

You want to know what is sad, well more to the point, huge waste of power.

I7 920 @ 3.5
5770(for the lower power consumption)
12 gigs of ram
1280 x 1024 screen(but it just had the backlight fail even with new caps to replace all the puffed up ones, it still blows its fuse and the bulbs them self are fine).

That is what happens when you pass parts along to the next in the line, but do not send the screen with it.

 

[adamkhatab]

is 1080p video playback cpu intensive?

 

[nukemaster]

It is very cpu intensive if done in software. Modern video cards take that load on so the cpu(even entry cards have this built in now) can do other things.

With the right card, even Intel Atom will handle 1080p without issues.

With better cards, you sometimes get extra features(video enhancements) not found in entry level cards.

 

[adamkhatab]

So just adding the £50 graphics card it should speed up most things on my computer to a certain degree?

 

[nukemaster]

What operation system are you running(XP/Vista/7)?

Vista/7 use the video card for desktop composition and you can tell the difference with a better video card.

In general, anything that uses the video card will get the improvement. Even flash video(youtube ect) uses the video card now.

 

[adamkhatab]

running xp right now but will get windows 7 i think.

there arer plenty of videos on youtube showing the P4 playing games .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw45biOZbCg

i thought the p4 was as good as dead

 

[nukemaster]

Hey, when the P4 is what you have, the P4 is what you use. Just keep the heatsink clean so it does not heat up too much and give er.

 

[adamkhatab]

thanks for your trouble , one last question - when the GPU says it need 400w PSU can you cheat and use a 350w or do you have to be 100% safe.

I've been looking at requirements for games like lord of the rings online, seems like when im finish with my pc I should be more than able to run it.

 

[photonboy]

Yes, you are massively bottlenecked but get an HD6450 1GB card for $40 (newegg NCIX etc ), fanless model and stick with that.

Don't spend money upgrading this system as it's really not worth it. Yes, the HD6450 is a relatively low card, and yes anything more will be bottlenecked by the CPU.

Playing video content:
1) download and install the K-Lite Codec Pack Standard (www.free-codecs.com)
2) make sure DXVA for MPEG2, H.264 and VC-1 are all checked (when installing or after in the media player MPC-HC).
3) also download and install the latest drivers/Catalyst from www.amd.com and DISABLE all the advanced Video settings (flesh tones etc) as they mess up video quality.

 

[photonboy]

FYI, even websites will run better with ADOBE FLASH being hardware decoded via the card rather than using your CPU.

 

[nukemaster]

It all depends on how much power the system takes.

Also it is important to know that while a 400 watt psu is a good reference it is ALL about how many amps you have on the 12 volt rail.

For instance you can get a real cheap 500 watt power supply that has most of its power on the 3.3 and 5 volt lines(and is worse then a good 300 watt unit). This is NOT good for modern systems that want more and more 12 volt power. so watch that. A good power supply will have a good 80(maybe 75) or more percent of its power on the 12 volt rail(not to be confused with 80+ energy efficiency).

Just as an example.
I have a media center with a 5770 and it runs fine on a 300 watt power supply even with the requirements of a 450 watt unit.

Pentium 4 cpus tend to take more power then some of the newer cpu's so that has to be taken into consideration.

If you are looking at the 6570, it takes very little power and should be fine on all but the worst power supplies.

What kind of power supply do you have?
What model of P4 is it?