AMD Radeon R5 230 (HD6450) Low Profile 2GB Recommended Upgrades?

[CDDogg]

I have recently bought an AMD Radeon R5 230 2GB DDR3 Low profile graphics card. I know it's not much but I'm happy with it. However I feel my performance could be better through upgrade not of the GPU but the things that run it. For example when shopping for this card all reviews recommended a PSU of 350+ I have a CX430 watt ATX. When I got the card the box said 600+ PSU recommended. I know the PSU is probably a factor in performance and plan to upgrade it. Are there any other things I should upgrade to make the card run at 100% best performance? Also I know because of my low PSU that the card must be being limited by something. I'd love to be able to manually set that limit but it's not limited by the BIOS and the AMD control center has no info on any limitations. Is there any way I can view and edit the limit without overclocking it? After all I don't want heat to become an issue.

 

[Outlander_04]

You do not need a bigger power supply . That card draws a very low wattage . So low that it doesnt even need extra power leads and many models are passively cooled .
If you do change the psu you will not get more performance from the card

If you want better gaming performance then buy a new graphics card

 

[Adamski]

The PSU does not limit your card in any meaningful way, you should show your other system specs so its easier to identify what may be limiting your card. The cpu, gpu and ram are generally the largest limiting factors of performance however if you want to improve the performance of games, i'm afraid you'll likely need to purchase a more expensive graphics card.

 

[CDDogg]

My ram seems to be low for certain games I only have 4GB DDR3 133Mhz. But I find a game like GTA 4 that says it's using only 256MB at low settings is not giving me steady frame rates despite having a 2GB card. Yes i have considered GDDR5 Cards. Would it be good just to get a 2GB GDDR5 or should I look for better. No I cannot upgrade ram anymore without a new motherboard.

 

[pete_101]

My ram seems to be low for certain games I only have 4GB DDR3 133Mhz. But I find a game like GTA 4 that says it's using only 256MB at low settings is not giving me steady frame rates despite having a 2GB card. Yes i have considered GDDR5 Cards. Would it be good just to get a 2GB GDDR5 or should I look for better. No I cannot upgrade ram anymore without a new motherboard.

Wow, you can actually play GTA 4 on a R7 230? I'm impressed.
Look, the R7 230 is a very weak GPU and was never intended for playing demanding games, this is the reason for it's low performance. As for a new PSU, it won't do a thing. I have a R7 250 in a 6 year old HP Pavilion and with a power meter measured the input wattage, it's never gone above 80W. Even the R7 250 can't maintain 60fps @ 1080p on GTA 4. If you want to upgrade anything, get a better graphics card.

 

[CDDogg]

My ram seems to be low for certain games I only have 4GB DDR3 133Mhz. But I find a game like GTA 4 that says it's using only 256MB at low settings is not giving me steady frame rates despite having a 2GB card. Yes i have considered GDDR5 Cards. Would it be good just to get a 2GB GDDR5 or should I look for better. No I cannot upgrade ram anymore without a new motherboard.

Wow, you can actually play GTA 4 on a R7 230? I'm impressed.
Look, the R7 230 is a very weak GPU and was never intended for playing demanding games, this is the reason for it's low performance. As for a new PSU, it won't do a thing. I have a R7 250 in a 6 year old HP Pavilion and with a power meter measured the input wattage, it's never gone above 80W. Even the R7 250 can't maintain 60fps @ 1080p on GTA 4. If you want to upgrade anything, get a better graphics card.

it's an R5 230 not an R7. it has 2gigs of DDR3 and if I had more Ram i'd be able to play GTA 5 problem is GTA 5 runs at a steady 30(which is fine for me) until i look in the direction of the nearest beach or ocean then i lose fps.

 

[pete_101]

it's an R5 230 not an R7. it has 2gigs of DDR3 and if I had more Ram i'd be able to play GTA 5 problem is GTA 5 runs at a steady 30(which is fine for me) until i look in the direction of the nearest beach or ocean then i lose fps.

Yeah my bad, forgot the R7 only went down to the 240, below that is the R5.
I don't know what resolution you are playing at, but even at 720p your GPU was never made for games like GTA 4/5. Also DDR3 is very poor for graphics cards, it's way too restrictive and only works in the lowest cards. It wouldn't matter how much RAM you had, you're graphics card would still be slow.
You asked about how to improve your performance, I'm telling you that the best way is to get a better graphics card as nothing else you do will make any difference.