Can i do anything with this?

bufferz1 · 10 Feb 2013 at 19:46

Or should i give up now? lol

Im the Proud(?) owner of a packard bell PC (2008). Used for day to day tasks, nothing too strenuous, in fact, its been neglected since the family all got laptops. However, I want to actually use it for gaming, nothing crazy, I usually play my xbox, but MMOs, strategy games etc, that you cant get on xbox, and lappys wont run well either, I thought I may be able to upgrade this a little....

The specs are:

250w PSU
3GB DDR2
Geforce 9200 (Integrated) GPU
AMD Phenom triple core processor @2.1GHz
320GB HDD

I was looking at PSU upgrade, and a HD6670 GPU. Would this improve it at all? I have a single PCI-e 1.0 slot, so the GPU should fit, im just not sure compatibilty wise with the mobo (MCP78PVM-PM)

Martini1991 · 10 Feb 2013 at 19:48

Wouldn't bother upgrading the PSU for a 6670.
Is the PCI-E 1x slot open ended?

bufferz1 · 10 Feb 2013 at 20:33

I dont think so... this is the same m/b (The pci-e is the little white one isnt it? So it doesnt look open ended):

troops · 10 Feb 2013 at 20:38

the orange/red is the pci-e slot for gfx card

troops · 10 Feb 2013 at 20:39

Forgot the put that pcie 1.0 is just the revision of the slot but should still work.

Jokester · 10 Feb 2013 at 20:39

Aye he means a gen 1 PCI-E slot. That might limit what you can put into it.

Martini1991 · 10 Feb 2013 at 20:53

Jokester said:
Aye he means a gen 1 PCI-E slot. That might limit what you can put into it.

Why?
PCI-E 2.0 8X doesn't really hamper a 7970 at all.

A 6670 should be perfectly fine.

OP, you'd put it in the Red Lane.

bufferz1 · 10 Feb 2013 at 21:00

Thanks guys, should have made the 1st gen thing a bit clearer, sorry

Going to order one tonight, i was just concerned about the power requirements draining the 250w (Last time i buy an off-the-shelf pc)....but Martini thinks it will be ok, so ill skip it

Marine-RX179 · 10 Feb 2013 at 21:03

Martini1991 said:
Why?
PCI-E 2.0 8X doesn't really hamper a 7970 at all.

A 6670 should be perfectly fine.

There were some compatability issue with HD5670 with PCI-E 1.0 back then...not sure if it would apply for HD6670..or other newer cards as well.

Martini1991 · 10 Feb 2013 at 21:06

Maximum the 6670 can use is about 50W.
I'd imagine you have 50W spare.

Jokester · 10 Feb 2013 at 21:06

I would be more worried about the motherboard end of it, old BIOSes can do weird things when you plug in modern stuff.

Martini1991 · 10 Feb 2013 at 21:06

Marine-RX179 said:
There were some compatability issue with HD5670 with PCI-E 1.0 back then...not sure if it would apply for HD6670..or other newer cards as well.

Agh, didn't know about that.

So much for backwards compatibility?

bufferz1 · 10 Feb 2013 at 21:59

ill take a risk for the sake of 50 quid...

Marine-RX179 · 10 Feb 2013 at 22:00

Martini1991 said:
Agh, didn't know about that.

So much for backwards compatibility?

To be fair though, it could have just been a unique problem with 5670 alone...but then again, I think 6670's architecture is the same as 5670 but with more stream processors and higher clock if I remember correctly.

Notorious · 10 Feb 2013 at 22:06

sell it and add the funds to a sandybridge CPU'ed system with a 6770 or 7770 graphics card, with the rest of the gear just go reputable cheap.

bufferz1 · 10 Feb 2013 at 23:23

hmmm....if theres gonna be potential problems, may as well just get a new pc....

bufferz1 · 11 Feb 2013 at 17:46

Thanks guys, just bought the hd6670, and an extra gig of ram for now...if the mobo struggles with it, ill upgrade that and the proc too (likely doing that anyway eventually), but hopefully will last for now, if i find myself really getting into pc gaming (over the xbox even) then I can invest some serious money into a decent rig.

bufferz1 · 11 Feb 2013 at 17:48

One more question, with the age of this pc im on vista, am going to transfer my license from an old lappy running W7, BUT, if i change the mobo/processor, will it cause problems with the W7 installation?

teenwolf · 11 Feb 2013 at 17:50

and those mobo's are prone to failures