Graphics card upgrade
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Looking to upgrade my son's (hand me down) computer. It has this motherboard:
https://www.pc-specs.com/mobo/MSI/MSI_B85M-P33/2196
Looking to get, e.g.:
It looks to me like it should work. It takes a PCIE e3.0x16, which the motherboard has, plus it wants a 6pin power connector. Looking inside I don't think the power supply (Turbolink ATX-XG500W ) has that, so I guess I'd need to get an LP4 to 6-pin adaptor?
Does that seem like it would work?
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@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
Looking inside I don't think the power supply (Turbolink ATX-XG500W ) has that, so I guess I'd need to get an LP4 to 6-pin adaptor?
I'd definitely get a new power supply. Even if it "works", which I don't think it will, an underpowered crappy PSU is not what you want in a gaming PC.
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@dfdub said in Graphics card upgrade:
an underpowered crappy PSU
I mean...the datasheet linked at Amazon says 300W is recommended and this is higher than that, so in theory it's not underpowered, but it's definitely not new but I guess you're telling me it's not considered very good.
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@boomzilla this is a very bad time to upgrade GPU. Everything is twice the price it was a few months ago. Wait a month or two, and you'll save at least $100.
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@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
but I guess you're telling me it's not considered very good
The first few Google results are all teardowns that make fun of how crappy this particular model is, so yeah, that's what I was trying to say. The photos speak for themselves.
In general, you should never cheap out on the PSU - if you're "lucky", it'll only lead to an unstable system and if you're unlucky, it'll fail pretty quickly and potentially take other components with it.
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@Gąska said in Graphics card upgrade:
@boomzilla this is a very bad time to upgrade GPU. Everything is twice the price it was a few months ago. Wait a month or two, and you'll save at least $100.
Well...his birthday is Tuesday and then Friday is Christmas. The timing is what it is.
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@dfdub said in Graphics card upgrade:
@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
but I guess you're telling me it's not considered very good
The first few Google results are all teardowns that make fun of how crappy this particular model is, so yeah, that's what I was trying to say. The photos speak for themselves.
In general, you should never cheap out on the PSU - if you're "lucky", it'll only lead to an unstable system and if you're unlucky, it'll fail pretty quickly and potentially take other components with it.
Yeah...fair enough. I've never been into building PCs or gaming or whatever.
So...what's a decent PSU to buy?
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@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
So...what's a decent PSU to buy?
I've had good experiences with the more expensive Thermaltake and be quiet! models, but I can't name any particular one. Some general recommendations:
- Buy a modular PSU. You'll hate yourself if you don't.
- There are calculators on the internet that estimate how much power you actually need with all components (including stuff like the fans). Add at least 100W to that to account for power spikes.
- If the regular price is less than $80, it's probably crap.
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@dfdub said in Graphics card upgrade:
modular PSU
I didn't even know these were words that went together.
EDIT: but after a quick search, I can see what you meant and it seems obvious.
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@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
It looks to me like it should work. It takes a PCIE e3.0x16, which the motherboard has, plus it wants a 6pin power connector. Looking inside I don't think the power supply (Turbolink ATX-XG500W ) has that, so I guess I'd need to get an LP4 to 6-pin adaptor?
Does that seem like it would work?Should be fine
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@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
@Gąska said in Graphics card upgrade:
@boomzilla this is a very bad time to upgrade GPU. Everything is twice the price it was a few months ago. Wait a month or two, and you'll save at least $100.
Well...his birthday is Tuesday and then Friday is Christmas. The timing is what it is.
Get him socks or something. But it's your money, do what you want with it. I'm just saying, that GPU is worth no more than $150; it's quite low-end, not much of an upgrade unless you have something really ancient.
@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
So...what's a decent PSU to buy?
Corsair, EVGA, Seasonic, Super Flower, Thermaltake are good brands. Not much difference between them, so get whatever's on promo at the moment. Generally, if PSU has 80+ Bronze certification, it may or may not be good, but if it doesn't have it, it's definitely bad.
There's this frequently quoted list of good PSUs that gets linked a lot around internet, it might be useful:
[EOL] PSU Tier List rev. 14.8
![[EOL] PSU Tier List rev. 14.8](https://pbs-prod.linustechtips.com/monthly_2023_05/s-l500.png.05952a6cb1062236c19089bde64b8073.png)
PSU Tier List 4.0 rev. 14.8 (END OF LIFE) Last Update: 27-07-2021 Legend : Gray - EoL/obsolete and/or otherwise not recommended for purchase. Green - small form-factor (gold and blue colors are disregarded due to scarcity of SFX PSUs) Gold - best units in the tier (includes requirements for blue ...
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@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
the datasheet linked at Amazon says 300W is recommended and this is higher than that, so in theory it's not underpowered
When I upgraded my graphics card a couple of years ago, my PSU theoretically should have had (just barely) enough power. GPU says, "No."
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@Gąska said in Graphics card upgrade:
I'm just saying, that GPU is worth no more than $150; it's quite low-end, not much of an upgrade unless you have something really ancient.
LOL, yeah...he currently has no card. Just Intel integrated graphics. I think the plan will be to see what money he gets in gifts in the next week and go from there.
Corsair, EVGA, Seasonic, Super Flower, Thermaltake are good brands. Not much difference between them, so get whatever's on promo at the moment. Generally, if PSU has 80+ Bronze certification, it may or may not be good, but if it doesn't have it, it's definitely bad.
OK, I can work with that.
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@HardwareGeek said in Graphics card upgrade:
@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
the datasheet linked at Amazon says 300W is recommended and this is higher than that, so in theory it's not underpowered
When I upgraded my graphics card a couple of years ago, my PSU theoretically should have had (just barely) enough power. GPU says, "No."
Yeah...this is 200W over the recommended...but apparently a low end thing, which doesn't terribly surprise me all things considered. The machine it was put into wasn't supposed to be anything like a gaming machine.
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@Gąska said in Graphics card upgrade:
Corsair, EVGA, Seasonic, Super Flower, Thermaltake are good brands. Not much difference between them, so get whatever's on promo at the moment. Generally, if PSU has 80+ Bronze certification, it may or may not be good, but if it doesn't have it, it's definitely bad.
Agreed. I've bought EVGA and Super Flower PSUs and never had any issues with them. Sale prices chose my brands for me.
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@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
Yeah...fair enough. I've never been into building PCs or gaming or whatever.
So...what's a decent PSU to buy?Mirror what
says about 80+ bronze certified.The thing to note about PSUs is that the listed output is their peak output. So, a 450W PSU can output at max 450W. What can happen, especially in cheaper PSU is that as you near that limit it will start to throw bad power and it can seriously damage your components. The good brands will have a % listed on their PSUs (80%, 90%, etc...) that is their true maximum sustained load levels before they will start to fail.
So in actuality that 450W PSU @80% is only good for 360W of sustained power output. This is when it is brand new, cheaper PSUs will slowly drop-off from this point over time as well.
My general rule of thumb for PSUs size is add all the components power draw together and double it. Find a decent power supply that can sustain at least that level when new. That PSU should outlast all of the other components.
Oh, one other thing to keep in mind is what the thermal conditions are going to be like for the PSU (and the machine in general). Obviously, heat degrades performance, so if this PC is going to be in a hot location it makes a lot of sense to get a beefier PSU than needed to reduce its over all load levels and thus, reduce its heat output. It might not seem like much but upgrading the PSU in my fathers PC (which is inside of a small space) dropped the temp (in the small space) by almost 5°F.
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@Gąska said in Graphics card upgrade:
@boomzilla this is a very bad time to upgrade GPU. Everything is twice the price it was a few months ago. Wait a month or two, and you'll save at least $100.
Does it make sense to buy a used one off ebay? All those people upgrading to the new cards are going to want to sell their old ones.
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@Dragoon said in Graphics card upgrade:
My general rule of thumb for PSUs size is add all the components power draw together and double it.
The thing to keep in mind is that 80+ certification guarantees 80% or more efficiency between 20% and 100% load (see Wikipedia). Below 20% load the efficiency seems to drop off quite quickly. Going too much over spec isn't ideal either.
Somewhere around 500-650W is what I would consider the sweet spot for a single-GPU machine without anything weird in it. (I've got a 650W with a RTX 2070 at the moment.)
Otherwise, what others have said. Get one with the 80+ Bronze or better certification. Stick to well known brands (Corsair, Thermaltake, Seasonic, ...). Get a modular one if you can; if you can't, make sure there is space for stowing the extra cables. Make sure it is the right size (probably not an issue unless you go for something very overpowered). Perhaps briefly check the reviews. Other than the efficiency (Bronze, Sliver, ...), the main thing that will differ is likely noise levels.
There is apparently a new standard for the motherboard's power connector since this year. I don't really know anything about, but it's probably good to verify that you get the right one (which is probably the old 24-pin standard).
If it's a cheap upgrade, go for higher efficiency.
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@dangeRuss said in Graphics card upgrade:
@Gąska said in Graphics card upgrade:
@boomzilla this is a very bad time to upgrade GPU. Everything is twice the price it was a few months ago. Wait a month or two, and you'll save at least $100.
Does it make sense to buy a used one off ebay? All those people upgrading to the new cards are going to want to sell their old ones.
That's mildly dangerous. There's a good chance there are dead mining cards, or just generally dead GPUs out there. GPUs have a high enough failure rate that I'd be... at least a little cautious
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@dangeRuss said in Graphics card upgrade:
@Gąska said in Graphics card upgrade:
@boomzilla this is a very bad time to upgrade GPU. Everything is twice the price it was a few months ago. Wait a month or two, and you'll save at least $100.
Does it make sense to buy a used one off ebay? All those people upgrading to the new cards are going to want to sell their old ones.
From what I hear, you probably missed the opportunity a bit. When the new GPUs were announced, a lot of old people apparently tried to sell their old GPUs to get money for a new one. Which turned out to be a bad idea, because there weren't (and still aren't) enough new GPUs to go around.
I briefly checked - brand new, I'd pay more for a RTX 2070 now than I did when I bought it in early 2019, and that's assuming I can find one somewhere. I'd be surprised if ebay were in a better state. Right now just doesn't seem to be a good time to get a GPU.
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@sloosecannon said in Graphics card upgrade:
@dangeRuss said in Graphics card upgrade:
@Gąska said in Graphics card upgrade:
@boomzilla this is a very bad time to upgrade GPU. Everything is twice the price it was a few months ago. Wait a month or two, and you'll save at least $100.
Does it make sense to buy a used one off ebay? All those people upgrading to the new cards are going to want to sell their old ones.
That's mildly dangerous. There's a good chance there are dead mining cards, or just generally dead GPUs out there. GPUs have a high enough failure rate that I'd be... at least a little cautious
I know nothing about GPUs but while yes you have a risk of it arriving DOA, you should be protected by eBay guarantee. Now, for things like where it's just glitchy that might be a bigger issue, not sure if there's something like memtest86 for graphic cards.
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@dangeRuss said in Graphics card upgrade:
@sloosecannon said in Graphics card upgrade:
@dangeRuss said in Graphics card upgrade:
@Gąska said in Graphics card upgrade:
@boomzilla this is a very bad time to upgrade GPU. Everything is twice the price it was a few months ago. Wait a month or two, and you'll save at least $100.
Does it make sense to buy a used one off ebay? All those people upgrading to the new cards are going to want to sell their old ones.
That's mildly dangerous. There's a good chance there are dead mining cards, or just generally dead GPUs out there. GPUs have a high enough failure rate that I'd be... at least a little cautious
I know nothing about GPUs but while yes you have a risk of it arriving DOA, you should be protected by eBay guarantee. Now, for things like where it's just glitchy that might be a bigger issue, not sure if there's something like memtest86 for graphic cards.
Certainly: https://www.raymond.cc/blog/having-problems-with-video-card-stress-test-its-memory/
That being said, I don't think it is worth it for the average person to buy a card from ebay.
For other tests (not just card memory) this is a decent list of tests, but there are others: https://www.tomshardware.com/features/gpu-tests
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@dangeRuss said in Graphics card upgrade:
@Gąska said in Graphics card upgrade:
@boomzilla this is a very bad time to upgrade GPU. Everything is twice the price it was a few months ago. Wait a month or two, and you'll save at least $100.
Does it make sense to buy a used one off ebay?
Nope, used cards are very expensive too.
All those people upgrading to the new cards are going to want to sell their old ones.
If only they could get their hands on those new cards!
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@cvi said in Graphics card upgrade:
Below 20% load the efficiency seems to drop off quite quickly.
PSUs, like any electronics, have certain internal loads that are not dependent on the external consumption. This will kill mathematical efficiency at low loads, even if it doesn't really affect the PSU's functioning. Meaning, if the PSU uses a static 5W for it's internal operation, and you pull another 5W out of it, then it'll have a <50% mathematical efficiency.
Another reason.
Due to having to isolate from the grid, the PSU's circuitry is divided to 2 halfs, the boundary of which is the transformer coils. Thing is, the PSU needs some power to keep itself running, and usually gets it from a secondary coil in the same transformer block, just to keep the component count to a minimum. Unfortunately, this also means that the PSU then has a minimum consumption just so it can keep itself up and running. Going below that minimum means that the PSU will either need to waste electricity as heat to keep running (good PSUs), or fail and shutdown (bad PSUs).On a well-designed PSU, that enforced minimum consumption is something like 1W-2W. So it isn't really a reason for choosing a lower-wattage-rated PSU. I'd look at reviews for idle- and low-consumption behavior.
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@boomzilla I would not get a 1650 as it's an abysmally bad card on the level of being beaten by 2-3 year old, and (at the time) cheaper, Radeon GPUs on release, primarily the RX580 which has had the combination of being the value champion for years and aged really well. I would at least look for a 1650 Super or consider going 1660/Ti/Super among the low end GTX cards.
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@Atazhaia said in Graphics card upgrade:
I would at least look for a 1650 Super or consider going 1660/Ti/Super among the low end GTX cards.
Is the 1660 Super/Ti affordable right now? I would have recommended it as well (bought it for my SO a while ago, since it was the best non-RTX Card and quite affordable at the time), but the prices are probably crazy ATM.
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@dfdub Looking up current pricing, the 1660 is a bit more (66%) expensive than the 1650 yes. And the crazy pricing make the RX 580 cost as much as one.
Although I would still get a 1650 Super over a regular 1650. The price difference isn't that big from what I can see.
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@Atazhaia said in Graphics card upgrade:
I would at least look for a 1650 Super
That would be my recommendation too if they didn't cost $400 nowadays.
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@Gąska That's more than I paid for the 1660 Ti.
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@dfdub yup. Really bad time to buy any GPU.
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@Gąska On my local Kijiji, right now someone is selling a 1660 Super for $300 Canadian. I guess that's a pretty good price, especially considering the current situation, but I'm not looking to buy a video card
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@hungrier MSRP $229 USD. So I guess it's not that bad. Still bad, considering it's used (I assume it's used) - just not that bad.
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@Gąska 300 CAD is about 230 USD, so "just about retail" for what claims to be a near-mint lightly used card sounds pretty good compared to 3x retail for the new one
e: Didn't see your edit, but yeah.
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@Gąska said in Graphics card upgrade:
@Atazhaia said in Graphics card upgrade:
I would at least look for a 1650 Super
That would be my recommendation too if they didn't cost $400 nowadays.
Best Buy seems to have a 1650 Super for $204 and a Ti for $299. They don't have any Supers locally but the store near my house says it has the Ti in stock.
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For the people saying to wait a bit:
Graphics cards are about to get a lot more expensive, Asus warns
Graphics card prices were bad in 2020. In 2021, Asus says they'll rise even higher, thanks to tariffs, increased shipping costs, and more.
In any case, to wrap this up, it turned out that my son gave me the wrong motherboard model. Correct series, but wrong model, which I discovered shortly before we planned to head to MicroCenter (fortunately). It didn't have a PCIe v3.0 slot, so we'd have to upgrade the motherboard, too, which was more of a project than I was comfortable with, all things considered.
In the end we decided to pool my son's $600 dependent part of our coronadoom2 stimulus with his money from Christmas and existing savings and got a full new (to him) machine from Dell Outlet. I don't recall all the details except it has a 1660 Ti card.
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@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
It didn't have a PCIe v3.0 slot
As far as I know, PCIe versions are backwards (and forwards) compatible. That is, a PCIe v3.0 card will work with a PCIe v2.0 motherboard, albeit at PCIe v2.0 speeds.
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@cvi hmmm....well, that still seems sub-optimal. I think trying to upgrade his old hand-me-down was not a great road to go down, all things considered.
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@cvi said in Graphics card upgrade:
@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
It didn't have a PCIe v3.0 slot
As far as I know, PCIe versions are backwards (and forwards) compatible. That is, a PCIe v3.0 card will work with a PCIe v2.0 motherboard, albeit at PCIe v2.0 speeds.
PCIe is like the anti-
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@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
It didn't have a PCIe v3.0 slot, so we'd have to upgrade the motherboard, too
If you mean that it only has a PCI-E 2.0 then you technically wouldn't have to, they're backwards compatible. Hell, you could even go as far back as 1.0.
Of course your graphics card would then have its throughput limited. When 3.0 was originally introduced the difference was immeasurable, nowadays I imagine that would no longer be the case.
That said it sounds like you're dealing with some pretty old hardware (pre-2014?) so I suspect you would have been bottlenecked by other things as well anyway.
Edit: Bit late to the party.
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@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
EDIT: but after a quick search, I can see what you meant and it seems obvious.
After Googling, I went from "I didn't know that was a thing" to "I didn't know not having that was a thing."
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@error pretty much.
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@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
@cvi hmmm....well, that still seems sub-optimal. I think trying to upgrade his old hand-me-down was not a great road to go down, all things considered.
Just out of interest, what graphics card was in the original system?
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@Deadfast said in Graphics card upgrade:
Just out of interest, what graphics card was in the original system?
No card. Some kind of Intel Integrated thing.
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@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
@Deadfast said in Graphics card upgrade:
Just out of interest, what graphics card was in the original system?
No card. Some kind of Intel Integrated thing.
Oh, I see. In that case putting pretty much anything into it would make a huge difference. If you want a second system (or add value so that you can get rid off it more easily) I'd put in a used GTX 970 or 980. Shouldn't need to touch the power supply.
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@Deadfast said in Graphics card upgrade:
@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
@Deadfast said in Graphics card upgrade:
Just out of interest, what graphics card was in the original system?
No card. Some kind of Intel Integrated thing.
Oh, I see. In that case putting pretty much anything into it would make a huge difference. If you want a second system (or add value so that you can get rid off it more easily) I'd put in a used GTX 970 or 980. Shouldn't need to touch the power supply.
I'm sure this advice will help him with last year's Christmas shopping.
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@Deadfast said in Graphics card upgrade:
@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
@Deadfast said in Graphics card upgrade:
Just out of interest, what graphics card was in the original system?
No card. Some kind of Intel Integrated thing.
Oh, I see. In that case putting pretty much anything into it would make a huge difference. If you want a second system (or add value so that you can get rid off it more easily) I'd put in a used GTX 970 or 980. Shouldn't need to touch the power supply.
What brought this about was a recent War Thunder update that made the game pretty much unplayable on the machine. While those probably would have been an improvement it's my understanding that they wouldn't have met the minimum criterion for the upgrade.
But even if it did, I'd worry that it wouldn't be satisfactory for very long, so might as well try to do it a little bit right the first time.
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@error said in Graphics card upgrade:
@Deadfast said in Graphics card upgrade:
@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
@Deadfast said in Graphics card upgrade:
Just out of interest, what graphics card was in the original system?
No card. Some kind of Intel Integrated thing.
Oh, I see. In that case putting pretty much anything into it would make a huge difference. If you want a second system (or add value so that you can get rid off it more easily) I'd put in a used GTX 970 or 980. Shouldn't need to touch the power supply.
I'm sure this advice will help him with last year's Christmas shopping.
It might help with having a PC rendered useless by last year's Christmas shopping, as I wrote.
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@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
@cvi hmmm....well, that still seems sub-optimal. I think trying to upgrade his old hand-me-down was not a great road to go down, all things considered.
Sure, I don't think a full upgrade was a bad choice given the age and the other things mentioned in this thread. It's something to keep mind, I guess: you don't need to upgrade GPU and motherboard/CPU in lockstep.
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@Deadfast said in Graphics card upgrade:
It might help with having a PC rendered useless by last year's Christmas shopping, as I wrote.
Oh darn, that'll teach me to jump from the first page to the last page.
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@boomzilla said in Graphics card upgrade:
But even if it did, I'd worry that it wouldn't be satisfactory for very long, so might as well try to do it a little bit right the first time.
While I'm certain even a GTX 970 could run War Thunder I think you did the right thing. I imagine the last thing you want to be doing when you get home is servicing your son's PC when the questionable PSU or second-hand VGA kicks the bucket.
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