Video graphics card advice for older Gigabyte motherboard ... Please

[Ghost_of_DOS]

Hello All,

I have an older computer / motherboard. I would like to know what would be a nice video card for this board.

BIOS / 09/16/09 - F3
Motherboard & System: GIGABYTE GA-MA785GT-UD3H (Rev - 1.0)
Processor: AMD Athlon II X4 635
Chipset: AMD 785G (RS880) + SB750/SB710
ATI Radeon HD 4200 [GIGABYTE] Video Mem - 512 MB of DDR2 SDRAM
Kingston: 2X2 (4) GB DDR3-1333 / PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM
Power Supply - 500 Watt. (Thinking about replacing this with bigger / better.)
Currently I'm using Onboard Sound & Video.
Using onboard (wired) Wifi
Added kdlinks ue4 usb 3.0 interface. (Plugged in mini-pic-e slot.)
1 TB segate internal hard drive (sata)
1 WD 250 GB hard drive (sata)
1 CD/DVD read / writer (sata)
1 floppy drive

This is my board:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3154#ov

The board doesn't have pci-e 3.0, Only 1.0 and 2.0.

What Games?

Lots of older games like - Blood, unreal, doom, quake 1 & 2, quake 3 arena, rtc-wolfenstein, silent hunter 3, Doom3 and add-ons, s.t.a.l.k.e.r series and lost alpha, total war & rome total war series, painkiller, the dark eye, banished, wasteland 2, sir you are being hunted, shadowgate, shelter games, amnessia games, metro last light & metro 2033, van helsing games, ultimate general: Gettysburg .. etc.

I don't think I need 2 videos cards. Pretty sure my mobo doesn't support it. I don't really understand the 2 video card (sli?) thing anyway.

Thank You!

 

[thehutti]

All PCI-E Slots are up- and down compatible, so about every GPU would run on your PC, but the CPU would bottleneck almost every video card you can buy at the moment. I would go with a GTX750Ti. You can still buy one and there are some versions that don't need extra power connections, so your PSU will probably be able to support it.

Just watch a few GTX750Ti Youtube reviews or so, to see what you could expect from it.

 

[need4speeds]

You are limited by your cpu speed and power supply. Now is the time to overclock it.
A used PhenomII x4 or X6 would be great if you got lucky and found one for a reasonable price.

Option: #1. Find a used card. $40-$60.
Cards like the HD-5870,5850, 6970,6950 have 1300 to 1600 shaders that still do well for gaming, but they do use lots of power do get the job done. A $40 HD-5870 would still be great.
The 560ti was not too bad and should still run on your power supply.
$100 to $160 for something used but still fairly new. A used HD-7850, 7870,7950, or 660GTX, 670GTX, would be great if the price is right.
A pair of HD-7770's, 7790's, 5770's, 6770's, would be ok too.

Option: #2. Newer gpus do use less power and have a warranty.
A R7 370 (pitcairn 270, hd-7870) is known to clock high. Look for a card with a high overclock and decent cooling.
A 960GTX OC edition.

 

[need4speeds]

There is no mention of crossfire support but the board has a x16 and x4 slot. It is likely that crossfire will still work. Sli needs a x8 slots so sli will not work on your board.

I am 90% sure crossfire will work on your board. It is still a gamble. If you do find a cheap pair of used cards like hd-6770's, do a search about your board to see if others got crossfire to work on it with two cards.

 

[Ghost_of_DOS]

Thank You .. thehutti & need4speeds

All PCI-E Slots are up- and down compatible, so about every GPU would run on your PC, but the CPU would bottleneck almost every video card you can buy at the moment. I would go with a GTX750Ti. You can still buy one and there are some versions that don't need extra power connections, so your PSU will probably be able to support it.

Just watch a few GTX750Ti Youtube reviews or so, to see what you could expect from it.

Thanks .. thehutti

I haven't been into this stuff for a very long time. The last computer I built was back in the mid 1990s. I was playing old dos & amiga games back in the 1980s. So, I guess that makes me an oldtimer. :lol:
Thank You! .. for your help.

I'm in Canada and there isn't any computer stores anywhere near me, so I'll be shopping online.

I see a EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti SC 2GB GDDR5 (02G-P4-3753-KR) - 1176 MHz Clock, 5400 MHz Memory - PCI Express 3.0, Dual-link DVI, HDMI Item Code: VCEV002062 for $180 after rebate. Is this the card you mean, or is there something with all those ID numbers I need to know? I hope I'm allowed to post a link.

ASUS GTX 960 2GB DDR5 OC (GTX960-MOC-2GD5)
- 1190Mhz Clock, 7010Mhz Memory
- PCI Express 3.0, Dual -Link DVI, HDMI, 3x Display Port
$249.00 after rebate. (I think this sale ends today?)
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_1200_557_559&item_id=068607

Hi needforspeeds .. Thanks for the info.

(I'm a little afraid of the used market.)

I see this ..

http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=559&item_id=081456&utm_source=ccweb&utm_medium=151013&utm_content=BannerA_2&utm_campaign=webbanners

(Looking into unbottlenecking the gpu / machine. perhaps upgrade the CPU.)

 

[thehutti]

Yes that is one example of the GTX750Ti, there are others from other manufacturers as well. The one you picked is a little expensive because it seemed to be overclocked out of the box. The difference in performance is not so great so that you'll have to go for the overclocked one, but i personally like the EVGA Cards and they tend to be worth their money. The option of the GTX960 is of course more expensive, but the card offers about 66% more gaming performance. The problem is that your CPU would probably bottleneck the full potential of the GTX960 and i think you will get only about 10-20% out of this advantage, so the price difference is not worth it. If you are willing to change your CPU, then thats another story.

 

[Ghost_of_DOS]

Yes that is one example of the GTX750Ti, there are others from other manufacturers as well. The one you picked is a little expensive because it seemed to be overclocked out of the box. The difference in performance is not so great so that you'll have to go for the overclocked one, but i personally like the EVGA Cards and they tend to be worth their money. The option of the GTX960 is of course more expensive, but the card offers about 66% more gaming performance. The problem is that your CPU would probably bottleneck the full potential of the GTX960 and i think you will get only about 10-20% out of this advantage, so the price difference is not worth it. If you are willing to change your CPU, then thats another story.

--

What to do ,, what to do?

Yes, I agree that the card is pretty expensive. This morning I've been wondering if I should just buy a bare bones machine and start over, or just buy a GTX750Ti, plug it in and say good enough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_Pnte_niJE

Anyway .. Yes, the cpu should be upgraded. Which really means I should probably upgrade the old cheapo power supply. If I do change the supply, I'll have to get one that has plugs for all the stuff I have plugged in now. DVD writer, floppy drive, 2-Hard Drives and a kdlinks UE4 usb-3.0 interface. (The current power supply bolts in the top of the case. I guess some newer ones bolt into the bottom now.)

I've been looking at the cpu-upgrade path for the motherboard and there are plenty of options. I guess the green arrow indicates what CPUs will work in my board and that is a lot of different CPUs.

http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-Gigabyte/GA-MA785GT-UD3H%28rev._1.0%29.html
I believe this is the highest I can go, but not sure. -- 1100T, 3.3 GHz, HT 4000 MHz, L2 6x512 KB, L3 6 MB, TDP 125 Watt, Thuban, 0.045 micron, Rev E0

(AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Thuban 6-Core 3.3GHz, 3.7GHz Turbo Socket AM3 125W HDE00ZFBGRBOX Desktop Processor)
Everyplace I look for a price, just list it as out of stock.

I've been looking at this one and I've read that the stock heatsink & fan will need to
be replaced. (Overclocking or not.) The stock one just doesn't do the job.

AMD X8 FX-8350 (125W) Eight-Core Socket AM3+, 4GHz CPU, 8Mb Cache, 32nm (FD8350FRHKBOX) $239.00 + tax & shipping.

EVGA SuperNOVA 650 GS 650W 80Plus Gold Certified Fully Modular Power Supply Intel 4th Gen CPU Ready 5 Year Warranty (220-GS-0650-V1)

$95.00 (after rebate) +tax +shipping ..

http://www.ncix.com/detail/asus-geforce-gtx-960-strix-c5-113200-1277.htm
$300.00 (after 20.00) mail in rebate) +tax .. free shipping.

So what do you think of the selections above .. thehutti?

Maybe I should upgrade the RAM to 8 or 16 gig to ..


--

Another story ---

Also, I've been looking here at Barebones Machines ...
http://ca.lucomputers.com/list_sys.aspx?cid=412

I've even looked at ...
http://www.amazon.com/CybertronPC-Borg-709-GMBG70934GN-Desktop-Green/dp/B00NC06RKC/ref=pd_cp_147_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1JT4JCBGZYY1F6VWVK1R&dpID=51HxBzQEGRL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL70_SR70%2C70_

 

[need4speeds]

The cpu you have now is not that bad, it's still a quad core cpu. Some overclocking would really help this cpu.

What i meant was that if you see a used cpu for $40-$60 for a phenomIIx4 Black edition or $60-$80 for a used PhenomII x6, it would be ok.
Otherwise you need a new board and cpu to do a cpu upgrade.

The 960 is worth it, it is a faster card. Most importantly it is Nvidia's newest gpu die. So it's fast while sipping power.
Going with a faster Geforce card might help out with a slower cpu since it has Physx that can offload some cpu work to the gpu.

Athlon 5350 (4 core) vs. FX-8350(8 core) vs. i5-4690K (4 core) vs. i7-5820K (6core, 12 threads)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hto2JMHqATI

He is using a EVGA SC 980. Mostly this video shows you what happens when the system becomes cpu limited.
Your current cpu is faster than the athlon 5350.

This shows that the 960 will work well with your current cpu for most games.

Well good luck i hope it all works out.

 

[need4speeds]

For most games your current athlonII x4 with a 960 will be faster than a FX-6300 with a 750. And instead of just buying a card now it's a whole system?

Ok i give up because this has went stupid.

 

[Ghost_of_DOS]

Not going to rebuild the whole system. I think it would be cheaper in the long run to buy a newer system. (If I had the free cash.) I would buy a newer bigger better system, but I don't have the $$$$. So a new video card and maybe a little over clocking. I only have a stock fan, so I suppose I'll have to get a little better cooler. Anyway .. Thanks!

 

[thehutti]

About just a CPU-Upgrade + GPU:
If you want to update your CPU you should at least buy a new mainboard as well. The AMD Phenom II X6 1100T isn't that much faster than the CPU you already have, it just has 6 cores and most games won't use more than 4 threads anyway. It's out of stock because it's an old CPU too.
The FX8350 is a good cpu (at least if you prefer AMD CPUs, Intel CPUs are faster and have a better energy management atm so I would tend to go for Intel CPU instead)

CPU-Cooler:
If you buy a new CPU (Boxed Version) it comes with a new stock cooler, so you don't have to buy a seperate one because overclocking is not necessary with a new CPU anyway (Aftermarket coolers are always better and more quiet, but if you're on a budget you can replace one later). If you just want to overclock your old CPU, a Non-Stock cooler is highly recommended.

The PSU you found would be OK for all variants we discuss here, even with the the FX8350 with a GTX960 it would be ok.

I think the first question you'll have to ask yourself is, if you want to rebuild your CPU+Mainboard+PSU+GPU or if you just want to swap out the GPU.
If you are planning to swap out everything then there is no need to go for the older GTX750Ti, because a new CPU can handle every new GPU and you should then choose a more price per performance optimised GPU like the GTX960. If you just want to swap out the GPU,you'll have to know what you want to do in the future. Just swap the GPU now and get the other parts later then go for the GTX960, because then you don't have to get a new GPU again and you'll gain a lot of performance just by upgrading the CPU later. If you want to just swap the GPU and not touch the system in the near future I think the GTX750Ti would be a better option, because it's cheaper and the CPU bottleneck is smaller.

 

[Ghost_of_DOS]

Hi thehutti ... Thanks for the detailed reply. Appreciate it!

I'm taking your advice and going with the GPU install. I've watched quite a videos concerning the GTX750Ti. The card is amazing. I'm impressed.

I think I'm going with this version of it: Asus Geforce Gtx 750 Ti Strix 1124MHZ 2GB 5.4GHZ GDDR5 Dvi Hdmi Displayport PCI-E

http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=16951101409&vpn=STRIX-GTX750TI-OC-2GD5&manufacture=Others

I'm going to get a cpu-cooler to while I'm at it. What do you thinkf of this one?
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo Direct Touch 4 Heatpipe Heatsink AM2 AM3
1366/1150/1155/1156/2011
http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=11130AC0554

Now, if I just don't blow everything up. :yikes:

I'm going to open the case and see what is in it for a
power supply. I just can't remember. The original power
supply died and I picked the current one up at a Cox's
Electronics store for around $45.00.

Thank You!

 

[thehutti]

The Cooler Master Hyper 212 CPU-Cooleris a good one, lot's of people on this forum use it. I personally prefer Noctua-Coolers, but they are expensive and they look like sh** (But the performance is amazing).

 

[need4speeds]

I have the CM Hyper 212+ evo.

A6-3650 Llano apu at 3.56ghz.

I set it in the bios to turn off fan monitoring or speed control to make the fan run at 100% speed all the time. It is quiet even at max speed. The max temps are under 60C.

I am running a pair of 1gb HD7850's with a Pci X-fi card.

Metro 2033 last light redux runs at 1080p, very high details, advanced physx off, 16aa
at a average 44fps.

2.6ghz stock cpu@3.56ghz, and ddr3-1600@1826mhz with a bus speed of 137mhz (100 is stock) The cpu is at 1.475volts from stock 1.40volts, and the memory from stock 1.70 volts to 1.75volts. I set the memory at 1600 timings and then manually change the speed to 1333.

-You will need to do this too, drop the speed down to 1066.
I have kingston hyperX blue 2gbx2 4gb ddr3-1600 kit. I think its close to the same exact memory that you have. Yours is just binned lower at 1333.

I RUNNING IN IDE MODE INSTEAD OF achi MODE, This will limit a ssd drive, but normal HDD's are still just as fast, this is because it crashes above 105fsb. So it's achi mode and 2.7ghz or ide mode and 3.56ghz.
THIS MIGHT HAPPEN WITH YOUR BOARD TOO, IF IT CRASHES SET IN THE BIOS TO IDE COMPATIBLITY MODE, OR ACHI OFF, OR IDE MODE FOR THE SATA CONTROLLER.
Dropping the ht bus down to the next lower one helps too. I disable anything not needed onboard like the onboard vid, serial port. Also disable C1 and cool and quiet. Make it run at max speed all the time. Also make sure the power management stuff for the cpu is turn off or to max speed in window's power management settings.


You going to need to read up and look up what others did to your board to overclock the fsb, your memory how it can overclock.

Install CPU-Z so you can check your cpu speeds.

Prime-95 is a good and easy cpu testing program. Make sure your cpu temps are ok, check in the bios a few times right after running it.

Fritz Chess benchmark is a easy cpu benchmark that gives you a score quickly.
Benchmark the cpu at stock first and see how it increases. If it suddenly scores lower one or two cores shut down and you need to adjust your overclock.
My Llano apu got 18.34 or 8802. They score it against a P3 1ghz cpu that gets a score of 1. So it's the speed of a 18.34ghz P3 cpu if it existed. Some simple math will tell you that is fairly close. 3.56ghz x 4 = 14.24 so its a bit faster per core per clock than the p3, but not by much.

GPU caps Viewer will tell you what is going on with the video card. It has tests to confirm if cuda, open cl and open gl is working.
This is this easy to install and run benchmark that i ran.

http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/439500

When your all done and think your overclocks are stable then run these and these work the system and will bring out anything that is not right. (At the start i thought 3.7ghz cpu and 940mhz gpu was so great, now it's 3.56ghz and 900mhz gpu. )

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/8579325
Firestrike 1080p 7,000points.

HD-7850 crossfire compare.
http://www.3dmark.com/search#/?mode=advanced&minScore=6300&url=/proxycon/ajax/search/gpu/fs/P/764/7050?minScore=6950&gpuName=AMD%20Radeon%20HD%207850

I5-4670K compare.
http://www.3dmark.com/search#/?mode=advanced&minScore=6300&url=/proxycon/ajax/search/cpu/fs/P/1613/7000?minScore=6980&cpuName=Intel%20Core%20i5-4670K

FX-8350 compare.
http://www.3dmark.com/search#/?mode=advanced&minScore=6300&url=/proxycon/ajax/search/cpu/fs/P/1541/7000?minScore=6980&cpuName=AMD%20FX-8350

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/8581338
Skydiver 10,064points.

Your athlonII x4 and my Llano apu both are the same "Stars" quad core cpu.
The Llano has 1mb cache per core and the athlonII x4 has 512kb.
They are pretty close to the same cpu. So if you can get the speed turned up a bit
it should do very well for a budget cpu.

Setting up and tweeking a system can result in some very good results. It takes effort and testing to ensure it is a safe and stable overclock.

 

[need4speeds]

I forgot to mention MSI Afterburner. Even if you don't have a msi board or card, download and install it anyway.

What's so great about it? 1. You can play and record games at 720p.

Then download and install HANDBRAKE to compress your vids.
MSI afterburner also has settings to tweek the fan settings and stuff for the gpu.
I never used that, and just used the one in amd's catalyst.

VLC media player supports most videos and is better than what windows comes with.

 

[thehutti]

I forgot to mention MSI Afterburner. Even if you don't have a msi board or card, download and install it anyway.

What's so great about it? 1. You can play and record games at 720p.

Then download and install HANDBRAKE to compress your vids.
MSI afterburner also has settings to tweek the fan settings and stuff for the gpu.
I never used that, and just used the one in amd's catalyst.

VLC media player supports most videos and is better than what windows comes with.

Yes, but If he takes the GTX Card, then he has Shadowplay support in the Geforce Experience software already to record gameplay. The afterburner option is only needed for AMD Cards.

But afterburner is still a good tool to set fan settings and for easy overclocking of GPUs, So get it anyway ^^.

 

[need4speeds]

I thought i would quickly search and see how others overclocked cpus with locked multis on this board.

http://hwbot.org/hardware/motherboards#key=ga_ma785gt_ud3h

Keep in mind they are dumping liquid nitrogen on them.

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2549&page=2

They got 3.81ghz from their athlonIIx4 645.
Since 2.9ghz is stock, a gain of 1.1ghz is a great overclock.

Even if you got half that, 3.45ghz is still ok.

 

[Ghost_of_DOS]

The Cooler Master Hyper 212 CPU-Cooleris a good one, lot's of people on this forum use it. I personally prefer Noctua-Coolers, but they are expensive and they look like sh** (But the performance is amazing).

I did look at one of those. They are indeed pricey. I went with the CMH-212.
I've been wanting to put 8 Gigs of RAM in this machine for quite awhile now, so I picked up some corsair vengeance 2X4gb ddr3 1600MHz CL9-9-9-24 dual channel memory. I looked at the power supply in this machine and it is a 400 watt supply. I ordered the - evga SuperNova 650 g2 80 plus gold certified 650W fully modular PS.

Ordered the asus GeForce gtx 750 ti strix.

Down the road I might get a half-decent soundcard.

I use both Linux and Windows (dual-boot) My Linux is MX-14-4 .. 32 pae. Windows 7 64bit. Looking to change over to MX-15 when it comes out .. and in 64bit.

thehutti & needforspeeds .. Thank You both for helping me out. I'm going to need plenty more help with (first time) over clocking the Athlon II 635.

Best Wishes !!

Old Fart .. Ghost_of_DOS