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Upgrade or $$$ waste?

Hal24

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Would this: Radeon HD 7750 1GB GDDR5
be a worthwhile video upgrade for my ancient PC or a waste of money?

Mainboard : Gigabyte GA-M61VME-S2, Rev.2.0
Chipset : nVidia GeForce 6100V
Processor : AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ @ 2800 MHz
Physical Memory : 4096 MB (2 x 2048 DDR2-SDRAM )
Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
Hard Disk : Seagate ST380815AS (80GB)
DVD-Rom Drive : Toshiba-Samsung CDDVDW SH-S203N
Monitor Type : Asus ASUS VH198 - 19 inches
Network Card :NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller #3
Operating System : Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.01.2600 Service Pack 3 (32-bit)
DirectX : Version 9.0c (May 2010)

Thank you all
 

MxPhenom 216

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Id say upgrading GPU on that system would be a waste. You would get a boost, but not enough to warrant it. Your better off upgrading the whole system, rather then just GPU. At least that's what I think.
 
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how much money & what do you plan about the future? (would you want the 7750 to last a while or what, are you a young person about to start a paying career, etc)

which games do you play, you could probably see if you're cpu limited or gpu limited, but i'm going to lean on a lot of cpu limited cases
 

Hal24

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how much money & what do you plan about the future? (would you want the 7750 to last a while or what, are you a young person about to start a paying career, etc)

which games do you play, you could probably see if you're cpu limited or gpu limited, but i'm going to lean on a lot of cpu limited cases

I am an older person and don't really play a lot of games. I use the PC for general tasks, web browsing, e-mail, etc. I do run a few simulators like FS and Train Simulator. I hope I can coax the PC along a bit longer,1-3 years and then buy/build something new.
 

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I am an older person and don't really play a lot of games. I use the PC for general tasks, web browsing, e-mail, etc. I do run a few simulators like FS and Train Simulator. I hope I can coax the PC along a bit longer,1-3 years and then buy/build something new.

Jesus you play Flight Simulator on that thing?
 

p_o_s_pc

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if that is a 65nm CPU i would bump it to 3ghz at the least and buy a 2nd hand GPU on the forums.
That CPU is "weak" but you will see a performance boost from a GPU.

I Used to play Dirt on a P4 nutburst based celly and a 8800GTS with decent results.I know i was severly limited but point is,you can make your rig last a little longer and give a slight boost, but it brings to the question... does it do everything you want reasonably well or is this upgrade just a "want". If its just a want i would recommend against it.
 
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The answer is YES, upgrade the GPU, especially if you want this PC to last a few years more.
 
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Short answer is that a GPU upgrade would not help. You should not spend the money.



To those that think this could work: check out the motherboard specs. PCI-e x16 (not 2.0) running at x1. "(Note 2) The GA-M61VME-S2 supports up to PCI Express x1 mode. (please refer to the VGA cards support list)"

Buying even a low end card for a x1 slot is an absolute waste of money. Your 8600 is already more than saturating that link. You need to put this thing out to pasture. For $300 you can have a new APU build that will trounce your current rig (and it should only be 3x the cost of that GPU).
 

MxPhenom 216

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Short answer is that a GPU upgrade would not help. You should not spend the money.



To those that think this could work: check out the motherboard specs. PCI-e x16 (not 2.0) running at x1. "(Note 2) The GA-M61VME-S2 supports up to PCI Express x1 mode. (please refer to the VGA cards support list)"

Buying even a low end card for a x1 slot is an absolute waste of money. Your 8600 is already more than saturating that link. You need to put this thing out to pasture. For $300 you can have a new APU build that will trounce your current rig (and it should only be 3x the cost of that GPU).

Wow that sucks ass. Completely missed that. so its like there's basically 2 x1 slots, just the top one is full x16 form factor but electrically only x1. Yeah OP sounds like your a bit SOL. Better off upgrading CPU, memory, and motherboard at this point. You could get a nice Trinity APU build for pretty cheap that would beat everything you have right now.
 

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yup I had a similar board 939 physically x16 electronically x1 was unable to get a GPU to work in mine, gave up junked the board.

Guy needs a new rig period at this point.
 

MxPhenom 216

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yup I had a similar board 939 physically x16 electronically x1 was unable to get a GPU to work in mine, gave up junked the board.

Guy needs a new rig period at this point.

Agreed. He could get a Trinity APU, some memory, and A75 FM2 micro atx board for pretty cheap too. not more then $200.
 

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that GPU is pretty well matched to the rest of your system.
 
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You will see a performance increase even if upgrading to a 9800GTX+ or HD4850 and will allow you to play those Flight simulators at a higher detail.

Although a power supply with a 6-Pin PCI-E connector is required.
I think two 6-Pin PCI-E connectors are required for the 9800GTX+

Since the two cards are not available anymore new, a new model capable of pushing out the same performance would be recommended.

I gamed for a long time on a X2 4800+ 939skt with an HD4850 on XP until late 2011 at 1440x900 playing games like DiRT 3 at high settings with acceptable frame rates.
 
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I wasted a lot of time and money "upgrading" my old Pentium 4 550 system, even bought a new MSI motherboard and DDR3 RAM for it, and it never worked right no matter what I did (the faster RAM and 550 Ti would overheat the north bridge whenever gaming or benchmarking). I finally had to install a fast, very noisy Delta fan pointing at the north bridge to keep it below 64c. Last year I built a decent Z77 i5-3570K system and sold the P4 rig for $100 (after spending $250 upgrading, but I kept the $150 GTX 550 Ti). Maybe you should start buying parts one at a time as you can afford them, until you have a new mainboard, RAM, CPU, and GPU, and probably a new PSU. Then you can do the upgrade right with hand-picked parts and an amazing leap in performance.
 
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You will see a performance increase even if upgrading to a 9800GTX+ or HD4850 and will allow you to play those Flight simulators at a higher detail.

Although a power supply with a 6-Pin PCI-E connector is required.
I think two 6-Pin PCI-E connectors are required for the 9800GTX+

Since the two cards are not available anymore new, a new model capable of pushing out the same performance would be recommended.

I gamed for a long time on a X2 4800+ 939skt with an HD4850 on XP until late 2011 at 1440x900 playing games like DiRT 3 at high settings with acceptable frame rates.

Not when the PCI-e slot is limited to 1x as quoted above.

Upgrading the GPU would be a complete waste.

I agree with the Trinity suggestions, although I understand that a refresh is due shortly.
 

MxPhenom 216

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Not when the PCI-e slot is limited to 1x as quoted above.

Upgrading the GPU would be a complete waste.

I agree with the Trinity suggestions, although I understand that a refresh is due shortly.

And a price cut next month
Hal24: Where are you located? States or....?
 
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MxPhenom 216

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oh. So you can get a decent Trinity rig from ncix.ca then. That's what id do. Also upgrade to Windows 7 or 8.

Because anything you do with your current rig will be a worthless upgrade.
 
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