Incremental GPU upgrade for nine year old Win 7x64 system?

[teukros]

I'm embarrassed to say so, but I somehow never got around to upgrading my GPU... the 5770 always seemed good enough. Well I just recently purchased Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock, and it's not good enough anymore. I need an incremental upgrade and I want to continue to use Windows 7 64 bit. I would be grateful for any recommendations.

I have read that I could use one of those flashy RX 560 or RX 580 cards with DirectX 11, but would that be a waste of money?


Case = Cooler Master SGC-2000-KKN1-GP Storm Scout

PSU = Corsair CMPSU-650HX modular 650w

MB = Gigabyte-GA-790XTA-UD4

CPU = AMD Phenom II X4 965 125W (C3 stepping) 3.4 GHz (Black Edition)

HS+fan = Antec Max CPU Cooler 92mm

RAM = Corsair Dominator 4 GB 1600Mhz Dual Channel DDR3 1600 MHz

SSD = Samsung 840 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD

HD = WD Caviar Black 1 TB SATA II, 32 MB Cache, 7200 RPM

HD-ext = WD My Passport Ultra 1TB Portable External Hard Drive USB 3.0

DVD-R = Samsung DVD-W SATA 22X Lightscribe (OEM)

GPU = Sapphire Radeon HD5770 Vapor-X 1 GB DDR5 860 MHz

SndCard = Creative Labs SB0880 PCI-E SB X-Fi Titanium Sound Card

OS = MS WIN 7 PRO SP1 64-BIT - OEM

 

[clutchc]

Not at all. The RX-580 might be a bit bottlenecked by the Ph II X4 965, tho. But mine handled that card relatively OK after a decent OC. There's a major performance difference between the RX-560 and RX-580. Maybe drop back to a RX-570.
Or go with a GTX 1050 Ti, preferably one with a 6-pin header that will allow some OC if you like to do that sort of thing.
HD-5770 vs RX-570
HD-5770 vs GTX 1050 Ti

 

[jay32267]

I would think, that with that CPU.....you could probably go up to a GTX 1060 and you would get a massive increase (like 5 fold) in graphic performance.

Your PSU is good enough for a GTX 1060.

I am way more familiar with NVidia which is why I am using a GTX as an example.

 

[tejayd]

Your probably going to want at least 8gb of ram, and an rx570 or 580 (if you want to stick with AMD). They are about the same price to performance as the nvidia equivalents. A 560 would help, but its probably best to go up a lvl or 2 so you can get the recommended performance.

 

[teukros]

Not at all. The RX-580 might be a bit bottlenecked by the Ph II X4 965, tho. But mine handled that card relatively OK after a decent OC. There's a major performance difference between the RX-560 and RX-580. Maybe drop back to a RX-570.
Or go with a GTX 1050 Ti, preferably one with a 6-pin header that will allow some OC if you like to do that sort of thing.
HD-5770 vs RX-570
HD-5770 vs GTX 1050 Ti

Thanks to all who answered. I'll try to make a choice tonight.

Would the MSI Radeon RX 580 (8 GB) be a good choice? It seems to be on sale right now for 209 dollars...

 

[clutchc]

Thanks to all who answered. I'll try to make a choice tonight.

Would the MSI Radeon RX 580 (8 GB) be a good choice? It seems to be on sale right now for 209 dollars...

I've never had any problem with MSI cards. They make a few different Radeon RX 580s. The Gaming, the Armour, and the Radeon come to mind. I presume you are referring to the latter?

 

[teukros]

armor is the one on sale

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814137118&cm_re=radeon-_-14-137-118-_-Product

 

[Karadjgne]

$210 for a Rx580 8Gb? I'd jump on that, stock won't last long. That's as much as used cards are going for.

 

[teukros]

So I upgraded to 16 GB of G.SKILL Ripjaws X (2 x 8GB) and an MSI Radeon RX580 Armor (8 GB). My goodness that is a big card. It came very, VERY close to not fitting at all. And I have a mid size tower case. So then (because my DVDROM drive is a piece of crap which has been flaking out for a while and now seems to have given up the ghost) I downloaded and installed the drivers from the AMD site (win7-64bit-radeon-software-adrenalin-edition-18.8.2-aug27.exe). Tried out Battlestar Galactica with high settings, installed Folding@Home etc. So far, no problems - except one:

The splash screen and startup screens, AND THE BIOS SCREENS, are missing the top, bottom, and sides of the display. In other words, imagine black tape being applied on all four edges of your monitor screen. That's what I'm seeing. Award BIOS v6.00pg btw. But after Windows starts up, everything looks fine.

So then I go to Radeon Settings from the Desktop. I get a popup telling me "Radeon Settings and Driver versions do not match. Please try again after updating to the latest version(s)" (and it hangs, and has to be shut down using CTRL-ALT-DEL (okay, that's two problems)).

Yet the Windows Device Manager says "This device is working properly". Driver Version 24.20.13011.1009, Driver Date 8/27/2018.

So then I re-reinstall the drivers (making sure that "Keep system up to date" is checked) and it says "18.8.2 Currently installed / 18.8.2 Local Driver". It zips through the re-installation very quickly and proclaims success. I re-re-reboot and have the same problems and get the same popup.

I'm stumped...


EDIT: FIXED (both problems)

1. It seems that my monitor was set to D-SUB input (it always worked so...) and after I changed it to HDMI input the BIOS display was fine (D'OH!)

2. Googled for the aforementioned popup error message, found this discussion:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/8p48ah/psa_fix_for_radeon_settings_version_and_driver/

and I did as suggested,

Open Registry Editor, go to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\AMD\CN]
Look for DriverVersion.
Remove the value listed - leave it blank.
Then reboot