Question Gondor calls for aid! A quest for glory, gold and a GPU for an old king a good PHENOM II friend

[noobie_one_kenoobie]

Hello there,


I would like to apologize if this venue turns out to be inappropriate for asking this question. I did some research but a firm conclusion has so far eluded me.


I have this PC that I would like to grace with a final GPU upgrade:


Dodgy MS 500W Power supply unit. (I regularly oil the thing like it was some kind of predigital mechanical industrial machine)

M4N68T LE V2 (AM3) motherboard (Over the course of a decade it sustained multiple power outages, power instabilities, power spikes, power shenanigans, lightning strikes and bad language. Its onboard ethernet is fried but otherwise it works well. Some of the front panel USB slots are problematic also.)

Phenom II X4 965 BE

8 GB of DDR3 1333Mhz RAM

Asus R7 250 1GB GDDR5 GPU

Windows 7 Ultimate (I used to also have Linux Mint on it and it worked beautifully)

This machine is dear to my heart.


I narrowed the choice to GTX 1050Ti and RX 560, both 4GB VRAM. Which one?


To preempt the understandable remarks, I do not expect any "non-mechanical reproduction simulation" level of gaming quality or anything of the sort. However, I would like to provide the Phenom quad core a matching GPU that would allow it to live out the rest of its days at its performance best. It is still a perfectly good computer for older games, Office work and Internet mischief.


The R7 250 I find to be a good graphics card. However, I bought it many years ago as an upgrade for the Athlon II X2 250 processor which at the time was paired with HD5450 1GB DDR3. As you can imagine, the leap in general gaming at the time left me profoundly astonished. The Phenom itself was an upgrade, later on, for the old reliable Athlon. I still have all the components.

As you may have surmised by now, I cherish my old technology.

There is some loyalty I feel towards theses old horses.

So, my questions are these:

Would I make a mistake if I were to buy an RX 560 4GB or GTX 1050Ti 4GB for the ol' Phenom II? Does it require more powerful cards?

Would these GPUs enable Phenom II to spread its aging wings once more in some less rabidly demanding games?

I game only occasionally and I usually play Half Life 2 mods such as Entropy Zero series, some Fallout up to Fallout 4. I am looking forward to Black Mesa: Blue Shift. More like Blue Balls, eh?(I am so sorry, I am a child at heartXD) But I saw some videos on Youtube and I realized that Phenom with GTX 1050Ti (or was it GTX 960, unsure) can actually run many newer games such as Resident Evil remakes and even the latest one, and then even a Metro Exodus perfectly decently. Even Far Cry (5 or 6) ran nicely. Now, I don't care much about Far Cry or even RE but I find it a useful measuring stick for the old Phenom. Maybe I could have some fun with DOOM 2016. More likely I would just go back to my Fallout 2 mods and bask in the vast power of my relic PC.



Would these GPUs still be supported in a year or two? (For my purposes, that is actually, and essentially, irrelevant. But it would be nice to have modern driver, or at least custom support, eh?).

This would be a one last crowning upgrade which would, hopefully, make it a balanced, and as capable as it can be, computer.


I should say that I have also entertained the notion of acquiring an RX 570 4GB ITX version, that should nominally consume less than 150W of power, but unfortunately my power supply unit is a bit on an untrustworthy side.

And even then, I realized it is easy to get caught up in an ever increasing loop of chasing bigger, better, more powerful upgrades. For the Phenom, I do not want it reduced to a mere bottleneck but an important GPU pusher. From that perspective RX 560 and GTX 1050Ti seem to be a just new enough for some newer games and low power enough for the PSU and the CPU to keep up.


Finally, I just want to say that I am not going to undertake this out of necessity anyway.

I don't need this. Yes, it is irrational. It is just something that I would like for my old computer. And I would like to also hear opinions and answers of people much more knowledgeable in these computer matters than me on which of these two GPUs, if either, is more suitable. Feel free to disagree, of course.



Thank you.

 

[punkncat]

There is zero reason to spend money towards an update to this system. The R7 graphics card is already a decent pairing with something that old. Updating is only going to lead to light utilization of the card. Best bet is to use as is until failure while you save money for something more modern.

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

As you may have surmised by now, I cherish my old technology.

How unfortunate.

I'm in agreement with the first response.

 

[Lutfij]

IMHO, if I had a system like that it'd be retired and put into it's respective boxes or left as it, being period correct, maybe a generation or two upgrades in the GPU dept/arena.

 

[Eximo]

Spend the money on a decent PSU if you want to reduce the risk of the PC failing in the near future.

Dodgy PSU puts all the stress on the motherboard to clean up ripple and the like.

 

[noobie_one_kenoobie]

Well, of course it makes zero sense to put money into this machine instead of buying a newer one.

I don't need to save for anything since I have a new computer.

This one is something I thought I would experiment with and perhaps improve it a bit. And I was really under the impression that there is still some bit of room for GPU upgrade beyond 1GB vram. Well, I guess I was mistaken.



Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.

P.S. You are probably right, I should do something about that PSU.

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

There's no improving that PC. I wouldn't spend a nickel on it.

 

[Avro Arrow]

You know, I had a Phenom II X4 965 on a Gigabyte 990FX motherboard before I replaced it with an FX-8350. I think that a good match for it would be the HD 7970/R9 280X which are a lot closer to the GTX 1050 Ti than the RX 560.

If you're interested in getting a Polaris card like the RX 560, you may as well get an RX 580 because they're so plentiful that they're selling for about the same price.

I can only look at eBay.ca at work but here's what I'm talking about:
XFX Radeon RX560 D2S 2GB - $49USD
or...
Sapphire Radeon RX 470 Nitro 4GB - $59.36USD
or...
MSi Radeon RX 580 Armor 4GB - $58.75USD

According to the TechPowerUp GPU Database, the RX 470 is 87% faster than the RX 560 and the RX 580 is 130% faster than the RX 560. That's right, it's 2.3x faster than the RX 560 (more than double) and it costs less than $10 more with 4GB of VRAM instead of 2GB. Its TDP is 185W, which may be more than you want, but the RX 470 is a decent compromise with a TDP of only 120W.

Ultimately though, the best performance that you could hope for would come from an RX 580 and this:
Thermaltake Toughpower GX2 80+ Gold 600W - $67USD

Add the $58.75 and you'd be looking at $125.75 for the card AND the PSU. The great thing is that the card is fully 4K60Hz video capable so your P2-965 could be perpetually used as an HTPC. The PSU would also be useful long after you retire this PC and you'll never again have to worry about having a dodgy PSU.

Sure, the CPU will bottleneck the hell out of an RX 580 but you'll be sure to get every bit of performance that the P2-965 has to offer. Then if you decide to drop in an FX CPU, you're already set to move forward because the card will have performance to spare and the PSU will handle it effortlessly.

Speaking of which, because the CPU will bottleneck the hell out of an RX 580, you won't see much power draw out of it. The RX 580 will only use as much power as the P2-965 allows it to because it will be held back. A GPU that's held back sips power because it's constantly going into an idle state to wait for the CPU.

Remember, a dodgy 500W PSU can still fail even with a 75W video card (or even with just an IGP). Not a very dignified end for what was such a great CPU.

 

[noobie_one_kenoobie]

You know, I had a Phenom II X4 965 on a Gigabyte 990FX motherboard before I replaced it with an FX-8350. I think that a good match for it would be the HD 7970/R9 280X which are a lot closer to the GTX 1050 Ti than the RX 560.

If you're interested in getting a Polaris card like the RX 560, you may as well get an RX 580 because they're so plentiful that they're selling for about the same price.

I can only look at eBay.ca at work but here's what I'm talking about:
XFX Radeon RX560 D2S 2GB - $49USD
or...
Sapphire Radeon RX 470 Nitro 4GB - $59.36USD
or...
MSi Radeon RX 580 Armor 4GB - $58.75USD

According to the TechPowerUp GPU Database, the RX 470 is 87% faster than the RX 560 and the RX 580 is 130% faster than the RX 560. That's right, it's 2.3x faster than the RX 560 (more than double) and it costs less than $10 more with 4GB of VRAM instead of 2GB. Its TDP is 185W, which may be more than you want, but the RX 470 is a decent compromise with a TDP of only 120W.

Ultimately though, the best performance that you could hope for would come from an RX 580 and this:
Thermaltake Toughpower GX2 80+ Gold 600W - $67USD

Add the $58.75 and you'd be looking at $125.75 for the card AND the PSU. The great thing is that the card is fully 4K60Hz video capable so your P2-965 could be perpetually used as an HTPC. The PSU would also be useful long after you retire this PC and you'll never again have to worry about having a dodgy PSU.

Sure, the CPU will bottleneck the hell out of an RX 580 but you'll be sure to get every bit of performance that the P2-965 has to offer. Then if you decide to drop in an FX CPU, you're already set to move forward because the card will have performance to spare and the PSU will handle it effortlessly.

Speaking of which, because the CPU will bottleneck the hell out of an RX 580, you won't see much power draw out of it. The RX 580 will only use as much power as the P2-965 allows it to because it will be held back. A GPU that's held back sips power because it's constantly going into an idle state to wait for the CPU.

Remember, a dodgy 500W PSU can still fail even with a 75W video card (or even with just an IGP). Not a very dignified end for what was such a great CPU.

Hello there,

and thank you so much for taking the time and providing an extensive answer.

I am glad you mentioned the RX 500 series discrepancy in price because I noticed the same thing. It slightly hurt my clarity of purpose on this undertaking. I feel it might be ridiculous buying an RX 580 for this CPU as I figure that RX 560 of GTX 1050Ti would more or less squeeze everything from it without totally being in the neutral gear.

However, as you said the prices are so close to each other that whatever I do I kind of miss the mark either on the original goal of having the balanced PC and having a mismatched machine or buying much less performance . I also like smaller, more power efficient graphics cards in general. But that may not be a decisive factor now.

I suppose I will do some more research and see as I am in no hurry.

You are also right about the PSU. I oiled it recently so it doesn't grind now and there are no discernible electrical problems for now. But I do have to treat it like a car with regular maintenance. It sounds bizzare to say that I oil my computer for the best engine performance, haha.

Anyway, thank you for solid advice, I will certainly consider RX580, or RX 570 option more closely.


I wish you all the best.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Hello there,

and thank you so much for taking the time and providing an extensive answer.

I am glad you mentioned the RX 500 series discrepancy in price because I noticed the same thing. It slightly hurt my clarity of purpose on this undertaking. I feel it might be ridiculous buying an RX 580 for this CPU as I figure that RX 560 of GTX 1050Ti would more or less squeeze everything from it without totally being in the neutral gear.

However, as you said the prices are so close to each other that whatever I do I kind of miss the mark either on the original goal of having the balanced PC and having a mismatched machine or buying much less performance . I also like smaller, more power efficient graphics cards in general. But that may not be a decisive factor now.

I suppose I will do some more research and see as I am in no hurry.

You are also right about the PSU. I oiled it recently so it doesn't grind now and there are no discernible electrical problems for now. But I do have to treat it like a car with regular maintenance. It sounds bizzare to say that I oil my computer for the best engine performance, haha.

Anyway, thank you for solid advice, I will certainly consider RX580, or RX 570 option more closely.


I wish you all the best.

Thank you for your best answer award!

Needing to oil your PSU is pretty funny but it's also pretty frightening at the same time.

If you're having to oil your PSU, I would say that it's ready to become a spare part, if not an outright addition to the tech boneyard. You could be playing with fire (literally) by not getting a new PSU so I would urge you to do so, especially since that ToughPower GX2 is such a great price. Even if you don't upgrade your video card, you should still get a new PSU just for safety's sake.

 

[noobie_one_kenoobie]

Thank you for your best answer award!

Needing to oil your PSU is pretty funny but it's also pretty frightening at the same time.

If you're having to oil your PSU, I would say that it's ready to become a spare part, if not an outright addition to the tech boneyard. You could be playing with fire (literally) by not getting a new PSU so I would urge you to do so, especially since that ToughPower GX2 is such a great price. Even if you don't upgrade your video card, you should still get a new PSU just for safety's sake.

Thank you for your best answer award!

Needing to oil your PSU is pretty funny but it's also pretty frightening at the same time.

If you're having to oil your PSU, I would say that it's ready to become a spare part, if not an outright addition to the tech boneyard. You could be playing with fire (literally) by not getting a new PSU so I would urge you to do so, especially since that ToughPower GX2 is such a great price. Even if you don't upgrade your video card, you should still get a new PSU just for safety's sake.

Hello there,



I understand completely your concern with the PSU and after doing a bit of reading and self education on the matter on the world wide cobwebs I decided to wholeheartedly take your advice and change my old PSU for something much more adequate.

Unfortunately, that Toughpower is beyond my reach as it cannot be sent to my location and it is not available locally in any stores in my area. Any ordering from abroad would also most likely incur fees that would defeat the point of affordability.

But thank you for the suggestion!

In fact, this made me want to share a bit of my perspective on these things and also maybe provide a tiny bit of insight in appreciation of your (and everyone else’s) help in thinking on how to approach my computer in terms of upgrades.

I am not really deep into the latest news regarding the gaming hardware and I sure as heck do not upgrade the entire computer every two or three years. Therefore, I never have anything to give in terms of contributing to a topic or giving a sound advice, so I typically don’t keep lurking after my hit and run threads.

Well, I will try to contribute now so as not to open a new thread and also to provide you with some information surrounding the specific brand of computer equipment, in this case the PSU.


Why would you want to know anything about that?

The possibility is high that you might not want to or that you don’t care, but then again you might enjoy some insight (or should I say context of) into one of the Tier unlisted brands that are practically unknown to people in North America, Australia and other well developed high powered economies.

The MS Industrial (or just the MS) brand.

I never could find anything in English language tech forums concerning the MS brand except for the few occasions where someone would ask a question on the sites like Reddit regarding a PSU of the brand and people would just say that they never heard of it and just assume that it is by default a complete no name garbage “terrorists planted the bomb” product.

I think, (and I hope) that this attitude is not due to simple prejudice to anything outside the Tier List. I choose to believe that there are some language barriers when anyone tries to research the brand.

Be advised, their websites are also in English.

Some context:

Well, the MS is a well established IT equipment manufacturer and distributor in the Southeastern Europe. They are owned by the Croatian company M SAN Grupa headquartered in the Zagreb county with offices throughout the region. I even lived near one of their office buildings in Zagreb for a while. The M SAN Grupa also has brands such as MS ENERGY that comprises products such as electric transportation in the form of electric bicycles and scooters, VIVAX brand that includes many household electronics but their best known products are LED TVs and the brand itself has established itself in Western Europe, Africa and South America. Furthermore, M SAN Grupa has the only semi automatic computer manufacturing facility in the Southeastern Europe.

I don’t know much about that but it sounds impressive, haha.

As you may realize now, the MS, and its parent M SAN Grupa are by no means a fly-by-night operation but an actual IT corporation. And I can tell you they have long cornered the market in the Balkans with their affordable computer peripherals, such as PC cases, keyboards and mice, headphones, chargers, speakers and all kinds of other computer accessories. These things are generally of quality ranging from decent to very good.

I myself have only ever owned an MS branded case and the keyboard and a mouse. And I have two computers over a decade apart. Their product line is divided into two basic categories:

Office and gaming.

Obviously their PSUs are also divided along those lines. The office models are really very basic. Their 12v rail combined output are pretty low and are not at all meant to be used in higher powered machine. They are designed for low powered office productivity computers that are everywhere in every office that has a need for a spreadsheet and word processing machine without any second thought about anything beyond that use case.


This is an important consideration for the bulk buyers of such machines since the PSU comes with the case and fulfills its intended purpose completely fine within its design parameters.


On the other, gaming, side of the PSU product line is the more potent and much more efficient offering, the MS Core series. They have some notably higher specifications, such as Active PFC, 80+ efficiency and some really nice amperage and combined output wattage on the 12v rail. There are probably some other things in there but I don't know.

You may scoff at these specifications and say that they are really just basic and they do not mean anything since they are not professionally reviewed by anyone, and especially by an English language reviewer.

And you may not believe me when I say it, (or should I say when I write it) but I understand and actually sympathize with your point of view.

In fact, if I were you, I would not take it into consideration either if there are well known alternatives that are thoroughly tested and are made by globally reputable brands and are, proportionally speaking, in the same budget class. I completely agree with that.

But in my realm, the equation for a casual PC user who likes to play a game here and there and who out of necessity sees his or her computer as a do-everything machine that in many cases is both a work and gaming computer all in one, the affordability is pretty much a sine qua non.

On our market there are many known brands such as Corsair, Thermaltake, Fortron, EVGA and many others that I probably forget or don’t know, but they can be highly expensive propositions for everyday budget PC users and shoestring gamers as well.

What you may see as affordable, can sometimes turn out to be a disproportionate expenditure compared to the rest of the computer. I mean a regular computer, not a specialized gaming computer.

Obviously, people still buy these, there is a good market for these brands here but the buyers are predominantly passionate gamers and PC enthusiasts who have the means and the desire to pay for assured quality. And of course that makes sense, if you pay a premium for a computer then a PSU should be the best. I think that is a healthy way of doing things.

But in this post, I just wanted to shed some light on what I think is a not-horrible and most likely in fact a quite adequate product from a brand that is virtually unknown in the North America and to be fair, probably in a lot of places in Western Europe.

I personally never had an issue with an MS PSU acting up on its own , which obviously sounds at odds with my previous description of it being “dodgy” before. To be sure, I thought it was, but as I did some research an understanding slowly dawned upon me.

This dodgy MS office supply was a quick replacement in the repair shop for a previous 400w MS that came with the case (and which was killed by a storm).

At the time the repair guy just plopped it in there and it was a logical choice as I ran a dual core Athlon II and only one hard disk.

When I crammed the other two storage devices and a power hungry Phenom II, I never bothered to check whether the PSU could handle the significantly increased strain.

I now realize that system instabilities, freezes, boot loops and whatnot might have been caused by the start up spike in power demand of connected devices that the PSU simply could not service, not with its 144W 12v combined output.

Phenom alone is rated for 125W draw on full load. I am very happy and lucky that there were no major consequences to anything. Well, not any visible ones at any rate.

In fact, after a few choice swear words, I was left a bit impressed that this PSU is still alive. It was never meant for the the strain I put it through in my infinite wisdom. But I can only admit my (major) mistake and learn more.

Please don’t take this as criticism or anything of the sort.

It is really not and as a matter of fact I write this as an appreciation for your well thought out and well meaning advice (which I will take, you can rest assured, haha) and so that I can shed some rays of light in this “mystery” brand that often times the English language forums misinterpret as something of a grey zone shoddy product.

It is a European product, owned by a company from an EU member state.

Like I said, I usually just stop lurking after getting what I want (yeah a real sport, right?), but this time I wanted to provide you with some material and context should some lost digital soul ask for help and mentions something branded MS.

Obviously, this cannot help you pass any judgement whether the brand or its products are any good at all, but with this you at least have some context around the product and the associated brand. Something, which I think is better than not knowing anything at all about this major regional brand.

Well known ‘Tier List’ stuff is still better quality and for sure much more transparently tested.

And yes the production line for these is, I think, in China.

And yes the cheapest office ones are wholly inadequate for anything but a low power spreadsheet hero killer. (And yet one of those el cheapos survived my Phenom II, albeit with a worn out fan).

But to say these are nothing but ticking time bombs, I would say, from my experience, such that it is, that that is a bit harsh.

As an aside, you probably knew before, but now it is evident that English is not my first language.

Heck, maybe you already knew everything about this and I am looking like a fool.

But hey, I tried: )

Anyway, thank you again Avro Arrow and also all the denizens of Tom’s Hardware for considerable knowledge that you freely share with the needy and consider this a tidbit of knowledge, as superficial as it may be, sent your way in appreciation


If it is inappropriate to post here, I apologize and please undertake whatever action you deem fit for the transgression.

Links for cursory overview:

Our brands - MSAN.hr

www.msan.hr

Front page - MS

MS products include peripheral devices, cases, power supplies, notebook accessories and cables. Modern design with favorable prices.

ms-start.com

Best wishes to all!