Graphics card upgrade.

[mike8318]

I have an 8 year old Dell Dimension 8400 that has performed flawlessly since new,but the recent updates have sent my frame rate to below 15fps,even with everything turned way down. My system consists of a Pentium 4, 3.4GHz,and 4 gigs of ram. The graphics card is the Radeon X300. I'm maxed out on ram,so about all that is left is to upgrade the card. I'm wanting to try this before I invest in a new system.Dell recommends the  Radeon HD4650 PCIe 1GB HDMI. Any ideas? Thanks folks!

[The Fugitive]

That would be throwing good money after bad.

Even if the video card up grade helped (I don't think it would be much help) the lack of ram and a single core cpu is just going to create a different area that is going to slow you down. You most likely wouldn't see much of an improvement.

Personally I'd save my money until I could buy a new system.

[Masherbrum]

Yep, ditto to Fugi's post.   

[guncrasher]

before you invest in a new system.  which is the logical way to go, perhaps you should give TD a call or build your own.  it will be better than anything that you can buy at a store and it will be money well spend.

semp

[Bino]

According to this page over at Toms Hardware, the Radeon HD 7750 is "...the fastest graphics card you can get right now that doesn't require an auxiliary power input; it draws all that it needs from a 16-lane PCIe slot. If you're upgrading an older machine with limited power supply capacity, that's an attractive point to consider. "  

However, although you could probably measure the performance improvement, you might not be able to even see the improvement with the naked eye.

[Denniss]

The P4 3.4 should at least have HTT so one physical but two locical cores.
I would not invest too much money on this system but you may want to test a cheap low-end card to boost performance, the X300 is some of the slowest possible cards for PCIe (if that's really a PCIe-system, please verify first!).
Very cheap low end cards should be Ati HD4350 or HD5450, I doubt your CPU is fast enough to feed the HD4650 properly with data.

[Bizman]

8 years is quite a long time in computer life, +1 @Fugi & Masherbrum.

Denniss has a point, too, but I'd like to take the idea one step further. The X300 is at the low end of Radeons of its era, but instead of a much newer card I'd look for a second hand high end card of the same age or one or two generations younger to be in par with the rest of your system. You can get an X850 on Ebay for around $20, an X1950 for $30 or an HD2900 for $45 which shouldn't be too big an investment. Something like that might give you time to save for a good AH rig for the next 8 years to come. If not, it still would run old games like a charm.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

8 years is quite a long time in computer life, +1 @Fugi & Masherbrum.

Denniss has a point, too, but I'd like to take the idea one step further. The X300 is at the low end of Radeons of its era, but instead of a much newer card I'd look for a second hand high end card of the same age or one or two generations younger to be in par with the rest of your system. You can get an X850 on Ebay for around $20, an X1950 for $30 or an HD2900 for $45 which shouldn't be too big an investment. Something like that might give you time to save for a good AH rig for the next 8 years to come. If not, it still would run old games like a charm.

One should remember when buying HD 2xxx series that they were notorious for high power consumption + heat. So check power supply resources first.

[rpm]

According to this page over at Toms Hardware, the Radeon HD 7750 is "...the fastest graphics card you can get right now that doesn't require an auxiliary power input; it draws all that it needs from a 16-lane PCIe slot. If you're upgrading an older machine with limited power supply capacity, that's an attractive point to consider. "  

However, although you could probably measure the performance improvement, you might not be able to even see the improvement with the naked eye.

My 4770 has started acting up. I think the GPU is dying and it won't clock over 250. So I just ordered a XFX Double D FX-775A-ZDP4 Radeon HD 7750 Black Edition from Newegg. Let you know how it works in a few days.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

My 4770 has started acting up. I think the GPU is dying and it won't clock over 250. So I just ordered a XFX Double D FX-775A-ZDP4 Radeon HD 7750 Black Edition from Newegg. Let you know how it works in a few days.

My personal experience has been that GPUs are more sensitive to overclocking than cpus. Every GPU I've tried to overclock has died a premature death with symptoms being first unstability at overclock settings and after a while it won't stay stable even on regular clocks. Even the one that I went the extra mile with and installed a water cooling block on it 

[Spikes]

My personal experience has been that GPUs are more sensitive to overclocking than cpus. Every GPU I've tried to overclock has died a premature death with symptoms being first unstability at overclock settings and after a while it won't stay stable even on regular clocks. Even the one that I went the extra mile with and installed a water cooling block on it 

How difficult was that?
I have a 6870 2GB with a single fan and it is loud as hell...but I am pretty nervous to install an aftermarket cooler or something. Seems like a hassle. I wish I could hook up a Corsaie H80 to both the CPU and GPU.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

How difficult was that?
I have a 6870 2GB with a single fan and it is loud as hell...but I am pretty nervous to install an aftermarket cooler or something. Seems like a hassle. I wish I could hook up a Corsaie H80 to both the CPU and GPU.

It's not difficult at all on most cards. You just unscrew the old cooler, clean the badly applied factory heat paste away and apply arctic silver or similar everywhere that the new cooler covers, then screw the new cooler in and you're done.

[Bizman]

How difficult was that?
I have a 6870 2GB with a single fan and it is loud as hell...but I am pretty nervous to install an aftermarket cooler or something. Seems like a hassle. I wish I could hook up a Corsaie H80 to both the CPU and GPU.

I have installed a couple of aftermarket coolers without problems. They usually are more effective but less noisy. Also quite cost effective. Just stick with known good brands like Arctic for quality in fitting.

[Spikes]

I have installed a couple of aftermarket coolers without problems. They usually are more effective but less noisy. Also quite cost effective. Just stick with known good brands like Arctic for quality in fitting.

I looked at some of them...I wish bestbuy had some decent stuff so I could use this giftcard up. I was heavily looking into the H80, but I was pondering if the vga cooler would help me more. The card is loud as hell whereas the cpu fan (stock, all my other coolers were the wrong socket) isn't too bad. I don't care to OC much, nor do I want to do a full WC loop...the hybrid fan/liq vga coolers look pretty cool but are way too expensive. My card has got to be the loudest thing in my computer right now, followed by the cpu fan and oddly enough what seems to be the front intake fan.

[Bizman]

Back in the heyday of Radeon 9800 Pro I had an Arctic cooler, first on a Rad 7500, then on the 9800. It had a switch for silent and full speed. The silent slow speed kept my GPU cooler than the original screamer, and on full speed it was still quieter. Much easier to install than a passive/active Zalman I also have been playing with...