Help with 8600gt

[davidcrowder123]

my 8600gt evga 512mb ddr2 only has 16 shaders but suppose to have 32 here is a screen cap of it in gpu z: http://gyazo.com/bb9b4652ed8f52752416bc8f805bf813 and here is my cpu info if anyone is wondering: http://gyazo.com/b3abb8716cb7a0678a4e0e8ddc96f65a please help me i play some games and it seems its not as good as when i got it 4 years ago i still play the games i plyed then i even have a better cpu now then i had a amd athlon 64 x2 1.9ghz with the same amount of ram

 

[megamanx00]

Bah. That's not good. An 8600GT is suppose to have 32 shaders (clocked rather high I might add) though I see you got a cheap DDR2 version. Anyway, it could be the card is dying which is why it's not doing as well. Pretty odd that it's reporting 16 shaders as that's what the 8500s had, not the 8600s.

 

[davidcrowder123]

yea one thing that im wondering is i can only get my memory clock to 440 then i get artifacts why can i barely overclock the memory on it?

 

[megamanx00]

Probably because cheap memory was used on that board. I say save up some money and replace with something a little more modern like a 6770 😀

 

[davidcrowder123]

im going to get the evga 550 ti really soon i hope.

 

[megamanx00]

The 550Ti is faster than the 6770, but uses more power. Also, a GTX 460 is a much better buy than the 550Ti but of course that's a bit more power hungry ^_^. If you have a good PSU get a GTX 460 or even consider a Radeon 6850.

 

[megamanx00]

What PSU do you have?

 

[davidcrowder123]

i have a dynex 400 wat when i get the card im going to get this :http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3986693&CatId=1079 if anyone has any suggestions make sure it has a p4mb power connector because im using socket 775 and need the 4 pin power plug.

 

[megamanx00]

No, don't get that PSU. It's a no name one, so unless you do your research and can be sure that it's actually a re-branded high quality unit you risk breaking your system by using a poor quality power supply. Anyway I'd say at the least you should invest in a decent PSU like

CORSAIR Builder Series CX500 V2 $54.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139027

That should be more than enough for just about any single GPU. Again I'd say go for the GTX 460 or a Radeon 6850 (the 6850 is a little faster and uses less power) rather than the 550ti which is closer in performance to the 6770.

 

[megamanx00]

Here is what the Power Consumption of the 550ti looks like

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4221/nvidias-gtx-550-ti-coming-up-short-at-150/16

 

[davidcrowder123]

could i buy a psu that has a 4+4 plug and just use one? if so ill get a 80 plus bronze one

 

[megamanx00]

Yes you could. Like I said though, get a good quality PSU. If you want to know more about PSU quality you should visit this link to start

http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/323050.aspx

Stay away from tier 4 products, and definitely stay away from tier 5 as they are absolute crap.