Improve Gaming performance

smallzoo

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Hi,

My son has a PC built by his friend :-

Motherboard: Asus M2N68-LA, bus type AMDK10
Graphics Card: Radeon HD 5450(1024Mb)
CPU: Triple core AMD Athlon II x3 43S 2900Mhz
Ram: 6GB

He is having trouble running some of the new games.. He was looking at adding a new graphics card ( NVidia GEforce GTC 400 ) but then other people have said he should change to quad core but I dont even know if his motherboard supports that..

Any suggestions


Thanks
 

justme1977

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The only thing holding game performance back is the graphics card.
IF you pair that triple core processor with at least a Nvidia 460/560 or a AMD radeon 5770/6770 ( The 6770 = a renamed 5770), 6850. He should be able to play everything he wants on nice settings.
 

didhot123

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sorry, but i think the processor will bottleneck the GPU if you decided to use 460/560 or 6850..6770 will not be bottlenecked/ing

i suggests the TS to buy HD6770, HD6790 for AMD Radeon or GTS450, GTX550 Ti for NVIDIA..

those cards wont bottleneck the processor or vice versa. those cards requires minimum powers of 450w PSU..can you tell me the maker (manufacturer)/model of the PSU? just to make sure you have a proper PSU for GC upgrade

 

nao1120

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Best bang for the buck!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102948
or
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131378

the "Graphics Card: Radeon HD 5450(1024Mb) " is basically a 2D card with lots of video ram, so the windows experience is good, but the game play is awful.

The 6850 card is pretty decent comparatively.

5770/6770 - 800 Stream processors
6850- 900 ish
6870 - 1120 - Currently use.
6950 - 1400

All i know is with AMD, more is better. Going from each one is marginal performance gains. From 800 to 1120 i noticed a huge gain.

All depends on how much you want to spend.
 

nao1120

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Um, realized i submitted the CDN prices.... Cheaper on the www.newegg.com - Search 6850 or 6870
Also, note they are larger cards in comparison, couple inches or more longer compared to the 55xx card.
 

bucknutty

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I would start with a new GPU.

Right now the slowest part by far is that video card. The key here is to replace the slowest part. If you replace the GPU with a 6770 or a 6850 the improvment would be huge. You would see a 3-4x increase in frames per second. The slowest part would then be the CPU. A 6770 can be had for around 120. If you on a budget newegg has a 4870 for around $55.
 

ltrazaklt

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need to know what of Power Supply ..how many watts ? and who makes it if possible plz ? ..this will determine if you can even upgrade anything at all
 

That's true - you'll need a good 450-500w PSU to run these graphics cards - can be had for about $50-60 on Newegg.

Also, what's the budget range?
 
Things we need to know are. What resolution is the Monitor and what is the make and rating of the PSU in the PC. Also what is your budget ?

The CPU wont bottleneck most cards mentioned here so don't worry about replacing that just yet. As people have been saying the Graphics card is very low powered and the increase you will get by upgrading to even the lower end of the recommendations you have been given would be huge. somewhere in the region of 4/500%.

This review of your card will show you what sort of improvement to expect

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/HD_5450/29.html

Mactronix :)
 
The triple core Athlons are still very good chips and are capable of doing great things when paired with the right graphics card. The 5450 is mainly a business/productivity card, and is mainly used by big businessmen to make pretty powerpoints and run 2 monitors. There is no gaming potential in that card at all save for maybe some older games.

With a regular 300W or so power supply I would say that the 5670 (or 6670, badge engineering) would be the best bet you could get; it can run most of todays games on decent and smooth settings. It is the best in the budget range that can run on a 300W or so power supply, beating out most of Nvidia's offerings.

On a good 400W-500W power supply, I would highly recommend getting a ATi Radeon 5770 (6770) or a Nvidia GTX460. They still play most of todays games on very high settings and will hold up for another 2 or 3 years of demanding gaming.
 

vitornob

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- Do not bother about PSU Total Wattage, the most important aspect of a PSU today is the total wattage in combined 12v rails (or you could check the total combined amperage in these rails)
If you describe the model too would be awesome.

- Max monitor resolution.

- Games that your son plays.
 

smallzoo

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The power supply says

Model No: PS-5301-08HF
Watts: 300

My son hasnt chosen the monitor yet but he is after a monitor like :-

Ilyama E2208HDD 22 inch Wide LCD 1080p DVI Monitor
Resolution 1920 x 1080 pixels, Inputs DVI, VGA, Response time 5 ms
In Amazon at £111

Hope that info helps to decide on what exactly my son should look for

Cheers
 



Ok well we need to stick to a card that wont need any extra power from the PSU because the unit you have seems to be a generic 300Watt PSU and as such most probably wont have a PCIE cable anyway. So we would be looking at a HD5670 probably as the best bet. You can get a 5750 that wont need extra power as well by the way.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_5670_IceQ/1.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_5750_Go_Green/1.html

As for the monitor well if that's your Budget then you can get a much better monitor for that
http://www.ebuyer.com/172984-benq-e2220hd-lcd-tft-full-hd-21-5-hdmi-monitor-with-usb-9h-l1pla-tbe
Or if you just want a monitor that will get the job done then you can get something of the same quality as the one you linked at a cheaper price
http://www.ebuyer.com/280625-lg-e2211s-bn-led-lcd-21-5-vga-monitor-e2211s-bn

Mactronix :)
 


Like mactronix has said before, with a power supply of 300W, the best card is a Radeon 5670. It packs a punch similar to the old 8800GT/9800GT cards, which can run almost any game on the market with decent settings. They can also be found at a very very very good price today. Here are a few:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=976121&CatId=7005

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=417781&CatId=3669
 
the cpu is fine. for reasonable gameplay you need at least an amd 5770/6770 or nvidia gts450/550ti. just make sure the power supply will supply enough power for whichever you want to use. out of the above mentioned the 5770/6770 has the lowest power requirements. an antec earthwatts 380w is a good solid power supply rated at 380w continuous power with plenty of amperage on the 12v rails.
 

+1
 

smallzoo

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Based on what people have said, I have decided to install the 380 antec power supply and the 5770/6770

Any ideas on where the best place to source these in the UK

thanks
 

acerace

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Nope. They both the same card. So no performance difference at all. If I got to choose, I choose 6770 cause it has newer technology than 5770.
 

ltrazaklt

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hmm, I think you might be right ..I could of swore reading way back when that the 5770 was better , and people were complaining because the supposed newer cards were being beaten by the older model .. I suppose even on the charts , it's the reference design
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2011-gaming-graphics-charts/Enthusiast-Index,2674.html
but they are soo close not much difference at all ..then it would boil down to power use , and price , and maybe resolution being a factor. what the heck is the difference anyway between an ATi and an AMD card ? does ATi still make graphics and AMD makes them alongside them now ? since they bought up ATi ..I need to bone up on my red team specs hehe .