Simple GPU Recommedations?

[naomigurl]

Okay, here's the situation, my gaming beast that I built almost 6 years ago finally died. I was way more heavily into gaming than vs now. I'm more into retro gaming now, I love some of the classics games especially from the DOS Era. Anyways, after my computer died, I found myself without one. I got lucky and found a Dell Optiplex 755 Desktop (not the minitower or SFF) for $15 with no hard drive. I installed a 1tb hard drive, upgrade the plain cd-rom drive to a DVD BURNER, upgraded the paltry 2gb of ram to 4gb of DDR2 memory! (I know, the computer is old!), Plus I upgraded the cpu from the Intel Core 2 DUO E6550 to the Intel Core 2 QUAD Q6700. All of this was done using spare parts. Unfortunately, when my other machine went, it took my graphics card with it and probably would not be usable in this system anyways.

So I need a simple GPU recommendation, my most demanding titles that I currently play that is even semi newish, are Sid Meier's Railroads, and Star Ruler 2. Both titles can't be played on this system because of it's crappy integrated Intel GMA 3100 graphics! It lacks Vertex Shader and OpenGL 2.1 support. I don't have a whole lot of money to spend, which is why I decided to bring a Dell Optiplex 755 back from the dead! Since I cant upgrade the power supply either, it needs to be fairly low power consuming, and low profile.

All I need to be able to do with this machine is,
*Web Browsing, Website Editing, Word Processing (not graphics card intensive at all)
*Video Editing, Photoshop (Seems fairly capable of this right now, idk if a graphics card would help?)
*1080p YouTube and Netflix video watching.
*Retro Games, and my two "demanding" titles (lol!)

I'm thinking of going the route of the Geforce GT 1030. What do you guys think?

 

[clutchc]

The GTX 1030 is indeed about the best that will fit in the Optiplex 755 MT due to the location of the PCIe x16 slot and the fact that the case uses an upside-down BTX motherboard design. Any card that occupies 2 slots-width won't fit.

 

[naomigurl]

Thanks, for your answer. If in theory I could get a GT 710, (don't kill me) for $10, would that be worth at all? I know the video card sucks. However, 1) would it be better than GMA 3100, 2) Could it play those two games I mentioned above?, and 3) Could it play 1080P Video? If it wasn't so cheap, I wouldn't even be considering it or would you still spend the $90 dollars on GT 1030?

 

[dontlistentome]

A GT 710 should be able to handle your needs. Those games aren't very demanding. Ordinarily I wouldn't recommend that card, but for your type of use it's fine.

 

[clutchc]

Thanks, for your answer. If in theory I could get a GT 710, (don't kill me) for $10, would that be worth at all? I know the video card sucks. However, 1) would it be better than GMA 3100, 2) Could it play those two games I mentioned above?, and 3) Could it play 1080P Video? If it wasn't so cheap, I wouldn't even be considering it or would you still spend the $90 dollars on GT 1030?

The GT 1030 is 3 times as fast as the GT 710, but if you don't have the cash right now, the $10 GT 710 will allow you to (2) play those two games, and (1) it would be better than the GMA 3100 by a factor of 2 to 1. (3) It should do 1080p... at reduced settings.

The cost is a personal decision. You can get a GT 1030 from Newegg for ~$71 if you hurry. Or $78 from Amazon.
But only you can decide if it is worth it.

 

[naomigurl]

Actually, I was wrong it's not the GT 710. The seller on Craigslist advertised it as a GT 710. However my computer reads it as a GT 730 with GDDR5 memory. I know probably not much better? As you probably can guess, I bit the bullet and decided to purchase that card. My figuring was, this was a short interim solution until I can afford the GT 1030 which I think is my best choice, because it would allow wider selection of playable games? I know not modern triple a titles, but I don't play those anyways. However, this card allows me to play the two games I REALLY want to play right now. So it works, and even when I buy the GT 1030, it's not much of a waste, because I only spent $10.

So, if you could answer these questions, I would appreciated it.
1) I don't know much about the Geforce 700 series. How much of a improvement is GT 730 with GDDR5 vs GT 710 with ddr3?
2) When I do buy the GT 1030, wouldn't I be better off getting the GDDR5 version, instead of the ones you linked? From what I read the GDDR5 is almost twice the performance over the DDR4 and only roughly costs $10 more?

Thanks, for your answer. If in theory I could get a GT 710, (don't kill me) for $10, would that be worth at all? I know the video card sucks. However, 1) would it be better than GMA 3100, 2) Could it play those two games I mentioned above?, and 3) Could it play 1080P Video? If it wasn't so cheap, I wouldn't even be considering it or would you still spend the $90 dollars on GT 1030?

The GT 1030 is 3 times as fast as the GT 710, but if you don't have the cash right now, the $10 GT 710 will allow you to (2) play those two games, and (1) it would be better than the GMA 3100 by a factor of 2 to 1. (3) It should do 1080p... at reduced settings.

The cost is a personal decision. You can get a GT 1030 from Newegg for ~$71 if you hurry. Or $78 from Amazon.
But only you can decide if it is worth it.