Upgrading GTX 260 on my 9 years old computer, I NEED A HERO IN THIS CASE PLEASE!

[Luka_29]

Hi everyone,

First of all I want to apologise for my bad English. I'm really decent when i'm having verbal conversation but when I write I do a lot of mistakes, anyways...

I cannot decide what to buy for exchange of my GTX 260 896MB GS. Since the new drivers came out for AMD RX 480 8GB they really got near the GTX 1060 6GB when we talk about frames and performance in average. What boders me is that, I don't play every single game and in this case some card is stronger in one place and the others on theirs. So how to decide. I'm curently playing CS:GO on high level . No joke guys, Faceit level 9 on 9 years old computer (a lot of nines here) and 60hz monitor, I got FPS drops all the time for 4 years now. I will change it only because my GTX 260 literaly started to die, I started to get those brackets on my screen, like freezing squares of pixles and blue screen with info: "Your PC needs to restart", and "Your display driver ...has stopped responding", and black screens...etc. It was happening so hardcore I couldn't get in the windows anymore, so I needed to delete the drivers in safe mode to get back in. Now it works again and i can play CS:GO again on lowest resolution of 800x600, works but i don't know how is possible, but who cares it didn't die yet 😛 )btw i cannot see shit on this res. and all settings extra low haha. I still get game crash every 2 hours of playing "Nvidia OpenGl has stopped responding" or something. Before i got to this stage i recorded all the programs, checked every single component, Rams, CPU, temperatures, cables, dust in PC, what ever could cause like third party hardware for crashing my GPU. In the end I realized it's 9 years old and maybe it's time to say goodbye to it.

So 9 years ago i bought a really good PC for that time and I'm not planning to switch any other components except SSD and you need to understand me please even tho it's old as hell. When my motherboard dies, I will buy I brand new PC.

So this is my 9 years old machine:

Motherboard: Gigabyte EX58-UD4P (old as hell but rly good motherboard for OC, I have PCI 2.0 16x)

Processor: Intel Core i7 920 2.67Ghz (8 CPUs) D0 step (can be overclocked to 4.4 stable on air...)

Graphics card: Gainward GTX 260 896MB GS dual fan (almost died)

Memory: 3x2GB Corsair Dominator XMP 1600Mhz (Triple channel)

Hard disk: 640GB WDC WD6401AALS-00L3B2 ATA (going to upgrade with 128GB or 256GB SSD)

Power supply: Corsair TX 850W

So I am very sceptic which should be beter GTX 1060 6GB or RX 480 8GB for long rage of time...talking about like min. of 6 years or more?

And what manufacture should I get Asus, Gigabyte (does it have to do anything with my mother board, same brand?), Evga, Gainward, Zotac, Msi...?

Is it important maybe that I get the overclocked version with 1600Mhz or the stocked ones are fine, and how bad is it since RX 480 has only 1200Mhz?

Does it make any differences if I know i cannot use all the potencial of card with PCI eXpress 2.0 16x, where am I short at? Memory bus wide? Clock speed?

And the last thing, if possible I would like to spend less then 290€ for that GTX you all will advice it to me haha 😀

Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this long novel and to post some opinion in a advanced!

Good day,

Luka

 

[DRagor]

Since you don't want to part with your motherboard just yet, let me ask you this question: how old is motherboard battery? Because if it's very old, replacing it with new one might resolve your problem with GPU. It worked for me in similar situation.

 

[Luka_29]

Lol I hope you are not right, beacuse this would be a joke if I think how many nights I didn't sleep because of my problem. I didn't replace baterry since 9 years ago. Is this common replacing the batteries on board? :S

 

[dontlistentome]

1. That 260 is old, old enough that the thermal paste might need to be replaced. Have you thought about trying that to see if it fixes it?
2. In theory, 6 years from now 8gb will be better than 6gb.
3. Some brands are budget brands, like Powercolor. Some brands are premium brands like Asus. You want something to last 6 years don't buy a budget brand.
4. Motherboard brand doesn't matter to videocards.
5. Overclocked doesn't really matter. A 480 is a 480, a 1060 is a 1060, overclocking won't change that.
6. Pci-ex 2.0 doesn't matter.

My opinion, you won't get the full performance from either of those cards with that older i7 you have. Someday, when you build a new computer, you will then be able to get full performance from them but it may be too late. If you don't build the new computer until late 2018 for example, the 480/1060 might already be at budget level performance relative to the new games out, so you will have lost the chance to actually benefit from that extra performance.

What I'd do is buy the least expensive videocard that gets the job done for you now, like an RX 460 2gb, then buy a better card in the future when you build your new computer. That way your new computer AND videocard are the latest tech. You mentioned CSGO, an RX 460 can handle CSGO.

edit: You should have replaced the cmos battery already, I didn't even think to mention it but now I think I will when old systems are involved.

 

[DRagor]

Well, you know, they are just like regular batteries ... have expiry date and such. There's easy test to check if your battery is dead. Shut down your comp, then turn off power switch on power supply for few minutes. When you turn the machine on, you should either get error straight at the boot, or if it boot without problem check if your date/time is different then it should be. If any of the above happens, then you have dead battery.

 

[Chugalug_]

@OP, is your BIOS updated to UEFI?
If not you won't be able to use any cards 7 series or above which might indicate a new PC rig.