Is my GPU a bottleneck?

[Guest]

Hey guys,
I'm trying to breath some more life into my 5-6 year old HP Pavilion P6200 series desktop PC before deciding to retire it.

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01859864

In order to do this I recently purchased a Zotac Geforce 730 graphics card.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L3Y50FM?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

My psu is 300watt, cpu is an AMD Athlon II x4 620, and I have 6gb of ddr2...so, will the card bottleneck in some games? Thanks.



384 processor cores64-bit memory bus Engine clock: 902 MHz Memory clock: 5010 Express 2.0 (x8 lanes)
1 x DL-DVI1 x VGA1 x HDMI Triple simultaneous display capable HDCP compliant
ED 480pHD 720pHD 1080iFull HD 1080pQuad Full HD (4K)
NVIDIA GeForce driver Microsoft Windows Vista/7/8 x86/x64300-watt power supply recommended49-watt max power consumption

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Yes it will, the 730 is a very low-end card. Don't expect very good gaming performance.

 

[Guest]

Yes it will, the 730 is a very low-end card. Don't expect very good gaming performance.

I play Minecraft, Sims 4, Sims 3: Pets, Late Night, and Into The Future, SimCity, Mass Effect 3, none of which are too graphically demanding, but I don't want slow performance. Any suggestions on what I can do?

 

[whitehatguy]

It will work, though I might get a GTX 750 Ti, especially since the price goes down when the 950 comes out. But not if you can't return it. The 730 will work with that stuff.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

You will be able to play those games on lower settings fine. A 750Ti is a major boost from a 730 and if you can afford that, or even a normal 750, I highly recommend you wait to buy it, as you'll be happier in the long run.

 

[Guest]

It will work, though I might get a GTX 750 Ti, especially since the price goes down when the 950 comes out. But not if you can't return it. The 730 will work with that stuff.

It seems to be working OK so far, no major lag, just a bit slow in performance. I am on a budget, and don't have the money for a 750ti. It's not necessarily worth upgrading at this point anyway. I could put the money twords a new machine instead of a graphics card. I do, however want my current card to keep up with my CPU, is there any chance I can "downgrade" it so they would both keep up with one another? I have a few old AM2+ Phenom x4's laying around.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

It will work, though I might get a GTX 750 Ti, especially since the price goes down when the 950 comes out. But not if you can't return it. The 730 will work with that stuff.

It seems to be working OK so far, no major lag, just a bit slow in performance. I am on a budget, and don't have the money for a 750ti. It's not necessarily worth upgrading at this point anyway. I could put the money twords a new machine instead of a graphics card. I do, however want my current card to keep up with my CPU, is there any chance I can "downgrade" it so they would both keep up with one another? I have a few old AM2+ Phenom x4's laying around.

Downgrading parts is never going to boost performance... Plus, now that I think about it you're best off with a 730 because it uses a low amount of power, and a 750Ti may have trouble on a 300W PSU (likely not but best to be safe). As long as you adjust graphics settings with the 730, you should be able to get 60FPS.

 

[Guest]

It will work, though I might get a GTX 750 Ti, especially since the price goes down when the 950 comes out. But not if you can't return it. The 730 will work with that stuff.

It seems to be working OK so far, no major lag, just a bit slow in performance. I am on a budget, and don't have the money for a 750ti. It's not necessarily worth upgrading at this point anyway. I could put the money twords a new machine instead of a graphics card. I do, however want my current card to keep up with my CPU, is there any chance I can "downgrade" it so they would both keep up with one another? I have a few old AM2+ Phenom x4's laying around.

Downgrading parts is never going to boost performance... Plus, now that I think about it you're best off with a 730 because it uses a low amount of power, and a 750Ti may have trouble on a 300W PSU (likely not but best to be safe). As long as you adjust graphics settings with the 730, you should be able to get 60FPS.

I do have this program called Zotac Firestorm, which allows you to adjust the memory clock, fan speed and GPU settings. Right now the GPU Clock is 653MHz, Memory Clock is 1252MHz, and VDDc (mV) is 975. Fan speed is 30%....How do I tweak these to get 60 Fps?
http://www.zotac.com/z-zone/zotac-firestorm.html

 

[turkey3_scratch]

It will work, though I might get a GTX 750 Ti, especially since the price goes down when the 950 comes out. But not if you can't return it. The 730 will work with that stuff.

It seems to be working OK so far, no major lag, just a bit slow in performance. I am on a budget, and don't have the money for a 750ti. It's not necessarily worth upgrading at this point anyway. I could put the money twords a new machine instead of a graphics card. I do, however want my current card to keep up with my CPU, is there any chance I can "downgrade" it so they would both keep up with one another? I have a few old AM2+ Phenom x4's laying around.

Downgrading parts is never going to boost performance... Plus, now that I think about it you're best off with a 730 because it uses a low amount of power, and a 750Ti may have trouble on a 300W PSU (likely not but best to be safe). As long as you adjust graphics settings with the 730, you should be able to get 60FPS.

I do have this program called Zotac Firestorm, which allows you to adjust the memory clock, fan speed and GPU settings. Right now the GPU Clock is 653MHz, Memory Clock is 1252MHz, and VDDc (mV) is 975. Fan speed is 30%....How do I tweak these to get 60 Fps?
http://www.zotac.com/z-zone/zotac-firestorm.html

I would only overclock your graphics card if you know what you're doing. I have not done so myself so I do not know exactly how, but you need to adjust voltages also, so hopefully someone with more knowledge can help you with that, along with what voltages are safe with your power supply.

 

[Guest]

It will work, though I might get a GTX 750 Ti, especially since the price goes down when the 950 comes out. But not if you can't return it. The 730 will work with that stuff.

It seems to be working OK so far, no major lag, just a bit slow in performance. I am on a budget, and don't have the money for a 750ti. It's not necessarily worth upgrading at this point anyway. I could put the money twords a new machine instead of a graphics card. I do, however want my current card to keep up with my CPU, is there any chance I can "downgrade" it so they would both keep up with one another? I have a few old AM2+ Phenom x4's laying around.

Downgrading parts is never going to boost performance... Plus, now that I think about it you're best off with a 730 because it uses a low amount of power, and a 750Ti may have trouble on a 300W PSU (likely not but best to be safe). As long as you adjust graphics settings with the 730, you should be able to get 60FPS.

I do have this program called Zotac Firestorm, which allows you to adjust the memory clock, fan speed and GPU settings. Right now the GPU Clock is 653MHz, Memory Clock is 1252MHz, and VDDc (mV) is 975. Fan speed is 30%....How do I tweak these to get 60 Fps?
http://www.zotac.com/z-zone/zotac-firestorm.html

I would only overclock your graphics card if you know what you're doing. I have not done so myself so I do not know exactly how, but you need to adjust voltages also, so hopefully someone with more knowledge can help you with that, along with what voltages are safe with your power supply.

I'm currently getting between 40-60 Fps on the Sims 3, but it keeps going up and down. Any idea why?

 

[turkey3_scratch]

It will work, though I might get a GTX 750 Ti, especially since the price goes down when the 950 comes out. But not if you can't return it. The 730 will work with that stuff.

It seems to be working OK so far, no major lag, just a bit slow in performance. I am on a budget, and don't have the money for a 750ti. It's not necessarily worth upgrading at this point anyway. I could put the money twords a new machine instead of a graphics card. I do, however want my current card to keep up with my CPU, is there any chance I can "downgrade" it so they would both keep up with one another? I have a few old AM2+ Phenom x4's laying around.

Downgrading parts is never going to boost performance... Plus, now that I think about it you're best off with a 730 because it uses a low amount of power, and a 750Ti may have trouble on a 300W PSU (likely not but best to be safe). As long as you adjust graphics settings with the 730, you should be able to get 60FPS.

I do have this program called Zotac Firestorm, which allows you to adjust the memory clock, fan speed and GPU settings. Right now the GPU Clock is 653MHz, Memory Clock is 1252MHz, and VDDc (mV) is 975. Fan speed is 30%....How do I tweak these to get 60 Fps?
http://www.zotac.com/z-zone/zotac-firestorm.html

I would only overclock your graphics card if you know what you're doing. I have not done so myself so I do not know exactly how, but you need to adjust voltages also, so hopefully someone with more knowledge can help you with that, along with what voltages are safe with your power supply.

I'm currently getting between 40-60 Fps on the Sims 3, but it keeps going up and down. Any idea why?

It just depends on at the time what's happening. If there are 50 people at one time compared to 10 another time, 50 people is going to lower FPS. Fluctuation is common.