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Tricky card choice, opinions

Kribby2006

Kribby2006

Kribby2006

Associate
Joined
5 Jan 2007
Posts
546
Hi All,

Friend of mine has the following PC:

Dell Dimension E521 with Standard PSU (Not 100% sure on wattage)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core processor 5000+
2.16 Ghz
2 Gb of Ram
Geforce 7300 LE

He has bought Diablo III and wants to update his gfx card somewhat. Bearing in mind the above spec and the fact that his PSU may not up to the job, what would be a good option?

I think he is not adverse to a new PSU also if needs be, and card wise should be something midrange possibly, around £100-150 maybe?

I know that there is not much to go on but im at work so only have 2 mins to post this.

Any advice would be most welcome. :D

Cheers.
 
it'll be 305W PSU

there are lots of cards that are better than his current one however he's going to be PSU and CPU limited (and could probably do with more RAM as well)

something like a GTX260 would set him back £40-50 and will be a huge leap over what he currently has... Guru3d say you need a 500w psu for that

4GB of RAM would be a neccessary upgrade as well
 
andybird123 said:
it'll be 305W PSU

there are lots of cards that are better than his current one however he's going to be PSU and CPU limited (and could probably do with more RAM as well)

something like a GTX260 would set him back £40-50 and will be a huge leap over what he currently has... Guru3d say you need a 500w psu for that

4GB of RAM would be a neccessary upgrade as well
Click to expand...

I think he would be happy to get a few things if necessary, appreciate that the CPU etc is a limiting factor. Ideally we would like to be able to buy current items etc from OCUK.

Maybe a reasonable spec/qaulity PSU, 2GB more ram and a low end but better than his current GFX card.

All bearing in mind its for Diable III

Cheers.
 
Looking at the service manual, it appears that the PSU is a standard ATX size - so it can be replaced with a standard PSU - which makes things much simpler.

Personally I would go with this psu as it is good value, powerful enough to run a decent graphics card (anything up to and including a hd 6850) and good quality.

as for the graphics card, this article shows that the graphics card to run Diablo 3 well doesn't need to be particularly high end (even at 1920x1200 res) - basically you will want something on the level of a GTX 550Ti or HD 6750 or better for that resolution and high settings. Considering the gtx 550ti costs ~£84, the hd 6750 costs ~£72 then the hd 6750 does seem to be the better option. however, at the moment there is a fantastic deal on this msi hd 6850 for £84. this card is a good deal more powerful than these other cards and will work fine with the corsair 430w psu.

also, diablo 3 seems to be rather light on the CPU - so even an Athlon64 X2 should run the game well when using a half-decent graphics card.
 
An AMD HD6850 plus 4-8GB RAM upgrade will be the cheapest option. It is not worth spending a lot of money on an old X2 system. If the PSU is less than 350W, consider upgrading that too.
 
to get something the same performance as a GTX 260 you are going to end up giving OCUK over £100 and needing a PSU and more ram... all of which is a massive waste of money on the system above... you'd be better off selling that PC as an "internet / home" computer for £100 and then adding that to the 200+ you are talking about spending and start from scratch

the other option would be something like a 6670 for £50 which might not even need a PSU (as it runs off power through the PCIe slot only)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-258-AS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1983

and this

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-146-CR&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=144

you will need to check how many sticks he has in place as it's possible he's already using 4 slots of 512mb in which case he'll need to sell his 512mb sticks and get 2 of these 2GB kits
 
If he has the money then a new PC would be a good option - as the Athlon64 X2 generally isn't going to cut it for most modern PC games and DDR2 is rather expensive to buy compared to DDR3. However, for Diablo 3 specifically this CPU should be OK - so if he plans to play this game a lot (and games which are even less CPU intensive) then it should be OK for the time being. Just make sure he understands that most modern games will not run well with this CPU and there are no good options for a CPU-only upgrade. If he want to play these games he will need a new core system.

Also, if he upgrades the PSU and GPU then he can carry over these components to a future brand new system.

As for new RAM, the service manual seems to say that it can only take up to 1GB modules. With any luck it is currently loaded with two 1GB sticks - so he can easily drop in another two 1GB modules. However, it is certainly possible than it will be 4x512MB, which will need a full set of 4x1GB modules to bring the total RAM up to 4GB.
 
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His CPU is probably going to bottleneck any GPU's that need a more powerful PSU.

I would suggest saving yourself some hassle and dont replace the PSU. Just get a 7750.

That will be plenty powerful enough for D3, it probably wont be bottlenecked much by his CPU, and he wont need a new powersupply! They cost about £80.
 
The HD 7750 is a good choice and less hassle overall, especially if he plans to stick with that PC for a while.

Though I would still consider the PSU+GPU option if he thinks he may do a full upgrade in the future anyway - as he will need to buy a decent new PSU anyway and the HD 6850 will give him more performance than a HD 7750 when paired with a modern CPU.
 
I think the 7750 will be the best option overall considering the current system he has. Even if it doesn't run the game on max, there's not much difference between low and max detail anyway.
 
Ok thanks for the answers guys very much appreciated.

Apprecitae that the PC is old anyway but other than this game I dont think he has any other uses, other than Internet etc so doesnt warrant a new PC at this point in time.

The GPU/PSU upgrade I think sounds good.

Thanks again. :D
 
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Yes that, PSU and GPU will work fine (so long as there is enough clearance between the CPU heatsink and the graphics card - this is worth checking).

As for the RAM, that motherboard seems to only support up to 1GB memory modules - so those 2GB modules wouldn't work with the board. It seems that OCUK only sells 2GB DDR2 memory kits these days - so unfortunately we can't give you any direct links to compatible kits or modules. Just make sure you use kits that use 1GB modules and are rated at 800MHz (PC2-6400) or lower.
 
cmndr_andi said:
Yes that, PSU and GPU will work fine (so long as there is enough clearance between the CPU heatsink and the graphics card - this is worth checking).

As for the RAM, that motherboard seems to only support up to 1GB memory modules - so those 2GB modules wouldn't work with the board. It seems that OCUK only sells 2GB DDR2 memory kits these days - so unfortunately we can't give you any direct links to compatible kits or modules. Just make sure you use kits that use 1GB modules and are rated at 800MHz (PC2-6400) or lower.
Click to expand...

Many thanks for your advice on this, very much appreciated!
 
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