Will adding a Geforce GTX 970 improve this setup, and is it even compatible?

[winterwonderland]

I have an older pc that I just want to improve a bit. Will adding a 970 improve the overall performance anything at all, or is it more about the other components instead? I am talking about the generic pc tasks, not gaming. Yes, a clean install of windows 11 would probably help as well...

Here's my older pc specs:

 

[Zazigalka]

970/980/1060/580 will all be good matches for an i7 2600.

 

[Zyll Goliat]

Yes it will help a lot and that GPU is still good enough for most of the new games to play at 1080p/60Fps and if you do some basic video editing that GPU is certainly much better than 6670

P.S. Saying all of this means that better GPU is improving your 3d experience/Gaming and video editing and possibly opening HD youtube videos is going to be easier but do not expect that your PC is going to be faster in any other every day tasks because that's usually job for the CPU and to certain extent memory capacity and speed

 

[Timbaloo]

I still have a 970 in my desktop (that I'm not really using atm...) and originally it was paired with an ivy bridge 3570K (a bit faster than the 2600 but not much). I upgraded to a 8700K later and the 970 was still a good match for Full-HD. So yes, like the others said, it will be a good match.

 

[Ruru]

Would work and would improve gaming performance a lot. Though 970 starts to be weak in modern games, older titles should work without issues.

edit: Missed that it's not for gaming, but at least it's still a supported card unlike that current Radeon.

 

[Crazybc]

Its a good card I just retired mine because I want to do some gaming again at high settings but I had 0 issues with everyday tasks and even some games, although at reduced settings .

 

[eidairaman1]

RX570/580/590 would be a step up.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Don't buy junked mining Polaris (AMD RX 400 and 500 series) cards, even for an older machine. Also avoid the RX 5700 series (incomplete feature support, also high risk of being a mined recycle) and the RX 6500 XT, its performance is pitiful even for a system as old as this one is. Any type of "RX 570, RX 580 2048SP, RX 580, RX 590, RX 590 GME", avoid these as you avoid the plague unless you know their former owner and the condition in which the card has been used over the very long years it's seen - they haven't been manufactured for a few years now and any "new" units are counterfeit, unauthorized recycled boards from Chinese Ethereum farms.

It's also worthy remembering that while Maxwell was not popular with miners, these cards are already very old and driver support is likely to be retired in the next couple of months. IMO: get a new RTX 3050 or RX 6600 (whatever you find cheaper, it's likely it will be the RX 6600) and don't look back. You'll have the peace of mind of having a warranty, and it'll match decently with the system. Both will be a good fit.

My personal pick would be the RTX 3050, it will also have the added bonus of transformer model DLSS which may make a LOT of games playable even on such low specs, with great image quality. The 6 GB model won't require any external power source either, so while it's not the best value proposition, it's the most versatile - and if you need a PSU replacement, it wins by default. In my opinion, this is probably what you should be looking at.

NVIDIA DLSS 4 Super Resolution in 5 Games - The Ultimate Graphics/Performance Comparison | RTX 4080

BTW: AMD has restricted their competing FSR 4 technology to the (delayed and effectively unlaunched) RX 9070 series, which means you won't be able to enjoy it with any older and more affordable model. Given the limited performance of the setup, it's more than worth taking this into account. With the 3050, you can use DLSS 4 even on this old Sandy Bridge system.

 

[dgianstefani]

RTX 2060/3050 for transformer model DLSS which will be needed for a weaker GPU.

 

[Macro Device]

As everyone pointed out, 970 will work. If you already own it just install it and do a fresh Windows reinstall.

In case you don't own it yet... If gaming/productivity is TOTALLY ignored then I'd rather get a GT 1030, they go for cheeseburger money on the aftermarket. Much faster than that antique HD 6670 and don't need anything more than just a valid PSU. 30 W thermal limit is wonderful if you're power constrained.
If you will do something that requires a fast 3D accelerator I'd go for a used 2060 Super, these are pretty reliable things and can do most everything just fine. Better FPS/$ compared to 3050, better feature set compared to RX 6600. If you're only limited to brand new then 3050 if DLSS/CUDA entertain you and 6600/7600 series if not.

Might be necessary to update your motherboard BIOS for newer GPUs.

 

[Bill_Bright]

I am talking about the generic pc tasks, not gaming.

It is way overkill for your intended purpose - especially since you already have a healthy 16GB of RAM.

Not sure what model HD 6670 you have or specifically how much video RAM it has. If only 1GB, then you may be able to bump up your performance a little bit with a better card. But you don't need an expensive GTX 970.

Also it is critical to know a graphics card is often the most power hungry device in our computers. It is not uncommon to require a bigger power supply when upgrading the graphics solution.

If you are currently using a hard drive, I would probably consider migrating to a SSD first - especially if planning on reinstalling the OS.

I have an older pc

Yes, a clean install of windows 11 would probably help as well...

And do you know if this "older" PC will even support W11?

 

[agent_x007]

Note : GT 1030 (GP108) - doesn't have NVENC (it will help in decode, but can't do anything else).

 

[Dr. Dro]

As everyone pointed out, 970 will work. If you already own it just install it and do a fresh Windows reinstall.

In case you don't own it yet... If gaming/productivity is TOTALLY ignored then I'd rather get a GT 1030, they go for cheeseburger money on the aftermarket. Much faster than that antique HD 6670 and don't need anything more than just a valid PSU. 30 W thermal limit is wonderful if you're power constrained.
If you will do something that requires a fast 3D accelerator I'd go for a used 2060 Super, these are pretty reliable things and can do most everything just fine. Better FPS/$ compared to 3050, better feature set compared to RX 6600. If you're only limited to brand new then 3050 if DLSS/CUDA entertain you and 6600/7600 series if not.

Might be necessary to update your motherboard BIOS for newer GPUs.

If no gaming is done then an upgrade is probably not needed. 6670 should be fast enough for web browsing, and videos can be fixed by installing h264ify extension

h264ify - Chrome Web Store

Makes YouTube stream H.264 videos instead of VP8/VP9 videos

chromewebstore.google.com

3050 would be the most versatile choice, with NVENC for coding, DEC for decoding, DLSS 4 SR support, etc.

 

[freeagent]

I leant my EVGA 970 FTWsomething to a "friend" who ended up disappearing.

It was a decent card. Looked good next to my 980 Classified.

 

[Desktopstu]

Hi, The 6000 series GPU is DX 11 and drivers were discontinued a long while back. It was a mid range GPU in its day and had a power draw of just 66w (according to TP database). You may have some issues using it due to age of drivers but I think for most tasks it should be fine. A GTX 970 wont make your pc faster (except for gaming which you stated was not a consideration) but will have better driver support. A few thiongs to consider though... The 970 draws about 150w and requires an 8 pin power i think (might be 2 x 6 pin) does your PSU have that much overhead? Also have you considered using the onboard sandybridge graphics? I have a few sandybridge powered pcs here including one with an i5 2330 (i think thats it, might be 2320), the pc is used as a media player in an ITX case using the onboard graphicsto run you tube, streaming services such as Netflix and as a media streamer from my NAS. It does all that without struggling outputting to a 50" 1080 tv.

All im saying is, if you are not gaming, you may not need a graphics card at all.

 

[winterwonderland]

This is why I genuinely love asking TPU-people when I have any PC-related Q's to ask, whether they're weird, noob or not. Thanks for the many inputs and thoughts about this! It made things more clearer and obvious for me.

I have a 970, yes. But since it's not being used (my main PC = specs under my username), I thought I'd add it onto my older PC.

The problem is that the PC is so "slow" when doing regular PC tasks. I guess I'll do a fresh Windows 11 installation when I've added the 970. That should probably help with it all.

Thread SOLVED, once again!

 

[Bill_Bright]

I highly doubt that mismatched RAM is causing this.

I agree. If, in this computer, mismatched RAM was a problem, it most likely would happen at boot, starting immediately after the mismatched RAM was installed.