Is it worth it to add an old card to a new machine?

[SammyQ2]

I recently bought a new Acer Aspire Desktop, 7th Gen Intel Core i3-7100, 8GB DDR4, 1TB HDD, TC-780-ACKi3 to replace another machine. I have a third older machine that I am dissasembling which has a Sapphire graphics card

I have a two monitor setup and don't do gaming, though I do some drafting, word processing and some video editing.

The Acer Aspire's graphics are contained in the GPU. Do you think it would it be any advantage to install this older card and connect the monitors to it?

Thanks.

 

[androbourne]

Yes you have an i3 CPU. It would take off video processing power off the on board CPU and place it on the card instead. It should help improve overall performance of the GPU and CPU functions.

However, your GPU is also years old. If you are really into video editing. I'd advise both a faster CPU and GPU. Unless its some light editing and you dont mind waiting longer to render videos.

 

[SammyQ2]

Yes you have an i3 CPU. It would take off video processing power off the on board CPU and place it on the card instead. It should help improve overall performance of the GPU and CPU functions.

However, your GPU is also years old. If you are really into video editing. I'd advise both a faster CPU and GPU. Unless its some light editing and you don't mind waiting longer to render videos.

Thank you. I only do video editing once or twice a year and it's completely non-professional. I thought maybe I could benchmark my system, before and after adding the card to quantify any improvements. Any recommendations on an appropriate benchmark test? (Free, of course.)

 

[androbourne]

Blender and Furmark are pretty decent benchmarkers for CPU you can use prime95.

 

[dontlistentome]

Even a years old card can be fast, it depends on the model.

Separately, a videocard is only helpful if the software you use can benefit from using it. Some video editors don't really use the videocard, some use it for specialized tasks like special effects. Some use it for a lot more.

So there's a lot of 'it depends' involved in this, especially since you provide no details on the card or software you use.

edit: I see the link for the card, my bad. I had one of those. It can be helpful, in low demand situations. The main downside is it's no longer supported in drivers. I never used the integrated graphics in a i3 7xxx series CPU, but it wouldn't surprise me if Intel graphics in that CPU are better than the card.

 

[androbourne]

Even a years old card can be fast, it depends on the model.

Separately, a videocard is only helpful if the software you use can benefit from using it. Some video editors don't really use the videocard, some use it for specialized tasks like special effects. Some use it for a lot more.

So there's a lot of 'it depends' involved in this, especially since you provide no details on the card or software you use.

Click on the link he posted... it takes you to the exact card.

 

[punkncat]

IMO on that card, no. It's well down this list (https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html) with several of the integrated chipsets above it. If nothing else the integrated has more RAM to use (sort of).

I wouldn't bother.

 

[SammyQ2]

You guys convinced me, I'm not going to bother installing it. The obsolete drivers cinched it for me. If I find I really need more performance I might look into upgrading the CPU and GPU as suggested. Sometimes my desire to tinker gets the better of me. In this case I think I'll leave well enough alone.

Thanks.