Will nVidia GT 1030 work with an ancient Core 2 Duo CPU?

[ic1male]

I've got an ancient HP system from 2009 as it's still going and does me fine for computing purposes. I'm thinking about getting back into PC gaming so before I go and spend a grand on a new setup, I thought I'd try fitting a basic GPU to this computer to see if I can get on with PC gaming after a decade away.

The cheapest GPU out there is the GT 1030 with 2GB and no power requirements but I don't know whether the CPU will bottleneck things.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/giga...ddr5-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-19b-gi.html

 

[Rroff]

Some modern games will choke without quad core (or at least 2 core/4 thread) but unless you have one of the models of an older pci-e 1.0 motherboard that has compatibility issues with modern GPUs it should work (I don't think any of those boards supported Wolfdale CPUs anyhow but I might be wrong).

 

[ic1male]

LOL, it's not really about playing Battlefield 1 or anything. I'll be pottering about with games such as Doom 3, Half Life 2, etc. but I just want to try things out. I did try a 640 card in this computer many moons ago but it didn't seem to recognise that so I sort of gave up but that may have been a dodgy card.

I do have an alternative PC which has a Gigabyte GA-935 (or something) motherboard from 2005? which is happily running on a Radeon 9800XT card but that is a problem with most titles as it doesn't have Shader Model 3.0. I can move the same DDR2 4GB memory from this HP computer to that one as it works there.

Yes, I think I'll give it a whirl.

 

[LeMson]

Should work, I've tried my 970 with a q6600 and it worked

 

[DragonQ]

The GT 1030 is more of an HTPC card (it has full hardware decode features of more expensive cards but far less compute/graphics power) but for old games would do just fine. If you don't need the latest generation's features though, a used card might make more sense?

 

[PhoenixUK]

To be honest I wouldn't bother with GT1030 - for just 20-30£ more you can get the AMD RX 460 which is actually still a really good card for 1080p for todays standards (medium-high) and should play even most demanding games on lower/mid settings at that res. If you don't like it, it holds value extremely well so you can sell at almost no less or maybe even profit. Alternatively, something like GTX960 should be available for around £70 and can play new games decently enough.

As for the CPU, the famous E7200 should still play some games if you can overclock it to 3.5-4ghz which I remember they used to hit on air, alternatively if you slap in a Q6600 or something (worth around £15 2nd hand nowadays - check on the bay) that should be quite a capable setup.

On the other hand if you wanted just a cheap upgrade to play around with, the old Phenom IIs (940-950) and old FXs can be had 2nd hand for £50-100 2nd hand for a whole CPU/MOBO/RAM combo. Same for the old sandybridge i5s especially which should sell for max £100 for a mobo/cpu/ram and should still have a bit of life in them.

 

[Scania]

I tried my 1070 in my lads Q8300 / 8 GB RAM machine and it worked perfectly and ran GTA V maxed out @ 1080p with no issues I could see.

No real surprise tbh it was my old build which used to have two GTX 580's in it (SLI) and that coped with GTA V admirably it's dreadful otherwise but purely down to the GTX 260 that's in it now, I think I'll get him a better card....

 

[greatash]

Overclock it to near 4ghz and it would be fine for anything less cpu intensive than battlefield 3.

My brother is still using an e8400 @ 4.1 and a gtx 260, think its almost a decade old now. He only plays mmos like WoW/runescape or old multiplayer games like killing floor though, nothing modern.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Check compatability first - some newer cards only play nice with a UEFI BIOS.

TBF, surely a secondhand HD7700 or GT650 would be more than enough for those older games??

 

[pandem0nium]

I'd update the motherboard bios to whatever was the latest before trying a new card.