Upgrading hd 3850 512mb

dan rash

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Feb 10, 2014
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Best possible upgrade from Radeon hd 3850 512 mb?
my specs-
gigabyte p31-ds3l mainboard pcie x16 v1.1 only
ddr2 2gb ram @ 800mhz
pentium dualcore E 6300 @2.8ghz
500W power supply
160gb SATA hard drive
AOC 15.6" monitor max resolution 1360x768

can you tell me what are the good gpus which are compatible with above setup? I'm on very low budget and considering to buy used ones. it's good if you can suggest something under 60$ ( sorry for the bad English since i'm not a native English speaker)
 
Solution
Nvidia GTX 550 Ti cards are going for $60 to $70 on eBay, and would be by far the fastest component of that system.

Radeon HD 5770 or 7750 would also be a similar upgrade and are in the same price range.

BlacKHawK3

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Oct 4, 2011
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Nvidia GTX 550 Ti cards are going for $60 to $70 on eBay, and would be by far the fastest component of that system.

Radeon HD 5770 or 7750 would also be a similar upgrade and are in the same price range.
 
Solution

dan rash

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thank you. I actually thought about 550 ti. but didn't know about AMD cards. It's really hard to find something compatible with my power supply as well as old pci e v1.1. will i see significant improvement with 550 ti with my setup? I've played bf3 on medium fps is just above 30 on 1360x768, crysis 2 on advanced, bfbc2 on high. do you think is it possible to play bf4 high settings or crysis 3 high on above resolutions if i get gtx 550 ti?
 

BlacKHawK3

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First, you are going to be mainly limited by your Pentium processor and 2GB ram in all those games. You "might" be able to play bf3 at high, but you will at least improve your framerates at medium with a 550 Ti. Pentium duals are far inferior to Core 2 duals and Core 2 quads. Consider a CPU and RAM upgrade if you want to play BF3.

Second, all PCI-express cards are backwards and forwards compatible; a PCIe v1.1 card will run on a v3.0 motherboard, and vice versa. PCIe will always run at the speed of the slower component, but you won't notice because you are more limited elsewhere.

The 550Ti is rated at 116 watts, the 5770 at 108, and the 7750 at 75 watts. All should comfortably run on a 500 watt PSU. Just make sure your PSU is rated for at least 20 amps on the +12V rails (it should say right on the side of the PSU).
 

dan rash

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So you think it's impossible to play BF4 or Crysis 3 even if I upgraded to gtx 550 ti, am I correct?. I'm ok with frame rate 30-40 range but not with 20s. I can upgrade ram by additional 1GB. Because of tight budget cannot consider CPU upgrade in near future. By the way PSU says 20 amps on 12V.
 

BlacKHawK3

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It's certainly possible to play both games, and the 550Ti will be much better than the 3850. But you won't get 30+ fps on high settings because of your CPU. 20 amps will do the job for power.