dumb lucario
(?)Community Member
Magical Businessman
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- Posted: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 22:23:17 +0000
So, I've been thinking about buying a low-profile card for our family computer just to at least give it the ability to run most modern games at medium settings in 720p (or 1080p in a few cases,) 'cause it's a little tiring having to turn down the settings for most games to the point to there they look even worse than a Dreamcast game and they still run at like, 10 FPS. I'm lucky enough to manage 20 - 30 FPS in Dungeon Defenders Eternity on the lowest settings in 800x600 (low settings disables the cel-shading that to me, gives the game a neat charm to it.)
A several years ago, we went through two video cards (those being a GT 430, then an HD5670,) and we had crashing issues with both of them. We eventually came to the conclusion that the motherboard was supposedly finicky and didn't like video cards. Recently, I found out that those two cards seem to be known for having a series of issues, so the mobo probably wasn't the issue. Then again, I believe it heavily depends on the manufacturer (the HD5670 was from VisionTek IIRC,) so I don't think that's entirely true.
I'm looking to get a low-profile one, because the CPU would probably bottleneck the crap out of something like a GTX 650, and the power supply probably wouldn't be able to give it enough juice. I don't know the wattage on our current PSU. I'm gonna assume 300W, same as the stock one which died about a year after we got the computer itself, because it seems to be doing pretty well. Then again, if I do happen to encounter any problems that might be related to the power supply, I suppose I could shell out another $40 - $70 for a brand new one.
My current consideration is this Radeon HD7750.
I've also been thinking about replacing the heatsink, since it gets annoyingly loud when under semi-heavy loads, and I don't think it's doing an amazing job at cooling the CPU down. I don't know much about heatsinks, but I'm wondering if this would do any justice. A new case fan like this probably wouldn't hurt as well.
I'm mainly doing this to keep myself busy with games that normally run like a** on the computer until I have the money to buy myself a decent gaming laptop. Or until the new Smash Bros. comes out.
So, any thoughts or suggestions?
PC specs:
A several years ago, we went through two video cards (those being a GT 430, then an HD5670,) and we had crashing issues with both of them. We eventually came to the conclusion that the motherboard was supposedly finicky and didn't like video cards. Recently, I found out that those two cards seem to be known for having a series of issues, so the mobo probably wasn't the issue. Then again, I believe it heavily depends on the manufacturer (the HD5670 was from VisionTek IIRC,) so I don't think that's entirely true.
I'm looking to get a low-profile one, because the CPU would probably bottleneck the crap out of something like a GTX 650, and the power supply probably wouldn't be able to give it enough juice. I don't know the wattage on our current PSU. I'm gonna assume 300W, same as the stock one which died about a year after we got the computer itself, because it seems to be doing pretty well. Then again, if I do happen to encounter any problems that might be related to the power supply, I suppose I could shell out another $40 - $70 for a brand new one.
My current consideration is this Radeon HD7750.
I've also been thinking about replacing the heatsink, since it gets annoyingly loud when under semi-heavy loads, and I don't think it's doing an amazing job at cooling the CPU down. I don't know much about heatsinks, but I'm wondering if this would do any justice. A new case fan like this probably wouldn't hurt as well.
I'm mainly doing this to keep myself busy with games that normally run like a** on the computer until I have the money to buy myself a decent gaming laptop. Or until the new Smash Bros. comes out.
So, any thoughts or suggestions?
PC specs:
Model: Dell Inspiron 570
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate
CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 630 2.8 GHz
RAM: 6 GB (thinking about upgrading this as well, but I think it should be fine, right?)
On-board GPU: Radeon HD4200
HDD: 1TB
PSU: Not the stock one, some used one my step brother found in storage. Probably somewhere around 300W.
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate
CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 630 2.8 GHz
RAM: 6 GB (thinking about upgrading this as well, but I think it should be fine, right?)
On-board GPU: Radeon HD4200
HDD: 1TB
PSU: Not the stock one, some used one my step brother found in storage. Probably somewhere around 300W.
