Graphic Card Help! ... Please?

[The Mighty Stove]

Hi there Escapist, I've been a bit of a lurker for a few years and now I need your help.
I want to play current gen PC games, while I still enjoy older games... it..just dawns on me after while. Hell I can't even run SC2 except on minimum of minimum setting at around 25ish FPS.
I have experience in installing stuff in a PC ez-pz, but when it comes to graphic cards...

So, my specs are... eh just here. http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01570949&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN#N77

I've upgraded my Hard Drive to a 2TB also.

SEE... I'm also on a budget. Now I know the myth gaming pc's don't cost $2,000+ for a gaming pc. But I just don't have a lot of money to spend. Anything under/around 100$ would be great. Also is there anything I should upgrade while I'm at it?

Any and all help (Including wall-o-text,links to learn more,etc) are welcome.
((My friend suggested this one here, http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01570949&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN#N77 , Is it viable?)

tl-dr= *Look at the picture*

P.S I really want to play Guild War 2 btw :0

 

[The Mighty Stove]

*Not sure if anyone can see this thread* D=

I guess that's sort of a bump....

Also...Where's the best site to buy from personal experience?

 

[Supernova1138]

Okay, you will actually have to upgrade two things to get a card that will provide a decent gaming experience, a new video card, and a new power supply. Your current Power Supply Unit is only 250 Watts, that will only support a really low end card that while better than your integrated graphics, won't be that great for gaming. Your CPU is also on the slower side by today's standards, so higher end cards will be held back by it.

Unfortunately with a PSU upgrade, you're probably going to have to go above the $100 mark. A good quality 400 to 500 Watt PSU that can run anything up to a midrange GPU will probably cost you 40 to 50 bucks by itself. A video card that's decent for gaming will probably run you $100 and up.

For PSUs, good brands are Corsair, Antec, Seasonic, and Enermax. For a good graphics card in the $100 range, the AMD Radeon HD 6770 or Nvidia GTX 550Ti will provide decent gaming performance. They won't run every game at ultra at 1920x1080 resolution, but will offer decent performance. Most cards faster than the ones I mentioned will be held back by your CPU anyway, so you wouldn't see much of a gain by spending more unless you managed to find a faster CPU for that old rig.

 

[The Mighty Stove]

-snip-

Alright that's basically what I did after a few hours of research.

I went with a 6670 Radeon GDDR5, and bought a new 480 Power supply for 40$.
Sadly like you said, this is far as my rig is gonna go until I build a new one in a year or two...

All in total I spent around 130$, which I kind of expected to spend a bit more knowing my luck lol. But anyway thank you sir for confirming my confidence in the pc market. Now I can join the current gen market (even if everything isn't in ultra, dunn curr)

P-S:
What games do you think I'll be able to run fairly nice?
I've seen some gameplay with the same card playing BF3 on High at around 30-33 FPS, is that possible :0 ?

 

[Supernova1138]

30 FPS on high in BF3 might be possible with a 6670 if you are playing at a really low resolution like 1024x768. At most resolutions the 6670 can probably do medium in BF3, but will probably choke if you tried high.

 

[The Mighty Stove]

30 FPS on high in BF3 might be possible with a 6670 if you are playing at a really low resolution like 1024x768. At most resolutions the 6670 can probably do medium in BF3, but will probably choke if you tried high.

Ok so, my resolution is 1680x1050. What am I looking at? Running most games Med-High?

On a side note, what's with all the names and numbers for every graphic card company? lol

 

[Supernova1138]

The 6670 will do most games at medium settings at that resolution. Some of the less demanding games out there like Source engine titles, or Call of Duty you might be able to pull off a mix of medium and high. BF3 is a more demanding title so you'll do medium settings at absolute best at 1680x1050.

As for the names and numbers, AMD and nvidia don't actually make the graphics cards, just the GPU chip. The rest of the graphics card is produced by other companies, and each company will make different models that have different coolers, output ports, sometimes higher quality voltage regulators to better facilitate overclocking, things like that.

 

[The Mighty Stove]

Snip-

Alright cool, it's a lot better then them not run at all at least, heh. Thanks for the help, it's much appreciated sir.

 

[The Mighty Stove]

Ok so now I'm at a crossroads on what to do.
Can I replace my mother board? And if so, what do I need to look at?
Is there anything anyone can suggest that will fit my pc?

 

[theonewhois3]

You should really get a new computer, build it your self. But budget wise on gaming.. Well your CPU is probably going to bottle neck you on most games so upgrading that would help. To do that you need a new motherboard which means a new computer...
For 1680x1050 reso you would want at least a gtx 560ti/570 to play most games out on max settings. That's 200-250ish. An ATI 6850/70 or 460/70would do a little less for 100-150ish and is better value if you only want to play high/medium on games currently out. Again, you'll need a better CPU though.
For best value, assuming you're getting a new pc, i would suggest:
motherboard: ASRock Z68 PRO3 GEN3 105$ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157279&nm_mc=OTC-pr1c3grabb3r&cm_mmc=OTC-pr1c3grabb3r-_-Motherboards+-+Intel-_-ASRock-_-13157279
CPU: Core i3-2120 123$ http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004KZDV8E/ref=asc_df_B004KZDV8E2062934?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=pg-408-34-20&linkCode=asn&creative=395097&creativeASIN=B004KZDV8E
PSU: ANTEC 650w 80$ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371044
GPU: gtx 560ti 235$ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130604 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125363
Total: 543$ Assuming the case, hdd, and and disk drive you work with it. Just a suggestion. Research everything I link naturally. Should all be fine and work together.

 

[The Mighty Stove]

-Snip-

Sorry, maybe I should explain myself from my earlier post.
As you know I bought the standard Hp Pavilion hp pavilion a6620f

Spoiler

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01570949&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN#N77

((Forgot how to hyper-link D)
So far I have installed a..
-1 Tb Barracuda Hard Drive
-6670 Radeon GDDR5 Graphic Card
-A PCI Adapter for Wireless goodness
-A new 480 watt? PSU


The thing is I really like this case, and this being the first pc I bought with my own money has sentimental value, and I've enjoyed it. Basically I just want to keep upgrading for as long as possible (And cheap as possible ).

I guess my main concern is, can you really exchange a motherboard? I read a lot into and it seems to be a lot of work if so. I don't mind that so much but I am a amateur.

 

[JesterRaiin]

I guess my main concern is, can you really exchange a motherboard? I read a lot into and it seems to be a lot of work if so. I don't mind that so much but I am a amateur.

It's not very complicated problems and there are plenty of good tutorials all over the Net.
For example :
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/How-to-Install-a-Motherboard/145
HOWEVER ! There's a matter of precision and "pressure". Some parts (gfx card) need to be properly aligned, and sometimes you need to apply a little force here and there. Most amateurs are afraid they'll break something and they don't push the components strong enough or, they do it too hard and end with broken things.

So just be careful, read the instructions, and if not sure - ask. :]

P.S.
I'm a little sick and don't think clear, but if you're talking about upgrading this thing :
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01570949&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN#N77
...then you may as well throw everything away and simply buy new PC.
Your parts are either incompatible or too slow for modern computers.

...Just sayin'.

 

[theonewhois3]

-Snip-

Sorry, maybe I should explain myself from my earlier post.
As you know I bought the standard Hp Pavilion hp pavilion a6620f

Spoiler

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01570949&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN#N77

((Forgot how to hyper-link D)
So far I have installed a..
-1 Tb Barracuda Hard Drive
-6670 Radeon GDDR5 Graphic Card
-A PCI Adapter for Wireless goodness
-A new 480 watt? PSU


The thing is I really like this case, and this being the first pc I bought with my own money has sentimental value, and I've enjoyed it. Basically I just want to keep upgrading for as long as possible (And cheap as possible ).

I guess my main concern is, can you really exchange a motherboard? I read a lot into and it seems to be a lot of work if so. I don't mind that so much but I am a amateur.

The motherboard is the core of your computer, all the parts interact with each other through it. Motherboards are mostly classified by the supported CPU types. So getting a new motherboard is very difficult if you want to keep your current ram, power supply and cpu and won't be much different than your current one. You'll have to do some research and find a motherboard that has socket to fit that CPU etc. As i said, getting a new graphics card for gaming helps up to a point. But it will be bottlenecked by your other hardware. You might have a gtx 690, power budget aside, which runs bf3 on 100fps on max or what ever but you'll be getting 20 frames or less because your cpu can't run the game fast enough. Or you lack RAM what ever. So i don't recommend getting a new motherboard for your computer, as it won't really make a difference, but rather to save up for a new computer, case aside, for a year or two.

 

[The Mighty Stove]

...then you may as well throw everything away and simply buy new PC.
Your parts are either incompatible or too slow for modern computers.

...Just sayin'.

I kid , But in all seriousness can I salvage any of my parts? like my PSU?
Also any advice for a beginner such as myself?

-snip-

Alright, looks like I should start planning my new rig and save up. Hey I appreciate the info and help. 2 questions though, as I asked before too JesterRaiin.
1)Can I salvage any parts? Or should I get everything new? (PSU? Hard drive?)
2)Any advice on building my next new rig? heh.

 

[Supernova1138]

You can salvage the power supply, hard drive, DVD, and graphics card, and the wireless card (provided your new motherboard has PCI slots, some don't anymore) from your current computer. For a new motherboard you will need a new CPU and new RAM.

If you really want to keep that case, you will have to get a MicroATX motherboard, it's too small for full ATX boards. That means fewer expansion slots. This might not be much of an issue if you only need a video card and the wireless LAN card, but you won't have room for much else, especially if you get a higher end video card with a dual slot cooler.

As for specific parts recommendations, it would help to have a budget, what is the maximum you are willing to spend.

 

[JesterRaiin]

I kid , But in all seriousness can I salvage any of my parts? like my PSU?
Also any advice for a beginner such as myself?

:]
As i said before - they are either incompatible with new equipment or will slow it down.
For example the memory - even if you'd manage to fit it on brand new motherboard, it will considerably slow down the processor and gfx card since most modern stuff works with higher speed. It's like in this saying "the group is only as good as its weakest member" (or something along the lines - i'm bad with translating).

So, sure, you can take some old stuff, connect it to modern PC and then scratch your head while asking "why doesn't it run faster ?"

Advice ?
- Don't be afraid to change everything. It's not worth it to upgrade your current configuration.
- First find the processor (i suggest at least Intel i3)
- Then seek the motherboard that's supporting this processor
- Proceed to RAM - every motherboard supports a range of memory modules, but in reality it's seldom wise to buy the most powerful one, since there's no real difference between such modules and a little slower ones
- Think about gfx card
- HDD/DVD (is it still needed nowadays ?) and such
- Monitor (the one you're using now should be ok)
- PSU
- something for the eyes - the casing

Without knowing your budget it's really hard to give you anything better than general advices you know...

 

[The Mighty Stove]

I kid , But in all seriousness can I salvage any of my parts? like my PSU?
Also any advice for a beginner such as myself?

:]
As i said before - they are either incompatible with new equipment or will slow it down.

Wait, I thought modern Motherboards took ATX PSUs? http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-Elite-Supply-RS460-PSARI3-US/dp/B002G1YPHK/ref=pd_ys_iyr3 That's what I have right there. Also don't modern boards take PCI-E ? The only reason I bring this up honestly is just to learn.

Now as too budget, I'm looking at eh, around 650$-550$?

-Snip- &
Recommendations, it would help to have a budget, what is the maximum you are willing to spend.

ok, awesome. I'm gonna scrap the case then probably. As far as budget as I told JesterRaiin, probably around eh 550-650$

Oh, another question where do you all buy parts? I usually use NewEgg or Amazon.

 

[JesterRaiin]

Wait, I thought modern Motherboards took ATX PSUs? http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-Elite-Supply-RS460-PSARI3-US/dp/B002G1YPHK/ref=pd_ys_iyr3 That's what I have right there. Also don't modern boards take PCI-E ? The only reason I bring this up honestly is just to learn.

In the link you provided there was 200-something PSU. It's far too less for modern hardware. 460 should suffice unless you're not thinking about the rig with dual gfx cards.

And yes, modern motherboards support PCI-E gfx card (single, or dual combo called SLI for nVidia cards and CrossFire for ATI).

As far as i'm aware, people say NewEgg is a very good choice. Usually, if i want to check something i visit both Newegg and Ananadtech - the people there know pretty much everything about newest tech. :]