# Need some video card help



## Conker (Jan 24, 2010)

I tried to figure this all out on my own. I really did! Opened up my computer, snooped around, saw that I take the PCI Express type (which I guess is the standard) and then went off to newegg to take a look at cards. I have some NVidia integrated chipset bullshit so I looked at that brand first.

And then I did a lot of google and wiki searches to try and figure out what the hell it was I was reading.

I found this card which is kind of pricey but the google searches I did seemed to priase it.

Then my brother told me it probably wouldn't fit into my computer because the tower isn't that big. Here's a picture of the inside of my computer. Nothing special I am sure but maybe this can help me out.

Then I looked at some ATI cards because advice I've been given is "don't be brand loyal" and now I'm confused again. More google searches of ATI cards seem to contradict previous searches and reviews and whatnot and I'm sort of back to square one. 

I refuse to pay more than 200$ for a card, and honestly I'd like one closer to a 100$ but I also know that if I go too cheap it will just wind up outdated sooner than later. 

Perhaps I can get some help here? I don't care what kind of card I get as long as it fits and runs AvP3 which comes out in February. The requirements for that are



> *Recommended Requirements*
> Windows 7/ XP/Vista
> Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 or equivalent processor
> 2 GB System RAM
> DirectX 9.0c compliant video card with 512 MB RAM (NVIDIA 8800 series, ATI HD2900 PRO or better)



Help would be nice here. Too many fucking numbers. Hell, even if I'm just looking at two ATI cards they could have the exact same numbers yet be totally different prices. I mean there has to be a difference. The model numbers are different...

TL/DR I need help finding a video card and I'm a fecken noob :V


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## Runefox (Jan 24, 2010)

Radeon HD 5750 will probably do you just fine. It's currently on sale ($129), so you get a 1GB card for the price of its 512MB siblings. It's pretty much on par (a little better, actually) with what I'm running now (4850), and in addition supports running DX11. The card I'm running isn't the top of the line, but it still serves quite well and still runs the latest games - The 5750 is a great buy.

The GTX260 would definitely be a great card, but probably overkill, especially considering that your motherboard looks a little on the old/cheap side and I have no idea how well that power supply would cope with such a power-hungry card.


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## Conker (Jan 24, 2010)

Runefox said:


> Radeon HD 5750 will probably do you just fine. It's currently on sale ($129), so you get a 1GB card for the price of its 512MB siblings. It's pretty much on par (a little better, actually) with what I'm running now (4850), and in addition supports running DX11. The card I'm running isn't the top of the line, but it still serves quite well and still runs the latest games - The 5750 is a great buy.
> 
> The GTX260 would definitely be a great card, but probably overkill, especially considering that your motherboard looks a little on the old/cheap side and I have no idea how well that power supply would cope with such a power-hungry card.


Turns out my power supply is a flaccid 250W which I guess is a problem means I'm fucked.


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## ToeClaws (Jan 24, 2010)

Conker said:


> Turns out my power supply is a flaccid 250W which I guess is a problem means I'm fucked.



>_< Eee...yeah, you might wanna beef that up a tad.


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## Conker (Jan 24, 2010)

ToeClaws said:


> >_< Eee...yeah, you might wanna beef that up a tad.


Friend of mine told me to get this one

Which means the amount of money I can spend on a card just went down. But this is all still feasible, just more expensive in the long run.


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## Runefox (Jan 25, 2010)

Well, that's pretty decent. Enermax is OK overall...

However, this Antec NEO ECO 520W should be a lot better for the same price. It has a more sturdy single 12V rail, and is rated to guarantee a 520W of continuous - not peak - power (both of which would enable you to pop a much beefier card into your system if you wanted to later on). It should be a lot more reliable in the long run than the Enermax, and has a three-year warranty as well.

I'm gonna go out on a limb though and say that this system looks like it's fairly old. What kind of processor is installed in there? How much RAM do you have? While graphics may be the biggest limiting factor here, your CPU and RAM may also be showstoppers if they're terribly old (or in the case of RAM, if there's not enough of it).


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## Lambzie (Jan 25, 2010)

Ok Runefox your probable going to disagree with me on this one. But I would go on to eBay or a local computer store / swap meat and get a cheep no name brand 520W or 450W power supply. There is no point on getting a name brand the parts in both named and no named brand the same. The only differences is the fan and case which relay dose not much difference to the performance of the power supply.

Also can you tell me the brand and model number of the mother board so I can find out for you what type of PCI Express slot it is.


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## ToeClaws (Jan 25, 2010)

Lambzie said:


> Ok Runefox your probable going to disagree with me on this one. But I would go on to eBay or a local computer store / swap meat and get a cheep no name brand 520W or 450W power supply. There is no point on getting a name brand the parts in both named and no named brand the same. The only differences is the fan and case which relay dose not much difference to the performance of the power supply.
> 
> Also can you tell me the brand and model number of the mother board so I can find out for you what type of PCI Express slot it is.



I'll beat Rune to the disagreement part (well sorta).  While your suggestion does have merit, there is one drawback of a cheaper or second-hand part, and that's longevity.  Having built PCs for 20 years now, I've seen A LOT of power supply issues.  Cheaper ones often don't last as long, especially if they're run over 50% capacity regularly.  Second hand ones may be very good, but they also may be very "used" and not have a lot of life left.  A second hand power supply is actually a lot like a second hand car - it helps to know the history of the unit to gauge whether or not it's still good.


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## Lambzie (Jan 25, 2010)

ToeClaws said:


> I'll beat Rune to the disagreement part (well sorta).  While your suggestion does have merit, there is one drawback of a cheaper or second-hand part, and that's longevity.  Having built PCs for 20 years now, I've seen A LOT of power supply issues.  Cheaper ones often don't last as long, especially if they're run over 50% capacity regularly.  Second hand ones may be very good, but they also may be very "used" and not have a lot of life left.  A second hand power supply is actually a lot like a second hand car - it helps to know the history of the unit to gauge whether or not it's still good.



ok so I have only been building computers my self and building and repapering electronics for the last 12 years (not as long as you but hay I'm 18 year old) and I was not saying to go out and get a second hand power supply. Even tho your terminology with a second had car is wrong. electronics will never die unless there miss treated. they don't just half work they work or not there is no in-between. Also been someone that has gone out and got a branded and a non branded power supply and open them both to see the difference of a case and fan. same voltage chopper, tolerance in resisters and same transistors. Also I have never had a problem with a second hand power supplys running all my different computers.


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## ToeClaws (Jan 25, 2010)

Lambzie said:


> ... Even tho your terminology with a second had car is wrong. electronics will never die unless there miss treated. they don't just half work they work or not there is no in-between.



That is, unfortunately, a myth.  I have seen MANY a component on various platforms fail, despite being housed in clean, climate controlled data centres with scrubbed power.  Electronics *can* fail and *can* wear out.  True that the second hand car is not a perfect comparison, but the idea is the same.

I'm also not completely disagreeing with you either - second hand parts are not a guaranteed fail, I'm just pointing out that they run a significantly higher risk of failure.


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## Runefox (Jan 25, 2010)

Capacitors blow, circuits stress; The difference is how much tolerance these components have for the stresses they're put through. The differences (or lack thereof) you speak of between these "no-name" supplies and "named" supplies are meaningless unless by name-brand you mean something like "Speed" or "OKIA" are name-brand - They're not. In addition, the grade and type of solder used in many cases can also affect the overall longevity of the product, and that's not something most people will be able to identify and fix if a solder joint fails. A no-name power supply has weaker parts, cheaper build quality, not as much heat dissipation, lesser efficiency (meaning a higher power bill and more heat still) and in most cases, yes, they're just fine for a standard desktop computer; However, when you start to stress the power supply with things like dedicated video cards that draw on the order of in excess of 100 watts at any given moment, the extra heat inherent to that causes additional wear.

This is particularly important because a power supply begins to supply unreliable voltages when they experience wear and high stress, sometimes (grossly) in excess of 15% of the rated lines (like 7v on the 5v line, 14+v on the 12v, etc). What this means is that the power supply can directly affect other components and in fact blow them entirely, which is a costly venture. Spending a little extra for a beefier power supply is absolutely within the realm of sanity.

I've been burned by it - I bought a 600W SPI power supply (which is about as close to no-name as named PSU's get) because its raw specs were rather good and the price was low. A year later (just outside the paltry one-year warranty), it blew, took the motherboard with it, and left me without my main computer for over a month. Thankfully, the motherboard was still under warranty and I could RMA that, but I had to gather up the funds for a new power supply and wait for the RMA process to finish. I vowed from that point on that the quality of a power supply is not something that should be underestimated.

At $70 USD, the Antec NEO 520W is absolutely within reason. No-name 500W's (which are rated at room temperature and actually output somewhere in the region of 400W or less) are much more likely to blow within the Antec's three-year warranty period, which in the end would end up costing as much or more than the Antec to begin with, especially if they take a component (or worse, components) with them. Frankly, buying a no-name power supply to shave a few dollars off the total is not an acceptable path to take for anyone but the very basic of computer users, who won't stress the supply. Electronics *do* die. I see it all the time. Perhaps I haven't been in the industry as long as you have, but the very fact that you've done electronics repair means exactly that.

It is true that many power supply manufacturers are actually OEM's for other manufacturers - Corsair is an OEM for SeaSonic, for example, and OCZ is an OEM for Topower if I recall correctly - but in the case of the better brands (Antec is a poor example but still good - Take PC Power & Cooling supplies for example), there is a major difference in reliability in every sense of the word.

I just have to say it again - Cheaping out on the power supply is absolutely the worst thing you can possibly do. It's a good idea to look around at articles and reviews that actually do take apart the supplies (I did this when researching the Corsair TX750W that I replaced the SPI with (which was also total overkill, but I had plans to expand)). But really, in the end, I've sold enough no-name power supplies and seen their failure rates enough to know that the better stuff rarely finds its way back by comparison. It's all in how it's put together and how confident the parent company is in their product - A 90-day or 1-year warranty is meaningless. And if the only difference is a fan and a heat sink, then hell, that's a major upgrade already. Even the best parts, without adequate cooling, will die a heat death just the same as the bargain bin.

My confidence in second-hand electronics varies depending on what it is. I've been pleasantly surprised in many situations where I didn't expect anything to work, and in other areas, I've been disappointed by things I have expected to work. However, again, it really depends on the product. In this day and age, following the era of the capacitor plague that as I recall nearly broke Gigabyte, computer electronics in general have been experiencing a decline in build quality as technology shifts more quickly. Factories are being hastily re-tooled, and cost-reduction measures are being taken across the board. Seagate in particular is currently suffering from its own follies in that regard (ever since acquiring Maxtor, really), especially with the 750GB-1.5TB hard drive mishaps with the 7200.11 and above series (which reportedly is still ongoing with the newer drives). Things aren't as they were a decade ago - You can't buy a cheap motherboard and expect it to work well into the future any more. I still find it amazing that I can boot my salvaged IBM PS/2 486 and get it to POST; It was tossed into the trash from a major university back in 2002 and I've restored it with minimal effort. The whole system still worked fine - Hell, I even upgraded the processor. Nowadays, you can barely expect three years out of a computer before something blows - the motherboard, most often, or the power supply. Again, two things that should never be cheaped out on.


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## Conker (Jan 25, 2010)

OHSHI lots of typing. The person that told me to get the power supply linked is someone I trust pretty well. I'll show him the one you linked though Runefox. See what he has to say about that. I'm tapping as many sources of information as I can so as not to get biased answers 

But he agrees with Runefox on getting name brand power supplies. The no name ones tend to shit out after a year or two. He has had some bad experiences and theres a reason he told me to get that brand.

My computer really isn't that old. It's currently running Windows Vista with 3 gigs of ram. the processor is an AMD Athlon X2 4450E Dual Core Processor. 

The model number on the computer is SR5712F. It's a Compaq. It came with a keyboard and a moniter so I really couldn't pass up the deal. I believe it has another slot for RAM in there but I'm not sure. 3gigs should be fine for now, I just need the power supply and card.

Now I'm going ot finish reading the posts in this thread to see what other informations I should be giving out :3

Edit: I have no idea what the brand name and model number of the motherboard is. I'd have to reopen it to find out.

Edit2: Thanks for the help guys :3 I really appreciate it.


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## Runefox (Jan 25, 2010)

Alright, that's a little more recent than I figured. As for the Antec supply, Antec is one of the better-known names in power supplies (and also cases), and they have a decent three-year warranty. The raw specs for the Antec outweigh the specs for the Enermax (520W constant vs 500W max, 40a 12V rail vs 2x18a 12V rails), though while probably not absolutely necessary, for the same price you get a bit more wiggle room. Some people have issues with Antec (and some people have some brand loyalty going on), and at one point, that would include myself as well. However, I've heard good things about the NEO series, and like I said, it has the same warranty as the Enermax, and what's more, the Antec NEO is 80PLUS certified, while the Enermax is not - Meaning the power supply will always remain within 80% efficiency, which means less wasted energy pulled from the wall and a lower power bill. I also can't find it on Enermax's website - Which leads me to believe it may be discontinued.


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## Conker (Jan 25, 2010)

Runefox said:


> Alright, that's a little more recent than I figured. As for the Antec supply, Antec is one of the better-known names in power supplies (and also cases), and they have a decent three-year warranty. The raw specs for the Antec outweigh the specs for the Enermax (520W constant vs 500W max, 40a 12V rail vs 2x18a 12V rails), though while probably not absolutely necessary, for the same price you get a bit more wiggle room. Some people have issues with Antec (and some people have some brand loyalty going on), and at one point, that would include myself as well. However, I've heard good things about the NEO series, and like I said, it has the same warranty as the Enermax, and what's more, the Antec NEO is 80PLUS certified, while the Enermax is not - Meaning the power supply will always remain within 80% efficiency, which means less wasted energy pulled from the wall and a lower power bill.


You make an excellent argument :3 If you guys really need me to I can open up the box and look at my motherboard and get the info off of that. I'm really not in the mood to right now, but I can do it later if the information is really needed. 

All of this for a video game. Makes me feel like a gamer. Haven't had that feeling since I started playing World of Warcraft.


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## Runefox (Jan 25, 2010)

Nah, the information you provided - the model number (Compaq Presario SR5712F) - is enough to get a clear picture of what's in the computer by checking the specs on Compaq's website.

Either of those power supplies would be just fine, really - It's just that you could get the NEO for the same price, which to me seems like a better value. Feel free to go with either, really, but my suggestion remains at the Radeon HD 5750 and the Antec NEO ECO 520W PSU.


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## ToeClaws (Jan 25, 2010)

Seconded on Rune's suggestions - he's a smart pup. *ruffles foxy head*  Too bad he's not around here to hire for a new NOC guy.


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## Conker (Jan 25, 2010)

Friend said to go either or on the power supply. He has had bad luck with the brand you recommend in the past, but it's really up to me on that. Both are solid companies and his poor track record could just be a fluke.

The card he told me to get was this one

But then he told me that since the game I want doens't come out for a month my best bet would be to wait until the last minute possible and buy then. All the cards I've been looking at may go down in price as the market for them fluctuates rapidly.


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## ToeClaws (Jan 25, 2010)

Conker said:


> The card he told me to get was this one
> 
> But then he told me that since the game I want doens't come out for a month my best bet would be to wait until the last minute possible and buy then. All the cards I've been looking at may go down in price as the market for them fluctuates rapidly.



That video card is good too, but a bit weaker than the 5750.  

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?cpu=GeForce+GTS+250

But the premise of waiting is correct - prices change pretty quickly in the world of PC parts.  Generally they shift about every 12 weeks.


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## Runefox (Jan 25, 2010)

The GTS 250 also doesn't have DX11 support - Not sure how much of an issue that'll be, but AvP is one of the games that will include support for the new DX version. Apparently, the visual difference is quite amazing (tessellation for the win).

By the time AvP drops (mid-February), there might not be a huge change in the market; However, it's possible, and for that matter, you could monitor the prices over the next little while to try and get a deal. You should probably grab the power supply while it's on sale, however.


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## Gray Fang (Jan 26, 2010)

Just a little note

The PoweSupply in the Current system Totaly forbids any modern Graphics card atm, as ppl already said it need too be beefed up too 500-750w depending on what card ya want. Anything Really new Like GTX260 or equal or better. Would in my opinion be a waste of time as it will be so severly bottlednecked by the CPU in your system that you would proably have verry little improvement at modern games if any.

I tried running my GTX 260 in a AMD X2 system.. was about same as using the 7800 GTX GS witch is 5 years old at min.

I would proably sold it and get a new machine ^^


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## Conker (Jan 26, 2010)

Gray Fang said:


> Just a little note
> 
> The PoweSupply in the Current system Totaly forbids any modern Graphics card atm, as ppl already said it need too be beefed up too 500-750w depending on what card ya want. Anything Really new Like GTX260 or equal or better. *Would in my opinion be a waste of time as it will be so severly bottlednecked by the CPU in your system that you would proably have verry little improvement at modern games if any.*
> 
> ...


Can you explain that better? And I plan on getting both of the items Runefox recommends. After talking it over with multiple people, those seem to be the best for their prices.

But can you please clarify what you just posted?


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