What are graphics cards like these days?
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So the GF's graphics card went and died on her. She asked if I could help her pick out one that will work correctly with an AMD CPU. I know enough to know that it's not the CPU you need to worry about compatibility with; it's the motherboard and what sort of slots it uses. But I haven't actually purchased a new graphics card in something like 8 years, so my knowledge of the details is woefully out of date.
Assume I used to know all this stuff, and have built several desktop systems from scratch, but it's been a decade since I did any of that. What do I need to know about modern graphics hardware to finesse my way through a situation like this? I have about 2 hours to get caught up on it, or I end up looking bad in front of her.
Help!
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@masonwheeler said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
So the GF's graphics card went and died on her. She asked if I could help her pick out one that will work correctly with an AMD CPU. I know enough to know that it's not the CPU you need to worry about compatibility with; it's the motherboard and what sort of slots it uses. But I haven't actually purchased a new graphics card in something like 8 years, so my knowledge of the details is woefully out of date.
Assume I used to know all this stuff, and have built several desktop systems from scratch, but it's been a decade since I did any of that. What do I need to know about modern graphics hardware to finesse my way through a situation like this? I have about 2 hours to get caught up on it, or I end up looking bad in front of her.
Help!
My son is an avid gamer, and strives for top of the line. He is not around right now [he is in his 30's and has a family], but let me know [private chat] if you want me to reach out - though it will be outside your time windows?
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@thecpuwizard said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
though it will be outside your time windows
Yeah, anything not in the next hour or so isn't particularly helpful to me. Thanks for being willing though.
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The slots aren't actually a big issue anymore; PCI Express x 16 has been pretty much universal for video cards since around 2007 or so. OTOH, if the motherboard in question is so old that it doesn't have a PCIe x16 slot, you've got a problem.
The bigger issues now are a) nVidia vs AMD, b) single or dual card, and c) price. The CPU does matter somewhat, in that most newer CPUs (since 2012-ish) have differing degrees of built-in support for SIMD operations, but this isn't really a hardware compatibility matter so much as a 'bang for your buck' one.
Some AMD CPUs have an 'APU' on-die, which is basically a simplified GPU as I understand it, but that's not an issue with an older CPU and mobo. Those are mostly seen in low-cost and mobile/laptop models anyway, where the assumption is that you will be using fixed hardware on the mobo and shared video memory.
The question thus becomes, how powerful a card does she need? Chances, are, unless she's a PC Master Race Major League Video Gamer™, or doing heavy video or audio editing, she can get by with pretty much any single-card setup. Say, an nVidia 1050 (or even the last-gen 960) or an AMD 74xx. I do recommend getting one with at least 1GB of GDDR5, but again, unless you need the crunch that gives, you can probably do fine with GDDR3.
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@scholrlea Thanks, that looks very helpful!
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PCIe x16 is pretty much the universal connector now but also remember to check out what power connector the graphics card requires vs. what power connector your power supply gives you. Last time I got a graphics card I had to go back to the parts store three times because I kept getting adapters that were the wrong thing (I think I ended up with a Molex to PCIe 6+2 or something). Also it's rare, but AIUI it's possible the graphics card's power draw may exceed what you have available on existing connectors, adapted or not.
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@heterodox said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
check out what power connector the graphics card requires vs. what power connector your power supply gives you.
This. Probably too late to help out @masonwheeler, but I'll say it anyway. When I bought a new card a few months ago, I had to make a second trip for a new power supply. The OEM supply could handle the current (though just barely), but it only had a 6-pin connector, and the card refused to do anything except display "Moar power, dude!" without the full 6+2 connected.
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Thanks, guys. We managed to get it working. :)
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@hardwaregeek said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
the card refused to do anything except display "Moar power, dude!" without the full 6+2 connected.
That's really interesting. Graphic cards are in a unique position to do that.
Now I'm imagining a discrete sound card trying to cry for help.
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@zecc said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
Now I'm imagining a discrete sound card trying to cry for help.
As long as it doesn't make too much fuss
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@jaloopa said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
As long as it doesn't make too much fuss
It wouldn't have enough power to shout. That's why it would cry discretely.
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@scholrlea said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
The CPU does matter somewhat, in that most newer CPUs (since 2012-ish) have differing degrees of built-in support for SIMD operations, but this isn't really a hardware compatibility matter so much as a 'bang for your buck' one.
I don't think the SIMD capabilities (SSE2, SSE3, ..., AVX, AVX2, etc) really matter; at least, the NVIDIA drivers don't list any minimum requirements w.r.t. any more (I'm relatively sure they did at some point). SIMD would help you with CPU-side computations, but the driver really shouldn't be doing too many of those with any modern discrete GPU.
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@masonwheeler said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
Thanks, guys. We managed to get it working. :)
And this, ladies and gentlemen (and variously gendered people), is how TD saved @masonwheeler's relationship!
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@zecc said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
That's why it would cry discretely.
But would it do so discreetly?
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@remi said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
And this, ladies and gentlemen (and variously gendered people), is how TD saved @masonwheeler's relationship!
I'll just discreetly say... things are going well. :)
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@carrievs said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
But would it do so discreetly?
For that you wood need a discreet sound card.
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@masonwheeler said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
@remi said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
And this, ladies and gentlemen (and variously gendered people), is how TD saved @masonwheeler's relationship!
I'll just discreetly say... things are going well. :)
How about your wallet?
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@gąska What about my wallet?
She was buying the new graphics card; she just needed some help picking one out.
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@masonwheeler said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
picking one out.
well then just google {cpu model} {mobo model} {3d accelerator model} {issues | problems | crashing}, it doesn't take a pro to do this
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@bugmenot said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
it doesn't take a pro to do this
But when you're dating a pro (sort of; I'm a professional software developer, not a professional hardware builder but close enough) why not take advantage of it? :P
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@masonwheeler said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
@bugmenot said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
it doesn't take a pro to do this
But when you're dating a pro (sort of; I'm a professional software developer, not a professional hardware builder but close enough) why not take advantage of it? :P
pshaw, the pro is there to confirm this approach is correct. Nobody is more reliable than google on random compatibility issues
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@masonwheeler said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
@bugmenot said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
it doesn't take a pro to do this
But when you're dating a pro (sort of; I'm a professional software developer, not a professional hardware builder but close enough) why not take advantage of it? :P
Does she know the pro immediately outsourced the job?
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@jaloopa said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
Does she know the pro immediately outsourced the job?
@masonwheeler said in OP:
I have about 2 hours to get caught up on it, or I end up looking bad in front of her.
guess not
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@scholrlea said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
The slots aren't actually a big issue anymore; PCI Express x 16 has been pretty much universal for video cards since around 2007 or so. OTOH, if the motherboard in question is so old that it doesn't have a PCIe x16 slot, you've got a problem.
Even though the physical connector is the same the speed of the link has increased, though. I wouldn't put a current-gen PCIe 3.0 graphics card in an old PCIe 1.0 port, as I don't think it would have enough capacity in the link to be able to run the card well.
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@atazhaia said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
I wouldn't put a current-gen PCIe 3.0 graphics card in an old PCIe 1.0 port, as I don't think it would have enough capacity in the link to be able to run the card well.
The transfers should just run at PCIe 1.0 speeds. The bandwidth to the GPU will be limited, of course, but whether or not that will matter depends a lot on whether or not the stuff you try to run attempts to aggressively stream to (from?) the GPU and/or if you have enough VRAM to have the data stay on the GPU. (I had a PCIe3.0 card in a 2.0 slot for the longest time.)
A high-end current-gen GPU in a 1.0 slot might be a bit silly, but a low-/middle-end card? Meh.
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@cvi Yeah. Something like the GT series, or mid-range AMD cards should work fine even on 1.0. Although with hardware that old the CPU and/or memory may be more of a bottleneck than the link speed anyway. I run a GTX 1070 in a PCIe 2.0 slot and it works fine, although a 2.0 x16 is a little more transfer speed than a 3.0 x8 which is the minimum requirement for the GTX 10-series afaik. Could even step up to dual-GPU if I want, as I can run two x16 slots at full speed.
From what I heard the next generation of high-end GPUs may need more bandwidth than 2.0 can provide however, as I already have heard reports of current high-end GPUs being throttled when running on 2.0 due to lack of bandwidth in some cases.
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@masonwheeler said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
Thanks, guys. We managed to get it working. :)
So what did you end up buying and what's the frame-rate of her facebook browsing now?
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This post is deleted!
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@atazhaia said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
as I already have heard reports of current high-end GPUs being throttled when running on 2.0 due to lack of bandwidth in some cases.
We're running a setup with 2x TITAN with x8 on each (not my choice, but I'll work with it :-)), there doesn't seem to be any throttling/perf. decrease compared to x16 as far as I could measure (so, 2 TITANS give almost exactly 2x the performance). 3.0 x8 should be a tiny bit less BW than a 2.0 x16. Our problem isn't exactly high-BW across the PCIe-bus (we're using the GPUs for their compute, we don't even need to touch VRAM a lot of the time), so that's more or less what I expected.
If I had to guess, the GPU isn't being throttled per se, but rather the application you're measuring on is saturating the bus somehow. If you have any benchmarks related to this, I'd be interested, though.
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@zecc said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
So what did you end up buying and what's the frame-rate of her facebook browsing now?
Don't remember what the card is, but she says Fallout runs way better now. :P
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@cvi Did some looking around, and in the majority of cases it seems to be neglible difference in performance.
Based off the results, I'd say the deciding factor is the extent to which the GPU needs to use the system RAM, as it's the extreme resolutions that takes a noticable performance hit.
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@zecc said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
@hardwaregeek said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
the card refused to do anything except display "Moar power, dude!" without the full 6+2 connected.
That's really interesting. Graphic cards are in a unique position to do that.
Now I'm imagining a discrete sound card trying to cry for help.
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@zecc said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
@hardwaregeek said in What are graphics cards like these days?:
the card refused to do anything except display "Moar power, dude!" without the full 6+2 connected.
That's really interesting. Graphic cards are in a unique position to do that.
Now I'm imagining a discrete sound card trying to cry for help.
I actually could try that as I got an Asus sound card with a PCIe power connector. I'm not using it atm, though, as I had to switch when I wanted to use Linux on that computer and there was a lack of driver problem.