looking for video card advice

Grim/Don

Grim/Don

Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
1,221
I know there's some computer hardware experts here.

I'm running a Dell Studio XPS with an AMD Radeon HD 5450 graphics card. Got a new monitor today (went from 20" to 23") and now gaming is a bit choppy. I updated the drivers which helped quite a bit, but there's still a little bit of chop there.

So... I'd like to keep it under $100, what video card would you recommend?

Thanks
 
I play Talisman Online, A WOW/ Dungeons and Dragons kinda game. Computer runs just fine with one or two chars on, but I run a full team of 5.
 
Depending on the rest of your setup and if you want to stay with AMD you might just get one a few levels higher but you need to check your power consumption and make sure your power supply can handle a more powerful gpu. Look at the radeon 7770 and maybe the r7 models.
 
I'd be looking at your power consumption and your cooling first up. Are you running DVI-D or VGA to the monitor?

My other thought would be that you were running at a native resolution and now you are not, meaning the scaler is working harder. A larger monitor shouldn't make much of a difference, provided you are pushing the same resolution.
 
If it was running fine before you got your new monitor then it is probably your refresh rate.

Go into your monitor settings by right clicking desktop and going into display properties and find it from there.

The monitor is probably set to 60hz. Change that to 100 or 120 if you can. That will help a ton. Also it is basically a must do anyways. I have a 24" 144hz monitor and I typically run games at 1080p 120hz. If I went down to 60hz then it would definitely look very choppy. You can get used to 60hz after a while but if your previous monitor was set higher then 60hz and now your new one is defaulted at 60 then your eyes would definitely pick up on the difference.


If you still want a new video card, first find out what slots your motherboard has. I don't know how old your PC is, but it most likely has PCI-E. That is probably what your current card is as well. You may have power consumption issues trying to upgrade to a stand alone GPU. You could also be bottle necking your system depending on your other specs if you buy a newer video card.

Can you post the exact model of your Dell PC or the exact system specs?


I would have to see your system specs first, but here are a few $100-$200 cards that you could consider.

Your current card is PCI-E, so you know you can run PCI-E cards which all current GPU's are. Your current card has 1gb of ddr3 memory and a core clock of 650mhz and 80 steam processors with DVI output.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202113 $89 - 2GB 256-Bit GDDR5 memory - 880mhz core clock - 1536 Stream Processors - PCI-E 2.0

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150753 $109 - 2GB 128bit GDDR5 memory - 1050mhz core clock - 768 stream processors - PCI-E 3.0

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131545 $129 - 2GB 256bit GDDR5 memory - 900mhz core clock with boost - 1280 Stream Processors

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150733 $169 - 4GB 256bit GDDR5 memory - 1020mhz core clock with boost - 1024 Stream Processors


Those are just some quick picks, but I could get a better idea with the rest of your system specs. As you can see they are all MUCH better then your current card. If you only play that one game then you may not even need something as good as those. But with the first card being only $89 and still being much superior to your current card it gives you some insurance so you can get into some other games and be able to run them well. If your issue isn't with the new monitors refresh rate then you may NEED to get a new card if that current one can't handle the higher resolution of your new monitor. If you want to play some better games eventually then you may want to spend a little more. Think about it.

The biggest issue you may run into is your power supply. Usually power supplies on standard brand name PC's are not that powerful. It makes adding newer video cards a problem if the PSU doesn't have enough power to run it. Once you post your PC model we can find out what PSU it has and what your limitations are. For example, the cards in the links I provided require a PSU with a minimum of 500w to run. So if your PSU is only 450w or under that you may have to upgrade your PSU first.

PSU's don't cost too much, so if you do need one it won't put you back too much. You can get a good 600-700w PSU in the $50-$80 range. It is definitely a component that you do not want to skimp on quality though.
 
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Thank you Converge, that was exactly what I was looking for. I tried changing the refresh rate, and 60 is the max I could find. I am running HDMI cable instead of the DVI (Old monitor didn't have HDMI-in.)

I've got a Dell Studio XPS 7100
AMD Phenom IIx4 945 Processor 3.00 GHz
Installed memory 6.00 GB
64-bit Operating System.

I've swapped a power supply before when my son's computer died on him, so getting a better one if needed isn't an issue.

Let me know if you need any other info.
 
You can't go higher then 60hz because you are using hdmi. Hdmi doesn't support more then 60. Go back to DVI it is better for PC monitors when refresh rate is a concern.

I ran into that issue when hooking up my laptop to my 144hz monitor. I had to run mini display port to a DVI adapter with active pass through in order to use the 120 and 144hz options. It has HDMI as well but knowing it's limited to 60hz I didn't want to use it.

If you upgraded the PSU already then you should be good to go on any of those cards. Or browse Newegg and find some others if you like. The original PSU in that PC was 460w so it's a good thing you upgraded it.

But just remember what I said about HDMI because no matter what card you get you will not be able to get more then 60hz so it may very well always look choppy. I would go back to DVI if you can and bump up to at least 80hz if not 100. See if that makes thing better, maybe you won't even need a new card. I would get one eventually though in case you want to get into any newer games.

You don't have to worry about bottlenecking the system with a new gpu in your price range, those specs are decent and will keep up no problem.

Hope that helps
 
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Well... I may be swapping the monitor for another one. It's got 2 HDMI ports along with VGA, but no DVI port.

I haven't swapped the power supply in this computer yet, it was my son's machine that I'd swapped before. Just saying that I've done it before and it's not to hard.

You've been very helpful and I appreciate it.
 
HDMI is the bane of my existence. I've had so many weird problems with it, (like this week my lappy decided to not want to send audio over hdmi for some reason) and they can be so hard to pin down. I'm glad I no longer do events. HDMI was always a show-stopper.
 
Grim/Don said:
Well... I may be swapping the monitor for another one. It's got 2 HDMI ports along with VGA, but no DVI port.

I haven't swapped the power supply in this computer yet, it was my son's machine that I'd swapped before. Just saying that I've done it before and it's not to hard.

You've been very helpful and I appreciate it.
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You can get a vga to dvi adapter and you will be all good


And yeah gadgetgeek I've had similar problems. When I want to watch a movie playing on my laptop on my TV I connect through HDMI. My laptop does it fine but my girlfriends laptop only gets video and no audio. Never did figure it out.
 
New power supply installed 520W, replaced the default one 460W one. It was an open box item so Best Buy had it for $30. Kinda a tight fit to get it in. Then, I installed the new card GeForce GT 610 (and had to readjust the CDROM cables twice to get that to work (I don't think I had them seated far enough)). Next, hooked up the 25 inch monitor (with DVI).

Should be all set now! Converge, thank you for your help. If you're ever in KC (Or I'm back in Pa visiting my mom (Mansfield, North-central of the state) - the next beer is on me.
 
My machine won't auto-switch to HDMI as the audio output, it will only switch to the mini-jacks. But even with a manual switch it didn't send last time I tried it. Might have just been a file problem, but its unusual. As to why it does that, I don't know, since it can auto recognize on the video side. HDMI, obsolete before it was created.
 
Grim/Don said:
New power supply installed 520W, replaced the default one 460W one. It was an open box item so Best Buy had it for $30. Kinda a tight fit to get it in. Then, I installed the new card GeForce GT 610 (and had to readjust the CDROM cables twice to get that to work (I don't think I had them seated far enough)). Next, hooked up the 25 inch monitor (with DVI).

Should be all set now! Converge, thank you for your help. If you're ever in KC (Or I'm back in Pa visiting my mom (Mansfield, North-central of the state) - the next beer is on me.
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Awesome! Glad to help. Been building PCs since grade school. Lots of great memories messing around with that stuff. Hopefully I'll be able to build a new desktop next year when I have the cash. My MSI laptop is pretty damn nice though and I have a monitor/keyboard/mouse that I use it with frequently.
 
Got a new problem now... the CPU fan is humming like a jet engine if I have all my chars on. The graphics are running smooth, and everything seems to be running fine, but the CPU fan is annoying. It used to windup for a second every now and then,but would calm right back down. I suspect a need a new fan or more memory... CPU Usage is at ~35% and Physical Memory is around 91%

Grrrr... nothing ever seems to run smooth for me when I try upgrades...
 
That is definitely interesting. Do you have a way to monitor your CPU temperature? Try motherboard monitor if you want. If your fan is temperature regulated it could be detecting a high temperature. But I think if that was the case you would have noticed before. You put in a new PSU? Did you hook the CPU fan up the same way as it was connected before? Either a small 3 pin or a larger 4 pin connector. Maybe for some reason the fan is getting more power from the PSU which is allowing it to hit higher RPM. That is odd though. Just speculating.
 
Might be a different power management mode, although I don't know why it would change. Is the CPU getting power from the board, or from the PSU? If its from the PSU it might only have two settings, off and hurricane. Although I don't recall running into any CPU coolers that ran from the PSU. Dunno...

Upgrades are never smooth.
 
Yep, put in a new power supply. I just opened the cabinet back up and there was a nice layer of dust on the heat sink. Pulled that out and took the fan off, then rinsed it off in the sink (and dried it thoroughly). Seems to be running quieter now, I'll l;oad test it in a bit. (That fan directly plugs into the motherboard, I hadn't touched it before)
 
W E I R D... if I have Chrome running and open my 5 chars, the fan goes insane. Closed out of Chrome and it quieted back down to a whisper. Reopened Chrome and everything seems like it used to be. Another odd thing... if I open Task Manager to see what's active, the CPU will be above 60-90%... but immediately drops back down into the 30-40% range. I think it may be haunted (Speaking of that, I had AVG and it didnt alert me to anything, uninstalled and got Avast. Nothing. Trying Microsoft Security Essentials now, so I don't think I have a virus. Maybe I need a priest
 
Yeah it should just be connected to the motherboard's dedicated fan 3 pin. Forgot about that. But it sounds like it's related to the cpu load from what your explaining. If it's getting louder as your taxing your system more.

You could alt tab and go into task manager right when it starts getting loud and see what your cpu load is like. Even running the game it shouldn't be crazy high, maybe 40-60%. If it's nearing 100% and the fans picking up on that then something else is happening.

Okay I just read you already did that. Yeah it could be anything. I have a VPN that should only affect my network yet sometimes when I leave it on too long it racks my cpu load up to 90% and runs my temps up. No clue why. Just annoying windows OS at its best... so many different things to go wrong or clash.
 
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