Budget upgrade help

[nitebane21]

The only game I really play is League of Legends and my fps has dropped off a ton lately. I'm seeing around 15 fps if there is any action on screen. I've tweaked down every setting I can and am running Game Booster (plus its a fresh load) to give LoL the most resources it can get. I'm assuming its my graphics card that's holding me back.

Specs:
XP Pro
Nvidia GeForce 6800 (latest drivers installed)
4gb RAM
AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual Core Processor 3800+ 2.01 ghz
300w power supply

Price is a huge factor and I don't mind going used to get more bang for the buck. I read the latest Best Cards article here, will the 5570 be enough?

 

[Supernova1138]

A GT 430 is considerably faster than a 6800 GT, though if you want to play anything aside from League of Legends, you're going to want to consider a better card, the GT 430 is quite weak by today's standards. Something like a Radeon HD 5670 is generally the minimum recommended card for most modern titles.

Another thing to consider is that your CPU may be part of the problem. It is quite old, and slow, and if LoL only uses a single core, just barely meets the game's minimum system requirements. If you are running at a low resolution, like 1280x1024 or lower, your framerates are likely to be restricted heavily by your CPU, and a graphics upgrade will be of limited effectiveness. I'd suggest you run Task Manager in the background while you play, leaving it on the performance tab. Does one of your cores run at maximum usage while playing? If so you probably have a CPU bottleneck, and a better graphics card won't give you any better performance in the game.

 

[nitebane21]

Just played a game while keeping a close eye on task manager. CPU usage was hovering right around 50%, using both cores about equally. I run at 1280x1024 currently (most the 6800 can support).

 

[Supernova1138]

Alright, the GT 430 would definitely give you better performance in League of Legends, as you aren't hitting a bottleneck with the 6800GT. Pretty much any modern graphics card is significantly better than your current GPU, though you probably shouldn't go higher than a Radeon HD 5670, anything beyond that will likely get bottlenecked by your CPU.

 

[purple stain]

Maybe it was an update? You said all of sudden you starting getting lower fps.

Anyway I think the 5570 will provide a nice boost over your current GPU.I would suggest making sure you buy a 2.0 card instead of a 2.1 card to avoid any problems with your older mobo.They are fully backwards compatible but their are known to be some issues.

How many amps are on the +12/v rail(s) with your 300watt PSU?

 

[nitebane21]

I think the 5670 is my limit both in terms of pricing and I think power needs. I'm now going down the slippery slope of "But for just $X more I can get..."

I think I am inbetween these 3 cards:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7297819&Sku=Z700-0430 (GT 430 for a mere $20)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=604817&CatId=7005 (5570 for $35)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150535 (5670 for $48)

I really don't play any other games besides some old stuff so I'm wondering will I really notice the difference between the 3 cards and if so, is that difference worth the difference in price?

It was an update and is a known issue many are complaining about, but I still think an upgrade is the way to go. Don't understand the amp question. Here is the system reqs for League: http://support.leagueoflegends.com/entries/234272-system-requirements

 

[purple stain]

Well the 5670 is the fastest out of the bunch.Then the 5570 and lastly the GT430.I would suggest going with the 5570.It will be a nice upgrade from your current card and it's light on power so their won't be any problem with your PSU.Although the 5670 would be even nicer for only $50.IF your PSU can handle it I would suggest going for it.

How many amps are on the +12/v rail(s) with your 300watt PSU?

 

[nitebane21]

I have no idea, maybe +3.3v & +5v? That's the closest thing on the side of the PSU that looked like it might answer your question. I'm leaning toward the 5570 since it seems like only a small difference between it and the 5670.

 

[purple stain]

Well their is actually more than a small difference between the 5670 and 5570 but since your not much of a gamer then the difference wouldn't mean much to you.If you plan on going with the 5570 then you wouldn't have to worry about power problems with the 5670 since it consumes more.

 

[megamanx00]

That 5670 only has DDR3 RAM, rather than GDDR5 RAM so it's not going to preform as well as the regular GDDR5 model and it even has slower RAM than a reference 5570. The 5570 you link to only has a 64-bit memory interface (halving the memory bandwidth) so that's not much of a deal either.

If that's the most you can do for your budget though then go with the 5670. Even so that card will be held back a little by your old CPU so you should consider overclocking it. That will be a little difficult and you may not get much but it should help .

 

[purple stain]

Your not worried about the 5670 using to much power?

 

[nitebane21]

Ugh, Megaman is getting into the details that I was afraid of. So many differences in cards with the same model name. I'm not overclocking the cpu and it sounds like I won't get full benefit of the 5670 with the cpu I have so at this point I'm thinking even with 64-bit, the difference between my current card and the 5570 will be huge and I really like the $35 price point. Of course, Tigerdirect specs say a minimum of a 400w psu is required so I may be SOL either way.

 

[purple stain]

The 5570 only consumes around 40 watts.If your 300 watt PSU is somewhat good then you will be fine.But this is why I was curious about how many amps are on the +12/v rail so we could know for sure how much it's truely capable of delivering.

 

[nitebane21]

I'd be happy to tell you but nothing on the side of my psu says Amps or Rail so no idea. My speakers have their own power source, I have minimal fans and never use the cdrom drive so I imagine I'm not using much juice. Sounds like the 5570 is definitely the way to go.