What GFX card for old Core 2 Duo machine

[SoNgOkO]

Hello all,

I want to infuse a bit more life in this old machine.

MOBO: Asus P5B Deluxe
CPU: Core 2 Duo E8500 (3,18GHz)
CPU COOLER: Scyhte Infinity, dual 120mm fans
RAM: 6 GB of OCZ Gold series DDR2-800 ram (2x 1GB and 2x 2GB)
PSU: 750 W Chieftec PSU
CASE: Antec GX500, very well ventilated

My current GFX card is a Radeon 4890, which has a lot of problems when it comes to games.

What GFX card would you suggest, it can be old or new, that would not be bottlenecked by the CPU. Would the choices be the same if I could OC the CPU.

Suggestions and comments are welcome.

 

[Theocnoob]

You're pretty well at the limit of what you can achieve without bottleneck with your 4890. I had a C2D E6550 at about 3 and a half Ghz paired with an 8800GTS and that was a good combo. 4890 is significantly more punchy. I would say you're pretty much as far as you're going to go. Overclocking the CPU would make a big difference. IIRC you can get those wolfdale C2D chips up around 4Ghz without having to change the FSB speed too much, which is good for you, since you have slow RAM.

Are you familiar with Core 2 overclocking? I think the old C2D C2Q overclock guide is still in the "Ultimate intel stickies" thread. You should check it out. Wolfdale CPUs run pretty cool so it shouldn't be a problem.

You should consider a full system overhaul. This will cost significantly more than just buying a new GPU but I think it's time. You've got a 2008 CPU based on 2006 technology. That's a 9 year old architecture you're running there.

I suggest you jump onboard with broadwell-K when they launch later this year. It will be a massive upgrade for you. Pick up an Nvidia 9 series or AMD R9 3XX series GPU and you'll be able to run pretty much anything out there.

I think a new i5 or i7 is definitely the way to go for you.

Keep your C2D system as an HTPC, server, download machine, etc.

 

[SoNgOkO]

Hello,

thanks for your reply.

I am sure I can get the CPU much further than the stock speed. The cooler is very good and the case is nicely ventilated, so I am sure I can get the CPU up to 4Ghz.

In that case would it be meaningful to upgrade the GFX? I was thinking to get a used past generation card or even a cheaper newer card. Any suggestions?

I am currently not in a position to get a whole new system, so a new (old) GFX will have to do.

Thanks!

 

[Theocnoob]

Hello,

thanks for your reply.

I am sure I can get the CPU much further than the stock speed. The cooler is very good and the case is nicely ventilated, so I am sure I can get the CPU up to 4Ghz.

In that case would it be meaningful to upgrade the GFX? I was thinking to get a used past generation card or even a cheaper newer card. Any suggestions?

I am currently not in a position to get a whole new system, so a new (old) GFX will have to do.

Thanks!

Would you put a 950HP V12 engine in a 1983 Volkswagen Rabbit?

You're not going to squeeze water out of a stone. I say leave it as is. Upgrade your whole system when the funds are available.

 

[EmbraceTheHate]

C2D I remember when that chip came out....i was running a pentium D and a nvidia 7600gt and i think 512ram LMAO.

You can get a cpu and mobo combo pretty cheap now. Some mobos for the intels are only $50 tops.

 

[Theocnoob]

C2D I remember when that chip came out....i was running a pentium D and a nvidia 7600gt and i think 512ram LMAO.

You can get a cpu and mobo combo pretty cheap now. Some mobos for the intels are only $50 tops.

He would need a CPU, MOBO and RAM.

Cheapest he could get away with on Intel would be $50 board $65 CPU and $60 RAM.

 

[SoNgOkO]

Hello all,

from where I come we don't get those combos that cheap and the prices are generally 30% higher then in the US not to mentiong the buying power being much lower. So you get my dilemma. Therefore my options are limited.

I was thinking to get a newer GFX card but if according to Theocnoob that ain't a viable option then I will skip it. I was just hoping to pull some more life out of the machine with minimal investment.

Thanks.

 

[Theocnoob]

Hello all,

from where I come we don't get those combos that cheap and the prices are generally 30% higher then in the US not to mentiong the buying power being much lower. So you get my dilemma. Therefore my options are limited.

I was thinking to get a newer GFX card but if according to Theocnoob that ain't a viable option then I will skip it. I was just hoping to pull some more life out of the machine with minimal investment.

Thanks.

At a certain point, computers get too old to be useful any more. A C2D at this point is only good as a retro gaming machine or a server or HTPC. Older machines, like Pentium II machines, for example, are good for nothing.

Your system is just too old. You can't do much of anything with it. You can't even put an SSD in there because you don't have SATA 3.

If you tracked down a Core 2 Quad and overclocked it, you could extend the life of your machine a little further. The problem there is I don't think your 965 chipset likes particularly fast FSB, which is pretty much a necessity to get anything out of Core 2 these days.

Have you considered buying a new(ish) used machine? Maybe an i7 920 on something like a P6X58D and 6GB of DDR3. Where I live you could pick that up for like $150 tops. It would make a big difference.

 

[SoNgOkO]

Hey,
sadly not the computers still carry hefty prices. For the 200 USD you get at best a full Core 2 Duo machine but with a low end GFX card.

Thanks for your help.

Best!

 

[NiHaoMike]

Where I currently work, they have a Core 2 Duo PC with a GTX 570 in it. Nobody seems to know why, but the machine does run some CUDA software. (I suspect the machine had a high end GPU which broke down after a few years, so they got the 570 as a replacement.) They wanted to upgrade the whole machine, but it's a little hard when there are two custom PCI cards to drive the test setup.

 

[Dlaw]

At a certain point, computers get too old to be useful any more. A C2D at this point is only good as a retro gaming machine or a server or HTPC. Older machines, like Pentium II machines, for example, are good for nothing.

Your system is just too old. You can't do much of anything with it. You can't even put an SSD in there because you don't have SATA 3.

If you tracked down a Core 2 Quad and overclocked it, you could extend the life of your machine a little further. The problem there is I don't think your 965 chipset likes particularly fast FSB, which is pretty much a necessity to get anything out of Core 2 these days.

Have you considered buying a new(ish) used machine? Maybe an i7 920 on something like a P6X58D and 6GB of DDR3. Where I live you could pick that up for like $150 tops. It would make a big difference.

PII machines are good for tearing down and rebuilding for newbies. It's also tech from '95ish, which was 20 years ago. Core2 is at least from this side of the century, when tech started slowing down. A P4 system is still useful as a folder, so I wouldn't call that Duo useless. As a gamer, you probably won't get much more than you have out of it, but it's still a solid system for web browsing and other light duty tasks.

An SSD is still an option, SataII will still see an improvement in boot times and overall responsiveness. My girlfriend's stepdad rebuilt an old P4 HT with an SSD for a client of his, and the first boot with the old boot drive cloned took boot time down to only 35 seconds (from ~1:30). Subsequent reboots saw ~20 seconds consistant. It's definitely an option.

 

[Theocnoob]

PII machines are good for tearing down and rebuilding for newbies. It's also tech from '95ish, which was 20 years ago. Core2 is at least from this side of the century, when tech started slowing down. A P4 system is still useful as a folder, so I wouldn't call that Duo useless. As a gamer, you probably won't get much more than you have out of it, but it's still a solid system for web browsing and other light duty tasks.

An SSD is still an option, SataII will still see an improvement in boot times and overall responsiveness. My girlfriend's stepdad rebuilt an old P4 HT with an SSD for a client of his, and the first boot with the old boot drive cloned took boot time down to only 35 seconds (from ~1:30). Subsequent reboots saw ~20 seconds consistant. It's definitely an option.

Squeezing water out of a stone dude. Lest we forget he's on 965 chipset. I think that's not even SATA 2. And he's on PCIE gen 1.0. Water out of a stone.

 

[Dlaw]

Squeezing water out of a stone dude. Lest we forget he's on 965 chipset. I think that's not even SATA 2. And he's on PCIE gen 1.0. Water out of a stone.

According to many sites that I just researched (and my general knowledge, as I've worked with quite a few C2X systems), the P5B Deluxe does indeed have SATA2, thanks to the ICH8R chipset (southbridge). It has been proven a few times that adding a SSD significantly increases the usability of older machines (as I said before, even a P4 HT).

As far as it being PCIE gen1, I think we've already established that upgrading the video card may very well be a dead end, and I didn't disagree with you there. I disagreed with you saying that the machine is too old to be useful, and I still do.

Here's the Newegg link for the board, note that it clearly states SATA 3Gb/s.

 

[Theocnoob]

According to many sites that I just researched (and my general knowledge, as I've worked with quite a few C2X systems), the P5B Deluxe does indeed have SATA2, thanks to the ICH8R chipset (southbridge). It has been proven a few times that adding a SSD significantly increases the usability of older machines (as I said before, even a P4 HT).

As far as it being PCIE gen1, I think we've already established that upgrading the video card may very well be a dead end, and I didn't disagree with you there. I disagreed with you saying that the machine is too old to be useful, and I still do.

Here's the Newegg link for the board, note that it clearly states SATA 3Gb/s.

So it does. It does have SATA 2. Well, that handles the loading time issue to an extent, but it does nothing for the improved graphics issue that the OP wants to address. Any sort of upgrade at this point to this machine, IMO, really would be like trying to put a V12 in a VW Rabbit. You can't really have a C2D based gaming machine for modern advanced titles. The OP is going to have to stick to stuff like the Sims or older stuff like Crysis 1, World in Conflict, Battlefield 2, Civ 4, etc etc.

 

[Dlaw]

So it does. It does have SATA 2. Well, that handles the loading time issue to an extent, but it does nothing for the improved graphics issue that the OP wants to address. Any sort of upgrade at this point to this machine, IMO, really would be like trying to put a V12 in a VW Rabbit. You can't really have a C2D based gaming machine for modern advanced titles. The OP is going to have to stick to stuff like the Sims or older stuff like Crysis 1, World in Conflict, Battlefield 2, Civ 4, etc etc.

Agreed. It'd make a pretty sweet HTPC though. Shouldn't have any problems with anything related as it sits.

 

[dyckah]

So it does. It does have SATA 2. Well, that handles the loading time issue to an extent, but it does nothing for the improved graphics issue that the OP wants to address. Any sort of upgrade at this point to this machine, IMO, really would be like trying to put a V12 in a VW Rabbit. You can't really have a C2D based gaming machine for modern advanced titles. The OP is going to have to stick to stuff like the Sims or older stuff like Crysis 1, World in Conflict, Battlefield 2, Civ 4, etc etc.

you forget that e8500 should overclock to the moon.
im pretty sure that i played battlefield 3 on my pc while it had my e8400 in it(overclocked to 4.5ghz on custom water), and gaming performance did not change too much when switching to the core2 extreme qx9650(lower clocks, only gets to around 4ghz), just multitasking improved

 

[Theocnoob]

you forget that e8500 should overclock to the moon.
im pretty sure that i played battlefield 3 on my pc while it had my e8400 in it(overclocked to 4.5ghz on custom water), and gaming performance did not change too much when switching to the core2 extreme qx9650(lower clocks, only gets to around 4ghz), just multitasking improved

965 doesn't like the bus to be clocked too high and AFAIK the max multi on that chip is 9?? maybe 10?

 

[funsoul]

I ran my overclocked e8500 gaming build with a gtx 580 and, eventually, an ssd. Both made a significant difference over the pre-upgrade raptor and 8800gtx.

 

[pcgamer4life]

Saying that a c2d is only good for "retro games" is sort of a wild exaggeration, unless by "retro" you mean "anything older than a few years." Still a very capable (albeit dated) processor. It would be fine to play games like LoL, CS, WoW, DOTA2, pretty much any of the top most played online games, assuming there was a relatively recent GPU along with it. You won't be playing Crysis 3 at Ultra, but suggesting that it's only good for HTPC or pac-man is a bit misguided.

 

[funsoul]

Agreed. My e8500/gtx580 was good for all games at that time including crysis, bf3, l4d, l4d2, elder scrolls, etc, etc. Settings were nice and high, even in 3D, with reasonable fps. It's still a very strong setup (don't forget, a lot of games still can't use more than 2-4 cores anyway). With a decent overclock, the setup's still a decent gamer.