Other Hardware New Video Card Advice

[delta12]

I hope someone can help me.

I currently have an ATI Sapphire Radeon X1650 Pro AP 256MB DDR3 video card.

I'm thinking of replacing it with another card so that I can take advantage of the CUDA support for Nvidia cards.

I do not play games on my computer and therefore do not require anything expensive.

I have found this card...

http://www.ebuyer.com/410043-evga-gt-610-1gb-ddr3-dual-dvi-mini-hdmi-pci-e-graphics-card-01g-p3-2616-kr

...it's about £40, it has CUDA support.

Is it worth investing in this card? How much of an improvement (if any) will I see?

Many thanks,

Lee

[ゲゲゲの鬼太郎]

Here is the card you are looking at as listed on New Egg.
Scroll down and you'll find the Specifications tab.

I'd say this card isn't going to do much more than your current card. Then again, your current card is old enough that they don't even list it any more.



Here is a much better option for you if you are willing to spend just a little bit more to get your moneys worth.



Note that these cards all have GDDR5 memory and also the next step up would be the current generation of nVidia cards which is the GTX 700 series.

You can also find the same cards on TigerDirect if you would like to do some price comparisons. But both these sights will allow you to check out the reviews for the cards which will help you to pick out a good one, not just for use with DVDFab, but also for use with other stuff such as graphic, watching videos or what ever it is you like to do for which the GPU can come in handy.

Personally I'm an AMD fan.

Good Luck

[glenns]

The cards with 768 cuda cores in the second link are a lot faster than the 1st link provided by above post.I have a low cuda core 96 count and it's slow so I recommended the much higher core count for speed.

[delta12]

Many thanks for your posts.

In light of your messages I am looking at purchasing one of two products...

ASUS GeForce GTX650

http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/GTX650DC1GD5/#overview

http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/GTX650DCT1GD5#overview

I just need to work out whether it will go in my workstation (HP dc7800 - Convertible Minitower PC) http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/ca/en...512.html?dnr=2
...I will take the case off to see if it will physically fit, but I also need to check power requirements to see if the power supply will support it (I'm having difficulty confirming this as the moment)!

Lee

[ゲゲゲの鬼太郎]

Wish I had seen your system Specs before recommending a newer video card.

According to the specs for your system, a full height card should fit.

Expansion Slots: 3 full-height PCI, 1 full-height PCI Express x16, 2 full-height PCI Express x1

But also, I would say that seeing as you are running a Celeron Processor and an older model at that, It may just be time to upgrade your entire system if you want to take advantage of newer video cards.

Your old video card which you are looking to replace is PCIe 2.0 yet the specs of your system do not list PCIe 2.0 - They look to be PCIe 1.0 (1st generation).

Also your system has plenty of bottlenecks the memory being one of them, DDR2 old and slow. The system Bus isn't going to be able to the handle a lot of the newer cards which are mostly PCIe 3.0

You might want to check these out.



Or stop by Staples or Best Buy and purchase one of last years models which have been discounted. You can still get them with Windows 7 on them. I recommend Windows 7 Ultimate.

You can find it on Amazon or TigerDirect and if you're going to do the Bare Bones Kit, then you could get yourself the Windows 7 Ultimate OEM Builders package as this is cheaper.

What you decide to do is entirely up to you and what your budget can afford. For all I know, you might just decide to go the enthusiast route and build a new system entirely from scratch which is my preferred method. Research and buy each and every item individually according to what you like and really want and you'll find you'll have a system which may just last you for the next 5 to 10 years before you decide to replace it with a better one.

My whole point is you wouldn't put one of those giant turbochargers on a Volkswagen bug. Cause if you did, the moment you flipped the switch for the turbocharger, the beetle would most probably blow up as Turbochargers are meant for V-8 engines and they have to be carefully tuned. They are basically meant for Drag Racing.

[martythebrit]

delta12; I don't know your skill level, but building your own system is the way to go. I would use an Intel 'i' CPU with built-in graphics which would give you access to Intel Quick Sync.

[delta12]

Many thanks for your replies.

Yeah, building a workstation is not the issue. It's the funds that I don't have! :-(

I was hoping to implement a quick/dirty fix.

I'll save my pennies! :-)

Lee