Video card for old PC

[Péter Bártfai]

I had a plan to upgrade my PC, but for now I think I'll buy an Xbox 360 with Kinect instead (especially that my sister would like that as well), so I'm staying with my old PC, my current games work on it anyways and it seems that all games that'll need a PC and I'm looking forward to will run on it as well.

But I still need to buy a new video card for this PC as my current one is in very bad shape.
I have: ASUS P5LD2 motherboard, Intel Pentium D 2,8Ghz CPU, 2GB DDR2 RAM @667Mhz.
My current video card is a 9600GT, but I know it might have been way overpowered for my CPU, so probably I can have the same performance with lower end cards. For my new config I was planning a Radeon HD5670 which is a bit more powerful than the 9600GT, but now I'm concidering 2 more cards:
the Radeon HD 5570, and the Geforce GT430 (both at the same price, slightly cheaper than the 5670).
All 3 cards have 1GB video RAM.

What would you recommend?

 

[Jim Cole]

You are most likely going to see the same or near the same performance on the system regardless of which one you go with, but from what I have read in many places you want to stay away from nVidia for now as they are having some serious driver issues. The 5670 will certainly be more powerful than the 5570 given a better CPU to power it, but other than that, they are going to be pretty evenly matched in your system.

 

[Adrian Britton]

Hi man
One question off topic a little...
Is your motherboard cpu socket, the one with the pins on the board and not on the cpu?
I have a P4 3.4ghz 2mb 800hz cpu (500/600 series I think) sat in the back bedroom doing nothing bar collecting dust.
I was going to use it as I have an old MSI 945P platinum motherboard, but the board is missing all the heatsinks, so I never bothered.
If the cpu fits your board you can have it, that should speed your pc up a little.
You might have to wait till the end of the month till I can post it, I am guessing it wont cost alot to send it to hungary, as cpu's weighs nothing.

 

[Péter Bártfai]

Thanks Jim for the info, that's exactly what I wanted to hear!

Alpha01, thank you very much, but actually I think the Pentium D is a better processor, sure it's not a core 2 duo, but faster than a single core P4. But really thanks, it's a very nice offer!

 

[Adrian Britton]

No worries mate.
The offer is there for anyone else who wants it or the motherboard, the Missus is nagging me to get rid of a load of old computer stuff I have.
I am getting a whole new rig myself in september so the deal was I clean up some of the old stuff first.
I have to admit I am a bit of a horder with computer bits, I still have an old AMD K6 2now 500hz cpu computer sat in the loft.

 

[Jim Cole]

Hehehe, when I moved away from California in 2007 I had to get a very large bin from a local trucking company to haul off all my old stuff I couldn't take with me. Most of it was computer bits. I doubt very many people keep that stuff like I do

 

[Eric Estes]

You're not the only one Jim - In operating condition I have (and Alpha01 put me on this cause of the last one) - not including laptops

i7-950/5850 Win7 Gaming Rig
Phenom-II 805/5770 Win7 Every day rig.
Core 2 Duo E6600/9800GTX XP Everything that doesn't run on W7 rig.
Athlon 64 2800/4650(AGP) Win7 (for general use/grandkids)
Athlon T-Bird 1300/7600 XP (operational, but retired to closet)
K6/2-466/Riva TNT(?) for DOS (5-1/4 drive etc.) (semi-retired for about 12 years now - but I never know if I'll want to play Ultima Underworld again...)

Probably a half dozen video cards from intermediate steps, and more old DDR/SD-RAM than I care to think about (including some 30 pin from an AWE-32) and I think I have some individual RAM chips from my 286-386 days).

 

[Adam Jonas]

I think it's not worth to buy a new video card for this PC, Péter. From this price, which those cards cost (about 18-23k HUF - I think you'll probably buy it at Hungary ), you can buy a new processor from the newest generation, with which you've got better performance with your recent VGA, too. (Of course, for that new processor you have to buy a new motherboard and new, DDR3 RAMs, but I think if you buy these 3 things from correct places, you'll have a new generation PC, which you can improve in the following years. If you buy a new, LGA 1155 socket Intel CPU (which is the best worth to buy today - first you can start with an Core i3 2100), a motherboard with LGA 1155 socket, and one stick, 4 GB DDR3 memory, you'll have a new computer from 50-55k HUF.

That's my opinion, if I said any silly thing, please correct me.

 

[Jim Cole]

Adam is correct. If you want to see any real performance gain, money doesn't need to be spent anywhere till the motherboard and CPU are upgraded. Once you upgrade those, then you will see gains from a new graphics card. If you are not really sure you can replace the motherboard and such, there are many places that sell what is called a bare bones system that you can get with a case, PSU, motherboard, CPU and ram with nothing else. This would be the easiest and least expensive way to upgrade to something you may want for later on.

 

[Péter Bártfai]

My current video card is dying that's why I want to buy a new one. My motherboard currently has LGA 775 socket, I could put a Core 2 Duo in it, but those I found were around 30k. I know I could buy a new motherboard and cpu for around 50k, that was the original plan, but as I said, we plan to get an Xbox, those games that need a strong pc like I planned will be available for that, and will be fine on that, and for the others, that need a pc, this pc will be still enough. So I decided that I'm not upgrading for now, just saving this PC, and I'll buy a much stronger one later. Thanks for the help guys!

 

[Eric Estes]

In that case I'd go with either ATI card, especially if you run Simbin games. I'll correct that after checking my Phenom has a 5670, not 5770, and performance is very acceptable in all racing sims I've tried it with.

 

[Henry Muller]

the 9600GT is faster than the 5570 and GT430,

in your case your CPU is a big limitation, the Pentium D is part of an old generation of CPUs ( the Pentium 4 family), which is quite slow today,

with your current CPU I wouldn't recommend a VGA upgrade, but IF you can find an used Core 2 CPU for a low price it can be very effective and cheap upgrade,

as for the graphics card, from a 9600GT you should at least buy something as fast as a HD5770 to see some good improvements...
the 9600GT is as fast as a HD6570/HD5670 in many cases,

 

[Jim Cole]

the 9600GT is faster than the 5570 and GT430....

The 9600 GT is faster than the GT 430, but only barely faster than the HD 5570.

But as stated none will perform any better given the CPU that you have. That is where the bottle neck is going to be so if you already have one, keep it and save the hassle/money. Your money is definitely better spent upgrading the CPU.

Read the OP again and I see that you said that your current is not in great shape, so given what was said and keeping the same CPU, go with which ever you can get the cheapest.

 

[Henry Muller]

I agree that with his current CPU the differences will be minimal, but as I said he could probably upgrade the CPU with a used Core 2 for a very low price and with great gains on performance,

I bought recently a 5570 ddr3 for my brother, it's a good card for the price, but I also used to have a 9600GT and it was clearly faster in many cases.

 

[Péter Bártfai]

My 9600GT is not a good card anymore, it's video ram is almost completely gone, have all sorts of issues with it, so I'm quite looking forward to that 5570. A core 2 duo CPU would be 2x as much as the video card. That 5570 will make my PC work well again, and that's fine for me. Later I'll get a complete new PC. For now I'm going for an Xbox 360 though, as I'm not selfish, my family will enjoy that more than my former PC upgrade plans (new motherboard, quad core AMD CPU and an 5670)