New videocard

[MxPhenom 216]

I think you need to reread the thread, Phenom.

Nope Ive read it...........the whole thing.

 

[Jack1n]

It won't bottleneck the whole system. the Q8200 is not a bad chip. He could overclock it to like 3.0ghz with ease to relieve ANY sort of bottle neck with better cooling, and that PSU would handle it better and be more stable. Now if he was running like a dual core Core 2 Duo id be worried. Seems like people really like the throw the word bottleneck around these days.

From what i understand the OP does not have sufficent knowledge to overclock his cpu.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

From what i understand the OP does not have sufficent knowledge to overclock his cpu.

Doesn't mean he can't get that knowledge. Everyone learns how to do it. He can too. Sounds like his system is OEM though, so the motherboard may not support overclocking, and probalby won't be good at it.

 

[BlackOmega]

You are going to really struggle at that resolution because of the CPU. It's not bad CPU for a veteran, but its clocked very low at only 2.33Ghz. Judging from your previous posts you seem too inexperienced for me to recommend overclocking it either.

What jumps out right away also is your RAM. 4GB is pushing it at that resolution. Upgrade to 8GBs of RAM and your video card at the same time!

What?!

Please oh please tell me how SYSTEM MEMORY plays a role on frame rates.

System memory has almost NOTHING to do with frame rates. VRAM, you know, the stuff on your video card, is what determines what kind of frame rates and resolution you can push. Provided your CPU can handle what the GPU is throwing at it.

Even memory heavy games such as battlefield 3 don't use anywhere near 4GB's of RAM. The ONLY way you're going to get usage even remotely close to 4GB's on a 64bit OS is by having a memory heavy browser running in addition to your game.

4GB's is plenty for most people. Sure 8GB's is better, but it's nowhere near a necessity.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

What?!

Please oh please tell me how SYSTEM MEMORY plays a role on frame rates.

System memory has almost NOTHING to do with frame rates. VRAM, you know, the stuff on your video card, is what determines what kind of frame rates and resolution you can push. Provided your CPU can handle what the GPU is throwing at it.

Even memory heavy games such as battlefield 3 doesn't use anywhere near 4GB's of RAM. The ONLY way you're going to get usage even remotely close to 4GB usage on a 64bit OS is by having a memory heavy browser running in addition to your game.

4GB's is plenty for most people. Sure 8GB's is better, but it's nowhere near a necessity.

RAM has something to do with everything in a computer. You don't have enough games will run like shit or not run at all. The more you have the better. 8GB is becoming more of a necessity these days in computers. It is becoming the standard as 4GB was a few years ago. Screen resolution shouldn't have an effect though. Thats when Vram comes in.

 

[Crap Daddy]

I think what he can do in the short term to improve his gaming experience is to get a HD7750.
No additional power needed and the card is way more than 2x faster than what he has right now.

 

[BlackOmega]

RAM has something to do with everything in a computer. You don't have enough games will run like shit or not run at all. The more you have the better. 8GB is becoming more of a necessity these days in computers. It is becoming the standard as 4GB was a few years ago. Screen resolution shouldn't have an effect though. Thats when Vram comes in.

Well of course the more the better, however, 4GB is PLENTY to run any game out there. Period.

There isn't a game out there, even with all of the background processes running, to come close to using 4GB's by itself.
Now if you're doing video/audio editing working with databases and huge spreadsheets, running virtual machines have multiple apps open, etc., then yes, you'll need a whole helluva lot of RAM to sustain it.
This doesn't apply to games yet.

I'm running 4GB's at the moment, (had to RMA my 16GB kit), and there's no noticeable difference in games --at all. The only time I'll notice a difference is when I have multiple apps open at the same time. Hell, most of the time I even game with a browser open and my memory usage almost never goes above 76%.

 

[Dent1]

Some games favour one over the other, so I think we better look hard at the game(s) in question before passing any judgement. Arma II favours AMD as far as I can see, so that is one game to AMD's favour.

get over it. FSX does favor Nvidia. Im not sure what the clouds have to do with anything though. FSX also likes VERY fast CPUs at over 4.0GHZ. Ive been playing the game for years, and from my experience my best performance has been with Nvidia.

I never said it didn't favor Nvidia.

I said it also depends on the two opposing cards in questions. i.e. a midrange ATI card (6870) would destroy a budget Nvidia card (GT220) regardless of the game. Game bias only is a factor if we are talking about the same tier level cards. Whereas I was just making a general comment that it depends on the two cards in question, which still holds true.

It won't bottleneck the whole system. the Q8200 is not a bad chip. He could overclock it to like 3.0ghz with ease to relieve ANY sort of bottle neck with better cooling, and that PSU would handle it better and be more stable. Now if he was running like a dual core Core 2 Duo id be worried. Seems like people really like the throw the word bottleneck around these days.

But the OP isn't experienced. I doubt he'll be able to achieve a stable OC without major assistance.

What?!

Please oh please tell me how SYSTEM MEMORY plays a role on frame rates.

System memory has almost NOTHING to do with frame rates. VRAM, you know, the stuff on your video card, is what determines what kind of frame rates and resolution you can push. Provided your CPU can handle what the GPU is throwing at it.

Even memory heavy games such as battlefield 3 don't use anywhere near 4GB's of RAM. The ONLY way you're going to get usage even remotely close to 4GB's on a 64bit OS is by having a memory heavy browser running in addition to your game.

4GB's is plenty for most people. Sure 8GB's is better, but it's nowhere near a necessity.

That is not true.

RAM plays a huge part in frame rate. Textures are loaded into the RAM too as reserve. The VRAM is just a quicker buffer but when video RAM runs low it borrows from the main RAM. In general when the system ram is depleted it borrows from the much slower HDD. This is called paging which should be avoided when possible.

Also BF3 uses more than 4GB of RAM. Done many tests myself at 1440x900 at high/ultra. It uses closer to 6GB of RAM .

 

[MxPhenom 216]

I never said it didn't favor Nvidia.

I said it also depends on the two opposing cards in questions. i.e. a midrange ATI card (6870) would destroy a budget Nvidia card (GT220) regardless of the game. Game bias only is a factor if we are talking about the same tier level cards. Whereas I was just making a general comment that it depends on the two cards in question, which still holds true.





But the OP isn't experienced. I doubt he'll be able to achieve a stable OC without major assistance.




That is not true.

RAM plays a huge part in frame rate. Textures are loaded into the RAM too as reserve. The VRAM is just a quicker buffer but when video RAM runs low it borrows from the main RAM. In general when the system ram is depleted it borrows from the much slower HDD. This is called paging which should be avoided when possible.

Also BF3 uses more than 4GB of RAM. Done many tests myself at 1440x900 at high/ultra. It uses closer to 6GB of RAM .

No one is experienced when they overclock their first CPU. Thats why is the "FIRST". When I was 14 with my first rig it took me 30 minutes to read some guides at OCN to get the basics.

 

[Dent1]

No one is experienced when they overclock their first CPU. Thats why is the "FIRST". When I was 14 with my first rig it took me 30 minutes to read some guides at OCN to get the basics.

That is great. If you are willing to help the OP overclock his CPU I'm sure he would appreciate it. Me, I'm too busy for that!

Isn't this what a tech forum is all about?

Yes! But I'm not going to teach him how to OC his CPU when he never asked for it. Plus, I doubt he even knows what OC means. He doesn't seem ready. If he damages his CPU I will feel responsible because I insisted he do something he doesn't fully understand the consequences. Don't get me wrong I'd be happy help an enthusiast or an aspiring enthusiast. But the OP seems like an average Joe, that is happy to be an average Joe.

I gave the OP solid advice. Recommend he upgrade his PSU, video card and RAM first. Gave him prices and links, I did my part.

 

[erocker]

That is great. If you are willing to help the OP overclock his CPU I'm sure he would appreciate it. Me, I'm too busy for that!

Isn't this what a tech forum is all about?

 

[MxPhenom 216]

That is great. If you are willing to help the OP overclock his CPU I'm sure he would appreciate it. Me, I'm too busy for that!



Yes! But I'm not going to teach him how to OC his CPU when he never asked for it. Plus, I doubt he even knows what OC means. He doesn't seem ready. If he damages his CPU I will feel responsible because I insisted he do something he doesn't fully understand the consequences. Don't get me wrong I'd be happy help an enthusiast or an aspiring enthusiast. But the OP seems like an average Joe, that is happy to be an average Joe.

I gave the OP solid advice. Recommend he upgrade his PSU, video card and RAM first. Gave him prices and links, I did my part.

Its an options regardless of if he asked about it. Anyone on this forum should be willing to help everyone. You never know he could be looking up overclocking right now.

If your not willing to help, why are you here. And he doesn't need to upgrade his ram yet. GPU and PSU should be his priorities.

 

[BlackOmega]

That is not true.

RAM plays a huge part in frame rate. Textures are loaded into the RAM too as reserve. The VRAM is just a quicker buffer but when video RAM runs low it borrows from the main RAM. In general when the system ram is depleted it borrows from the much slower HDD. This is called paging which should be avoided when possible.

Also BF3 uses more than 4GB of RAM. Done many tests myself at 1440x900 at high/ultra. It uses closer to 6GB of RAM .

If you're talking about 256 or 384MB VRAM then yes, system memory may impact overall performance. However, in this day and age where most "gamer" systems have at least a 1GB card, there is no need for system RAM paging unless you're trying to run extremely high resolutions on cards that really can't handle it.

While theoretically you're correct, in practice you're not.

Also, regarding BF3, you realize that that game has a KNOWN memory leak issue, right? The most that game should use is about 2-2.5 GB tops.

So if you're getting 6GB usage, what else do you have running? Photoshop? Browser with 70 tabs open? Antivirus scan? I can't fathom how your usage is that high with such a low resolution.

 

[Crap Daddy]

Also, regarding BF3, you realize that that game has a KNOWN memory leak issue, right? The most that game should use is about 2-2.5 GB tops.

So if you're getting 6GB usage, what else do you have running? Photoshop? Browser with 70 tabs open? Antivirus scan? I can't fathom how your usage is that high with such a low resolution.

I have seen BF3 using more than 4GB on my machine, nothing else important running, 1680x1050 ULTRA preset:

But that's not the issue here. OP is not playing BF3 and he even might have 32bit Windows.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

I have seen BF3 using more than 4GB on my machine, nothing else important running, 1680x1050 ULTRA preset:

http://img.techpowerup.org/121014/RAM usage BF3.png

But that's not the issue here. OP is not playing BF3 and he even might have 32bit Windows.

which will only use 3.25gb of the 4GB he has.

 

[BlackOmega]

I have seen BF3 using more than 4GB on my machine, nothing else important running, 1680x1050 ULTRA preset:

http://img.techpowerup.org/121014/RAM usage BF3.png

But that's not the issue here. OP is not playing BF3 and he even might have 32bit Windows.

which will only use 3.25gb of the 4GB he has.

Bingo.

 

[Dent1]

While theoretically you're correct, in practice you're not.

Also, regarding BF3, you realize that that game has a KNOWN memory leak issue, right? The most that game should use is about 2-2.5 GB tops.

Bingo.

Yes you need a 64-bit operating system. Doesn't take away from the fact that BF3 maxed out uses more than 4GB of RAM, contrary to your belief.

It's no memory leak, it uses way more than 2.5GBs of RAM. Restart your computer, open up BF3 and crank all the details to ultra and do a print screen of your resources like Crap Daddy did!

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Found it...

model: PS-5301-08HF
DC output 300W

For future reference, mentioning the amperage on the 12v rails would be more helpful. 12v rails are designated by +12v. The numbers are in each +12v box if it has such info.

That is an HP PSU, but amperage specs are hard to find on it. Typically 300w PSU combined 12v amperage can range from 13A to 24A. My guess is yours has around 19A.

I found what one site claims to be a direct replacement for that PSU, which shows a spec of 19A. The good news is, it also says 24-pin 12v ATX connector, so it's not a proprietary ATX connector, meaning any PSU will replace it. https://www.newpowersupply.com/atx_...62751882627_ps_5301_08hf-pr-1413-c-1-p-2.html

I say future reference because a 300w PSU isn't going to have enough amperage to allow a GPU that will give you a significant performance boost.

 

[Dent1]

Mentioning the amperage on the 12v rails would be more helpful. 12v rails are designated by +12v. Tell us what the numbers are in each +12v box if it has such info.

That is an HP PSU, but amperage specs are hard to find on it. Typically 300w PSU combined 12v amperage can range from 13A to 24A. My guess is yours has around 18A.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Yep, like I said, 19A on the +12v rail, and despite the Lite-On logo, it's made by HP, as designated by the P/N at the bottom.

Going to need to replace the PSU to really do it right. What's the total budget for GPU and PSU, and what games settings and res do you plan on?

Rather than scaring the crap out of the OP with stuff that very well might be just confusing him and derailing the thread topic with personal opinions guys, let's just stick to the basics shall we?

 

[xBruce88x]

19A gives about 220w available for the 12v. subtract say... 95w for the cpu and that leaves about 125w. That's plenty of power for a card that runs off of just the pcie slot, which is 75w

as for upgrading ram... He may indeed need more for FSX, that game can be pretty demanding, though his cpu and w/e 75w gpu would probably limit it first at 1920x1080. upgrading ram may be expensive if his system is still using ddr2.

@OP

If you can, slide the side cover off and take some pics with either your phone or a webcam if you have to. Also, if you can find a model number for your computer, usually on the front of the case or the back, that would help a lot too. DON'T post the one that is on the microsoft sticker.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

19A gives about 220w available for the 12v. subtract say... 95w for the cpu and that leaves about 125w. That's plenty of power for a card that runs off of just the pcie slot, which is 75w

as for upgrading ram... He may indeed need more for FSX, that game can be pretty demanding, though his cpu and w/e 75w gpu would probably limit it first at 1920x1080. upgrading ram may be expensive if his system is still using ddr2.

1080p is asking a lot for a passive GPU that has to stay under 75w draw. A more common scenario for say a 7750 (55w draw) is 720p. There's also going to be some games it will produce too low frame rates to even want to play.

Something like this would only run you $115 w/ $7 shipping.

MSI R6770-MD1GD5 Radeon HD 6770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 ...

CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 V2 (CMPSU-430CXV2) 43...

When you look at what something like a 7750 costs, you're not really saving much over a better GPU and minimalist PSU that will do quite a bit more. A 6770 w/ 108w TDP costs the same and would do much better and handle 1080p in most games easily. Add an affordable PSU and you're good to go.

It really depends how much he wants to spend and how long he's willing to stretch the life of that current build, but the solutions I linked to would be pretty good bang for buck and really improve performance a lot. Stepping up to a 28A PSU is only $35 in the above scenario, and opens up LOTS of options on more powerful, yet still affordable GPUs.

 

[xBruce88x]

I should have worded that better... I meant to say that such a gpu would probably be the "bottleneck" before the amount of ram would at that res.

... who said anything about a passive cooled solution? (seriously... i think i missed that part)

remember... we're talking about Microsoft Flight Simulator X and ArmA 2. FSX can be pretty damn intensive... as seen here (kinda an old review... so those parts should be cheaper now) http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i5-gaming,2403-10.html

What we really need to know is what the OP wants to do with the game... game at ultra settings with 1080p or be content with High settings at 720p, or maybe somewhere in between. this game is more cpu limited than gpu however, and i've heard/read that the reason for this is simply that the game is poorly optimized for multi threaded work, so he may want to opt for a high clocked dual or quad rather than go all out on the cpu.

Should he decide to do a complete new build, I'd say a 660TI and an i5 3570k would be nice, with maybe a good quality 500w power supply, then again its a flight sim and MS recommends capping the frame rate to 15fps for w/e reason. So perhaps he could go down a bit with the gpu.

I think this thread would be best answered by someone that plays FSX quite a bit.

The OP did say he was trying to keep cost down, so i doubt he'll do a new build. So we're back to our 75w limit... maybe even 100w. for AMD I gues a 7770 Ghz Edition would do, while for nvidia I'd guess a GTX650... maybe even GTX650TI

 

[MxPhenom 216]

I should have worded that better... I meant to say that such a gpu would probably be the "bottleneck" before the amount of ram would at that res.

... who said anything about a passive cooled solution? (seriously... i think i missed that part)

remember... we're talking about Microsoft Flight Simulator X and ArmA 2. FSX can be pretty damn intensive... as seen here (kinda an old review... so those parts should be cheaper now) http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i5-gaming,2403-10.html

What we really need to know is what the OP wants to do with the game... game at ultra settings with 1080p or be content with High settings at 720p, or maybe somewhere in between. this game is more cpu limited than gpu however, and i've heard/read that the reason for this is simply that the game is poorly optimized for multi threaded work, so he may want to opt for a high clocked dual or quad rather than go all out on the cpu.

Should he decide to do a complete new build, I'd say a 660TI and an i5 3570k would be nice, with maybe a good quality 500w power supply, then again its a flight sim and MS recommends capping the frame rate to 15fps for w/e reason. So perhaps he could go down a bit with the gpu.

I think this thread would be best answered by someone that plays FSX quite a bit.

The OP did say he was trying to keep cost down, so i doubt he'll do a new build. So we're back to our 75w limit... maybe even 100w. for AMD I gues a 7770 Ghz Edition would do, while for nvidia I'd guess a GTX650... maybe even GTX650TI

Yeah FSX is demanding, but its mainly because of how horribly coded it is. It far more dependent on CPU then anything else in the system.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

... who said anything about a passive cooled solution? (seriously... i think i missed that part)

Passive as in reference to not needing power direct from a PSU, or passively powered. I never said passively "cooled".

The sad truth about stretching the life of a system and still keep it cost effective is you usually have to put up with some level of bottleneck. It doesn't mean there won't be significant performance increase for minimal expense.

I just can't see putting a 75w TDP or less GPU in it is going to be all that much cheaper than the scenario I gave, and the FPS difference would be quite a bit less, for only around $35 savings.