GPU help needed with a M4A87TD/USB3 mobo

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radioman970

radioman970

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Feb 20, 2016
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My system:
Processor : AMD Phenom II, Quad X4, 965, 3.4
Motherboard : ASUS AMD870 chipset,M4A87TD/USB3
RAM : 2Gx2|GEIL GVP34GB1600C9DC R
Hard Disks : 3x1TB
Graphics card : Sapphire 6870 HD (failed)/nVidia 9800 GT(previous card I had)
PSU : Corsair 750W
OS : Windows 7/64

Hi. I was hoping for some help finding a suitable GPU for my current setup. I plan to upgrade the memory RAM to 8gb as well. I can't afford to build a new PC at this time so I'd like to get the best I can at the moment.

The 6870 HD started acting late last year, re-seating the unit and driver upgrades seemed to keep it going for a while but ultimately it started crashing with a white screen (in Windows) or corrupt graphics (during bootup screens and in windows) and nothing seemed to help. So I backed up to the 9800 gt and got out my old game collection.

For the RAM, Crucial's website has a nice chart for my mobo. The GPU has been more difficult. pcpartpicker doesn't list my mobo. I'd like to get the best I can, with a nice speed increase over the 6870, without breaking the bank. After some searching I'm a little confused on what to get since many cards are now "out of stock" or at oddly high prices. Would a 380 or 970 work with this setup? I saw 280x listed for someone with the same mobo here last year.

I'm a gamer first and foremost but I also edit music and minor video projects. Any help would be appreciated.
 
Solution
clutchc


Good luck. The only UEFI BIOS gfx card I ever had trouble with on an old board was a R9-370. It wouldn't produce a display on mu Intel DP45G motherboard (775 socket) even when I set the board's BIOS to UEFI boot. Yet, my Evga 960 and my Evga GTX 750 Ti worked on it with no problem.
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@clutchc, thanks for your comment. I was getting very discouraged trying to pick something out and was about ready to take my chances with used on ebay. But I'd much rather get something new.

I had been looking at the 970 and the 380. (perhaps the next lower would be better? 960? 370?) Those sell for around $200 give or take $20. If it will get me going again I could definitely do that. If I went with an older card, that was at least slightly better than the 6870, I wouldn't want to go higher than $130 or so. But still, it's worth it I think to pay the extra and get a newer card.

I was reading a comment (i think on amazon) where someone was having a problem getting a 970 to work on this mobo. They noted the bios was last updated in 2011. I have that 2011 version on mine.

Btw, I don't care much about overclocking. A factory OC board would be fine though.

 
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The BIOS issue is usually only a problem with real old boards and especially OEMs like HP, Dell, etc. Your board should not be an issue. If there is an issue, you can always use the old card to update to the latest BIOS. But I don't think you'll have to. The problem arises when late model cards' UEFI BIOS doesn't interface well with older boards' legacy BIOSs. But I have an old AM3 board that works fine with both my GTX 960 and GTX 970. Nvidia seems a little better in that regard. I had some issues with the last 300 series AMD card I had.

$200 is going to limit you to a GTX 960 as the fastest card available. There are a few R9-380 that fall in that price range too. The GTX 960 and R9-380 are pretty evenly matched... depending on the game. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1656?vs=1591

Here are a selection of both: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%204017%20600537575%20601107976&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=RATING&PageSize=30

To be honest, anything more powerful than those cards will begin to be bottlenecked in some games by your CPU.
 
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I'll do some shopping this weekend after the storms (yep, typical) have ended where I am. Truly, thank you for the help. will come back later...

Shopping now, but a couple of things... the last bios update for that motherboard was 2011. I don't think they'll do anymore. Also, wondering if 2gb or 4gb makes a difference...? Well just looked, there are plenty of threads discussing this... seems it might be all about marketing. still... 😉
 
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Here's the thread with someone who had a problem going from 760 to a 960 in the same mobo...

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/17347364628

Although there's someone posting on techreport.com forum with these specs in their sig... hummmm...

MD Phenom II x4 955 | ASUS M4A87TD Evo | 8GB ddr3 | EVGA GTX 970 4GB | Antec BP 550 | Antec 300 | Win 7 64

same mobo (well, the EVO edition) but using the 970, which is bottlenecking their cpu.
 
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That's a great card for you. Never had any problem with my EVGA 960 FTW+ on any of my older AMD boards. My MSI AM3 socket, 765 chipset board is a gen older than yours. My Biostar AM2+ socket 760G chipset board is even older. Both run the Evga GTX 960 card with no problems in Win7x64.

I don't think the poster in that link really had a problem with his board. Not if he got a display and was able to boot to Win. I would suspect some other issue. A BIOS issue would not even let the card produce an initial display. But of course, I can't guarantee anything from here.
 
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I did a chat with evga about this. They said the mobo would need to support UEFI for it to work with that card. They said it wasn't listed for my mobo. They gave me these instructions once I have to card that might get it working..

"Asus will be F2 or Delete to enter the BIOS setup. Switch to the Advanced Mode by pressing F7. Under the "Boot" tab you will see the "Fast Boot". Disabling will automatically change everything else. Next, go under "Secure Boot" and change the "OS Type" option from "Windows UEFI mode" to "Other OS". Once those settings are changed you will be able to save and exit. When the computer starts into Windows shut it down, and install the graphics card normally. The graphics should now be displaying through the video card."

You didn't have to do anything like this right? Man, I'd hate to put out this kind of money and it not work. ... Wondering if maybe a AMD might be a better option... researching... ...maybe get a card the is specifically legacy over UEFI?

Updating: my bios doesn't seem to have the option for UEFI so I guess I'll just have to specifically shop for non-UEFI to be sure.
 
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That only has to be done if you don't even get a display from the card at boot. It has nothing to do with the other poster's problem because he had gotten a display at boot. And no, I never had to do that. Nvidia 900 series cards have been pretty good about switching to a legacy BIOS mode if the card is on a non-UEFI board.

Buy the card from a reputable retailer that accepts returns.
 
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But just to be safe I'd like to get a different card brand than EVGA. I'm looking at some others... worried about it not working. Returns are such a hassle and I'd probably have to pay a fee since it would be opened.
 
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Good luck. The only UEFI BIOS gfx card I ever had trouble with on an old board was a R9-370. It wouldn't produce a display on mu Intel DP45G motherboard (775 socket) even when I set the board's BIOS to UEFI boot. Yet, my Evga 960 and my Evga GTX 750 Ti worked on it with no problem.
 
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Solution
I'm looking at R9 380x and R9 380 sapphire cards that specifically state they have both bios. the 370 models are the same. Even though I really wanted to get nvidia this time...would just be safer I think.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/productdetial.asp?pid=B520A2A6-4D37-4499-9584-B6BE8823AAC0&lang=eng

I'm going to do more research on nvidia too just to see. Spent all day on this and my 50 year old eyes HURT! lol about to break for the day I think!

Truly, thanks again for the help. Hope to make a choice before the weekend is gone.
 
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Well stayed up after midnight anyway...

still trying to decide. Worried about the bottlenecking of the 380 or 380x. Wondering if I should get something much slower. 750 ti that might just be a better choice to avoid bottlenecking altogether.

well... my brain hurts. Back at it tomorrow... well it is tomorrow... haha!

UPDATE: I think I fried my brain yesterday. But waking up this morning I think the 380x is going to be the one. I'll upgrade my mobo/cpu within a few years and the 380x can come along with me.

What convinced me is watching this FO4 video featuring a 380 and 955BE running at 45-60 FPS. I'm probably good until things dip to below 25.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v-EEGZDbpk

Looks good! I don't own that game yet, but I do have several I want to test including the updated version of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. With my old 6870 it ran smooth on the highest settings up until you get into the town and start doing things then is bottoms out to unplayable. Wondering if that was because of the GPU or CPU?
 
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A amazon reviewer also had good luck with a similar setup: "Love this card. I am running it with an AMD Athlon X4 860K processor and I run every game that I own on it at 1920x1080 ULTRA settings without a problem Great bang for the buck. Game titles include, battlefield 4, Need for Speed Rivals, Star Wars Battlefront 3, Ark Survival in Epic mode at 1920x1080, Dirt Rally, Dirt 3 all of which run smooth and fluid at over 40 frames per second."

Battlefront 3 doesn't seem to be too demanding. There's a youtube of a similar setup running it and it's very smooth. The Ark fps is also a good sign this will probably be a good purchase. Can't wait to see, alhtough I don't have either game.

thanks again clutchc, even though i didn't go with the 960 (would have if it had the UEFI switch) you helped a great deal. Lots of food for thought. Once this stuff comes I'll post my adventures with it. Hoping all goes smooth.
 
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If you don't have any BIOS issues with the 300 series AMD card like I did, it will have been a good choice. Still good even when you upgrade to a new platform. And AMD cards are much better at DX12 from the reviews I've seen. Of course, you need Win10 for DX 12.

Let me know here how the card worked on that motherboard.
 
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Hey, I was actually looking at amd mobo/cpu prices. maybe sooner than later I'll get something. Certainly if I have problems I'll probably go ahead and get something. Although I didn't know I'd need Win10 as well! DX 12 doesn't work on Win7/64? ... so much to learn. thanks. I'll post as soon as. Hoping I get it all before the weekend. Usually newegg gets it out there fast.
 
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Unless something changes at M$, DX12 will be a Win10 only option. There was some rumor about Win8 supporting it, but I never heard anymore about it. Of course you can always get a free upgrade to Win10 until June if you want it.
 
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I'd definitely rather stay on win7. It's worked nothing but great for me since 2011. Of course, If I have to upgrade the cpu/mobo I'll prob go ahead with that free option. I put Win10 in my cart at newegg with a few other things I was looking at as a reminder. if the card doesn't work I'll prob start a whole new thread for that upgrade so I can make sure everything can move over to whatever I get. I did buy some ram, 8gb of Crucial 1833. That will replace the 1600 4gb Geil I have. I hope it works.

 
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The memory controller aboard the Ph II X4 955 is only good for 1333MHz. It can safely handle OC'ing to 1600 MHz, but you'll never make it to 1833/1866 Mhz. If you can find 1600 cheaper, I'd get that. Unless you plan on upgrading to a Fx-8350 in the future, in which case you can take the faster RAM with you.

Keep in mind, RAM speed is the least important item for gaining performance. Faster RAM usually has higher latency than slower RAM, and the difference in performance isn't as great as you would think.
 
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they already shipped it. To tell the truth I just picked something that looked nice off the compatibility list on their site. It's yellow and I think has some light along the edge! 😛 But most likely my next machine will be FX based. I have a fx 8320 in my cart at newegg along with a ASUS M5A99FX mobo. The price is very reasonable, but those models are really just placeholders. If this card fails to work right I'll need to do more research.
 
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I figured out earlier today that I may have had the HD 6870 that was messing up hooked up wrong. I used a Y-cable to hook it to the PSU, splitting one line and using it for both. It was that way since 2011. Not sure if that has anything to do with the problems. I'll use 2 cables on this new one.
 
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got it installed. About to install the drivers. I uninstalled everything. And used DDU to get the rest. So far so good.

it arrived with the corner of the bracket ( the small piece at the end of the short bent piece) bent down and slightly towards the unit. Can you believe that? I used pliers to bent it upwards. Didn't put pressure on anything but the bracket itself. Then just used the other one to secure it.

Just shows my kind of luck. But at least it is working good so far. I have full confidence in AMD's drivers! lol here's goes...
 
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The button was real small and I didn't see any markings. couldn't find out anything about how it should be so I left it and it worked fine. Drivers installed great.

First test, over an hour on Metro 2033 redux. I was getting that horizontal screen tearing in cutscreens and during game. Just turned on vsync and now it's smooth as butter! Passed that test. Amazing looking game. On my old card it was sluggish but playable sometimes and laggy and unplayable others. Not anymore!

I think I'll be happy with this setup for now. But more tests coming.

UPDATE:
Trine 2 ran smooth as silk. That 9800gt couldn't handle that one.
Fallout 3 ran smooth but with small hiccups. A sound problem had returned on that one with using the radio. So I'll have to fix it.
 
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