Need advice on new video card

M

MSM0075

New Member
Hello everyone,

I recently got a 'new-to-me' machine. Its an Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 2.80GHz w/ 2GB of RAM

http://ark.intel.com/products/36500/Intel-Core2-Duo-Processor-E7400-(3M-Cache-2_80-GHz-1066-MHz-FSB)

It currently has a NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS PCI-Express for a video card and it really dosn't even play half-life 2 smooth at mid range settings.

My old machine had a 2GHz Pentium 4 with a Radeon HD 4670 AGP that ran much better.

I dont want to spend a lot of money for a power house top of the line GPU and it dosn't even have to be new, I can settle with a used model. I want to be able to play Half-Life 2 at highest settings with great performance if its possible for my Motherboard/CPU setup. I do not have any games that are newer than that like Crysis, but If newer games would be possible that would be awesome too.

If you need more information to help me decide, please let me know.
Thank you so much!
-Mike
 
how much are you looking to spend? If you can buy used, look for something like a 5870 or 4870 as they kick butt for the price.
 
I got myself a second hand Radeon HD 5870 several weeks ago for £100 and yeah for the money it is seriously awesome! :) I can still max pretty recent games (Dirt 3, Skyrim, Just Cause 2) out at 1080p using high/ultra settings and achieve a good 50-60 FPS in all of those games (sometimes even higher), so if you can get yourself a 5870 for cheap and your power supply is good enough, I'd say go for it. :)

The E7400 and the 2GB of RAM may bottleneck you a bit with a 5870, but the 5870 is definitely a much much better card than an 8400 GS (I used to have an 8400 GS a while ago too). If you can I'd get 4GB of RAM too.
 
A used GPU would fit it. Wouldn't spend that much more on such an outdated machine. What powre supply do you have in there, by the way?
 
I would recommend this one. This one would be about 4 times better than the current graphics card you have according to the GPU benchmarks. Though your power supply should be at a minimum of 300W. If it's more, than that's okay, just not less is recommended. It's not as good at the Radeon HD 4670 (but close), but it's also cheaper.



http://amzn.to/NLn8is

Or you can try and get another Radeon HD 4670.

Here is a nice and cheap one.



http://amzn.to/NdPUWD
 
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Thanks for all the responces guys!

Im sorry, I forgot to list my power supply. Its an ISO Switching Power Supply ISO-400, Max Output Power: 300W.

How about I just replace the.power supply. I dont like how it only has one SATA power conector for my HDD anyway as I usually run multiple drives as backups. This way it will make the hunt for a video card a little easier too.

If need be I can also pick up another 2gb stick of ram to bring me up to 4gb total..

Thanks again!
Mike
 
That psu would NOT run pretty much any gfx card. And, budget? Those graphics cards are bad for playing games.

Reccomened: GTX 550ti, pretty much the best gpu that wont bottleneck you, and it's only $130.
Ram: Ddr2 or ddr3, do you know? So we can Reccomened a ram upgrade.
Power: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371045 Nice for cheap, the corsair cx series whines. But, most corsairs don't whine, and this antec doesn't whine, and is by antec, a great brand.
 
Get another 2GB DIMM to make 4GB and then get something like a Radeon 5850 or 5870 if you can afford one. The 5850/70 would be faster than the GT 430.
 
YOu need a new PSU no matter what graphics card you put in there. Fact.

Secondly a 8400GS PCIe should be better than a 4670AGP so something must be wrong.

Thirdly, even if you replace the PSU (which you must) and get a new GPU, putting 4GB of RAM in a 32bit OS is a waste of time.
 
vistakid10 said:
If he has a 64-bit OS then 4GB of RAM would be a good move. He never said he only had 32-bit, however if you do have only 32-bit then yeah I'd just stick with 2GB.

Yes you need a new PSU.

I had an 8400 GS, it was slooowww (mine was PCI though). Going by this, the 4670 is much faster http://www.hwcompare.com/3074/geforce-8400-gs-512mb-vs-radeon-hd-4670-512mb/ but I'm not sure if an AGP 4670 would be faster (that's comparing a PCI-E one I think).
Click to expand...

Considering the age and quality of that rig, I reckon he probably has a 32bit OS - lets see.

The rest of your post is just dam silly.
 
bigfellla said:
The rest of your post is just dam silly.
Click to expand...
How? I agreed with you on the new power supply, it's a must, and I showed you that a 4670 could potentially be faster than an 8400 GS (which I imagine it is) because you said this earlier.

bigfella said:
Secondly a 8400GS PCIe should be better than a 4670AGP so something must be wrong.
Click to expand...
The 8400 GS is a pretty weak card. I will say though that the AGP interface is slower than PCI-E, but I still think the AGP 4670 would have been faster than the PCI-E 8400 GS.
 
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Im pretty sure im only running the 32 bit ver of XP SP3.
I will check later.

Anything else I need to look up for you guys?
 
So if I'm running WinXP 32bit thers no need for me to get another 2GB stick of RAM?

Can you guys recommend a Power Supply Unit and a Video Card? Would like to get it on order ASAP, I can't wait! lol
 
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