Upgrading: Seeking advice.

[H0wl1ngR4v3n]

Hi all,

I've recently decided its time to upgrade my old Radeon HD 4880 for something better. I've decided a budget of about 300-350 is acceptable for me but I have some questions and I was hoping to find some advice here.

Firstly, my 4800 series was given to me by a friend, and was a slight upgrade from my 512mb 4800 to a 1gb model. The main difference for me with this upgrade was that the new card seemed to have an after market fan on it. When I looked at my temps, my idle was coming up with 32 degrees C and my load (recently tested using ARMA2) comes in about 45c with some minor sacrifices in graphical quality on ARMA2.

I'm a lilttle OCD when it comes to temps, even to the point of getting myself an AC to keep my room at a good temp during the warmer months. My case is an antec and though I can't remember the exact model, I can say I have two front fans, one side, one back and one large top fan. So I have pretty good ventilation.

After all that rambling, here's the advice I'm seeking.

I'm looking to get a card that idles about the same 32-34c, I'm also seeking some assurances over load temps, what is normal, what is safe, that sort of thing and lastly, I'm seeking advice over Radeon or Nvidia, and more specifically, stuff like EVGA / MSI / ASUS that sort of thing.

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

Peace.

 

[illuz]

What are the specs of your computer at the minute?

 

[H0wl1ngR4v3n]

Current specs : Win7 32bit; 4gb ram; Intel Quad Q6600

 

[spoffle]

The temperature the core runs at isn't indicative of how much heat the card will be outputting so it's completely unreliable to go on the core temperature alone so will be hard to spec on that area.

 

[Orcvader]

Budget?

And that 32 bit Windows is not making full use of your RAM due to 32 bit limitations. VRAM will also take a chunk off as well. If you don't mind doing a complete fresh install, you can download a 64 bit ISO of Windows 7 and reuse your 32 bit key to activate it: http://www.w7forums.com/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-image-downloads-t12325.html

Also, what power supply do you have? Need to also state the brand as well as wattage.

 

[H0wl1ngR4v3n]

My budget is 300 - 350 ish, my power supply is a Jeantech 700 watt. I have a legit win7 home so i do have the capabilties to reinstall using its included 64bit version, it's just a case of me being motivated to do it lol.

 

[OptimaLnrg]

First of all, as said, 32 windows cannot address all that ram. I'm pretty sure that includes video ram as well. You need to get a 64bit version installed, otherwise your system physically cannot address the memory.

Second, the Q6600 even when overclocked to the max is going to hold back any new card in the 300-350ish range. People are going to recommend you the gtx 670 I imagine, and that cpu will hold it back.

Third, if someone recommends you spend £300-£350 on a brand new gpu and hook it up to that psu, they are crazy. That has to go first mate. I'm going to guess you have a 4870. My brother is running one on a corsair 500watt unit which is plenty. 700w on a good psu would be overkill, which iaffects efficiency, but in fact it's probably lucky you over specced on it as it probably only supplies 400-500watts properly at best.

Now temps: those temps are very cool for a 4870. I assume it's a custom bios with cooler. My brothers is 100% reference and so idles at 75c, load 80c. (crazy.. It's the bios). But anyways, different architectures run at different temperatures. For example: right now it's quite hot in here and my 680 is idling at 30c. My 580 idled at 56c with 2 monitors, 45c with one. So it's not the temperature of itself that matters, but the temperature compared to what it should be for that architecture and that cooler, roughly.

Nvidia/AMD is personal preference tbh. I've had both and never had any driver issues with either, bar one set of beta nvidia drivers not working with skyrim.

If I were you I would be looking at an overhaul with the £350, not a gpu. But it depends what you need the system for. What games do you play and what is your resolution?

 

[flopper]

Hi all,

I've recently decided its time to upgrade my old Radeon HD 4880 for something better. I've decided a budget of about 300-350 is acceptable for me but I have some questions and I was hoping to find some advice here.



Any advice would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

Peace.

A 6870 or similar should give you a good bost, however a amd 7850 should fit you perfectly. Twice the card you have now. and with set up you have would be a good buy IMO.

 

[covenantuk]

Bang for buck in that price range, I went for the GTX670 - if your case cooling is decent then the Gigibyte or Asus as good choices should idle at or below what you're getting at the moment - mine sits at 28-29C

As mentioned, you need to install 64-bit OS, you may need a better PSU and will probably find that you're CPU limited once you upgrade, but that's not the end of the world.

An upgrade to a card in that price range will only be fully effective if/when you have funds to upgrade your CPU as well but performance will certainly be improved so it's your choice if you want to upgrade GPU first or CPU/motherboard/ram.

 

[arc@css]

First of all, as said, 32 windows cannot address all that ram. I'm pretty sure that includes video ram as well. You need to get a 64bit version installed, otherwise your system physically cannot address the memory.

Second, the Q6600 even when overclocked to the max is going to hold back any new card in the 300-350ish range. People are going to recommend you the gtx 670 I imagine, and that cpu will hold it back.

Third, if someone recommends you spend £300-£350 on a brand new gpu and hook it up to that psu, they are crazy. That has to go first mate. I'm going to guess you have a 4870. My brother is running one on a corsair 500watt unit which is plenty. 700w on a good psu would be overkill, which iaffects efficiency, but in fact it's probably lucky you over specced on it as it probably only supplies 400-500watts properly at best.

Now temps: those temps are very cool for a 4870. I assume it's a custom bios with cooler. My brothers is 100% reference and so idles at 75c, load 80c. (crazy.. It's the bios). But anyways, different architectures run at different temperatures. For example: right now it's quite hot in here and my 680 is idling at 30c. My 580 idled at 56c with 2 monitors, 45c with one. So it's not the temperature of itself that matters, but the temperature compared to what it should be for that architecture and that cooler, roughly.

Nvidia/AMD is personal preference tbh. I've had both and never had any driver issues with either, bar one set of beta nvidia drivers not working with skyrim.

If I were you I would be looking at an overhaul with the £350, not a gpu. But it depends what you need the system for. What games do you play and what is your resolution?

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