I Think It's Time to Upgrade the GPU

Kintarō Hattori

Hey Folks,

I've had my current rig for a number of years but it's been patchy on what games it'll play. Actually playing some games is fine but after what could be 2 minutes or 10 for some games the screen locks up and the machine freezes. This doesn't happen with all games: Just Cause 2, Driver San Francisco, Batman all play fine but others like Skyrim, Age of Empires III, Medal of Honour cause it to freeze.

It's an Intel Core 2 Q9300 with a Radeon HD4870 sporting 512MB Ram, 4GB of Corsair XMS memory all running from an Asus P5E Deluxe Mobo and powered by a decent PSU- I forget which model.

So, rather than upgrade the majority of it which just wouldn't be sanctioned by the missus, I think the weak point for the games in my steam list is the GPU. Back in the day when I was researching the issues I was having, it lead me to believe it might be a memory issue with the RAM on the card itself. So I think a new card is the way to go. It doesn't need to be high end but something which is better than the HD4870 which is positively ancient at this stage.

Any suggestions and what should I be looking to pay?

BloodBath

A new card should sort you out. The rest of the specs seem fine.

This is good for €160 and will run most games on max settings. The card received is often the sapphire version with a better cooler as well.

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/12638311/art/generique/radeon-hd-7870-oem-2-gb-g.html

Kintarō Hattori

I just had a quick look 'under the hood' and I have a 600W OCZ ModXstream Pro PSU- do you think that's enough wattage for that card or should I look into an upgrade for the PSU as well?

BloodBath

No that's loads. Maybe grab another 4gb of ram.

Kintarō Hattori

BloodBath wrote: »

No that's loads. Maybe grab another 4gb of ram.

I'd love to but that 4GB is spread across 4 x 1GB sticks! You gotta love those LEDs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ji0yu98sYA

TerrorFirmer

A lot to be said as well for getting a decent cooler and overclocking that Q9300 to squeeze more out of it. I would probably take that over more ram for the immediate present. Down the line just ditch 2 of those sticks and run 6GB in 2x1 and 2x2, next stop after that is a board/cpu upgrade.

BloodBath

If you want to spend a bit more you could get these 2. Delivery isn't free from here but the deal on the 660ti is great at the moment and the 212 evo would get you a very nice overclock on your cpu. Make sure there are no clearance issues with the board cooling.

Item|Price
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660Ti OC, 2GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort|€179.00
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD|€29.83
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€227.82

Kintarō Hattori

Well chaps I'm afraid I'm a terrible procrastinator and it's taken me this long to finally buy a card. The HD 7870 mentioned was out of stock so I went with the card below:

http://www.pixmania.ie/graphics-card/sapphire-technology-r9-270x-oc-with-boost-2-gb-gddr5-pci-express-graphics-card/21776043-a.html


What are your opinions- a grand card or something awful?

marco_polo

Thats not a bad price for a very good R9 270x actually, its essentially a rebadged HD7870GHZ edition anyway so it's a perfect substitution for what you were goomg to get and a massive improvement over the HD4870.

Kintarō Hattori

Excellent news! Hopefully a somewhat failing GPU was the reason I was having issues with a lot of the games I had bought through Steam and I can now finally start playing Skyrim and some of the other games in my list that were acting up.

Many thanks.

Kintarō Hattori

It arrived this morning. OOh the excitement, can't wait to get home and install it.

Kintarō Hattori

I only managed to test it late last night and just briefly but I threw on a game which in the past lasted just a few minutes before crashing out and.......... had no problems. It ran smoothly for a good 10-15 minutes. I think, I hope this has solved the issue I had!