Question Getting a GPU for a retro system.

[NightHawkRMX]

Hello, on Monday I am trading a small SSD for the hardware below.

https://imgur.com/Z54qNAS

View: https://imgur.com/Z54qNAS

I am looking to buy a cheap GPU to pair with the Prescott Pentium 4 2.8ghz play some games like quake, unreal, Max Payne, Doom3, and far cry for extra points.

When looking for PCI cards i found the newer GT210, GT430, GT520, GT610 pci editions are rare.
I have been able to find a PCI 8400gs for like $10

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al_T6bSoclM
That brings me to the main question which is:
Could i use a PCIe GPU with an PCI-PCIe adapter like this?

 

[4745454b]

To be honest I wouldn't do that deal. Not only do you lack an AGP or PCIe port, but the PSU is undersized as well. I can't see if the 12V rail has 16 or 18A, but either way you have around 200W of 12V power. That's going to really limit you in what GPU you can use.

I'd look for a C2D based system. CPUs use half the power and PCIe ports should be everywhere. You should also be able to get XP running on one just fine.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

The SSD I am giving is a HP S700 120gb which has many poor reviews online so its probably worth $15 if i'm lucky.

I am getting this hardware (more than the pic showed)
P4 + Cooler
Motherboard (Seller is unsure if working, so i wont buy anything for this system until i test, but i bet it does)
2x1gb (DDR?)
old PSU
LGA775 Wolfdale Pentium e6700

I don't think that SSD in exchange for all of the hardware above including the newer CPU is a bad deal.

I bought another functional PSU from the same person earlier aswell (for under $10).
Its a HiPro 305w PSU with 22a on the 5v rail and 18a on 5v rail. I asked Jon about the unit and he said it was "good for its time". So If i add a GPU, i will swap the PSU out for this one. This PSU is old enough to support things like floppy drives, molex, but also new enough to have sata.

After concidering, the LGA775 idea does make more sense since the machines would have sata, PCIE, and more. In addition to the LGA775 Pentium Im buying, he also has some other parts to the LGA775 system, which I may end up combining with my current LGA 775 stuff to make a working system in addition to the PGA478 system.

I red somewhere that the PNY Tech Geforce 8400GS is a good PCI card. I'm looking and see Windows xp - W10 drivers, which is perfect. Do you think that would run alright on the 300w PSU.

Also, do you think LGA775 or that PGA478 board can boot from USB?

 

[NightHawkRMX]

NVIDIA states that the GeForce 8400 GS has a Maximum Graphics Card Power of 25 Watts.

NVIDIA also states that a minimum of a 300 Watt or greater power supply with a combined +12 Volt continuous current rating of 18 Amps or greater is recommended.

Well, my better PSU has 300w and exactly 18a on the 12v rail, so that should work.

 

[drea.drechsler]

...
That brings me to the main question which is:
Could i use a PCIe GPU with an PCI-PCIe adapter like this?

I've no specific experience with this, but questions that pop into mind:

The adapter shown must be drawing 12v from PCI bus to develop PCIe power. That can't be good especially for early model PCIe GPU's lacking PCIe +12V connectors. Might an adapter like this be safer for the motherboard?

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-PCI-Express-Adapter-Card/dp/B0024CV3SA

It also seems somewhat unreasonable that PCI could consume even gen 1 x16 bandwidth. x1 is probably about right, and even then depends on how effective the bridging is.

Speaking of... going from PCI to PCIe means bridging a parrallel data bus to a serial data bus. Sounds like a recipe for lag. Assuming this does work, time sensitive applications like games, where you click on something and expect an immediate response on the screen, may not respond well to it.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

That startech adapter is PCIE to pci, backwards from what i need.

That does make sense about the latency. Some cards, like the GT610 PCI actually have a chip for that onboard and it does seem to hurt performance, but it still performs better than a slower standard PCI card.

 

[drea.drechsler]

That startech adapter is PCIE to pci, backwards from what i need.
...

bahh... my mistake.

But you'll still have to be careful about getting power to the card. I seem to recall power draw on some PCI GPU's was capable of doing damage to motherboards of the era. That extra tab providing up to 25W power was considered a major feature of the PCIe spec at the time.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Hmm ok. I don't believe the 8400gs which draws a supposed 25w is going to hurt the board.

That gpu should be able to play decent 2000s games right?

 

[drea.drechsler]

...
That gpu should be able to play decent 2000s games right?

Wasn't that GPU released in mid-to-late 2000's? around 2007 or so? I should think it would handle early 2000's games well enough, but that assumes it's installed in a motherboard with native support.

Video drivers, especially those of the era, are finicky enough in native support. Getting them to work, and work well, through a bridge is going to be an interesting experience to say the least.

At least $20 isn't a lot to risk for this (10 for gpu, 10 for adapter). But the grief factor alone could be so bad I'd go the extra even for a rare PCI native card for this. Even one of that era, if a top performer, should do you well enough.

BTW: I'd not worry the Dell PSU for rating as they're probably under-rated a tad. I remember running a P4 with multi-threading. 3.4 G i think, at any rate, it was the famously high powered one that ran very hot. It also had an ATI 9700Pro GPU on a Dell system with a 200W PSU. It was very annoying I couldn't overclock the CPU, but at least at stock the PSU handled the load just fine. I ran it right up to 2011 when I upgraded the whole thing.

But that said, I would be more worried about any old PSU hardware as components shift values over time. Especially resistors and capacitors...voltages may not be correct anymore.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

https://www.pcliquidations.com/p7525-pny-tech-geforce-8400gs
I found a pci version of the 8400gs for 25 after shipping.

But i think I would rather spend $10 on a PCIe R5 240 i have my eyes on a and buy the adapter just to test.

Ill try the adapter, but if that doesnt work ill return it and buy the PCI 8400gs.

 

[4745454b]

This is what I meant though. You are buying adapters, buying special versions of cards, and still left wondering if it will all work together. You are better off just getting a system that works well from that era and you don't need to worry about getting anything else. Because messing with adapters and trying to figure out why X doesn't work like it should doesn't sound like a fun time.

I'd also caution about shooting for specs so low. PCI 8400GS doesn't work as fast as the PCIe 8400GS, and the 8400GS as a whole was the slowest model they did from the 8xxx line. Eventually you'll want to play something that the 8400GS can't handle well.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Well, i cannot use much more than a PCI 8400gs due to the board and psu i have. Also there only so much graphics card a 2.8ghz Pentium can handle.

So what I can do is build the Pentium 4 system with the PCI 8400gs and use that for early XP games.

Then put together a lga775 system using the e6700 with a cheap PCIe GPU. I was imagining an R5 240 since it can get one for $10 total on ebay, doesn't draw much power, and performs alright.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

I am getting the LGA775 parts aswell.

Do you know if anyone makes DDR sticks larger than 1gb?