The Eternal Video Card Question

Ok, folks, my video card is OLD. At least five years old, probably more like six and a half. It runs the game ok except in parties full of laggy spellcasters, but it is elderly and I just discovered that when the local shop rebuilt my computer (after the power supply they sold me to support the then-new video card died and took the old motherboard with it), the power supply they put in was underpowered for said video card. That was apparently not an issue when I was just web-browsing and watching the occasional streaming video, but PoE is pretty intensive. So I am not a happy camper, especially since my computer turned itself off today while I was in the middle of taking a brand new character to the Tidal Island.

But since the card is old, it probably makes more sense to get a new video card than to upgrade the power supply, and between Christmas coming up and my own alloted fun money I can probably manage to get a cheap one -- ideally $50-60 range, maybe $70-80 range if there's a really compelling case for it. All I really care about besides the price is that it performs at least as well as my old card and doesn't freak out when I binge game.

The old card is an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT, marketed as a Sapphire. The power supply is 500 watts. My PC has a 3Ghz Athlon II X2 250 processor and 4GB of RAM, so it doesn't do too badly for not being anything like a serious gaming rig (I don't actually play many PC games, but I loved Diablo II and I love Path of Exile). Anyone have recommendations?

GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Honestly?...in a group that is spamming effect heavy skill i'll doubt it'll matter much what card you have, i've hear of some high end nvidia ones that still struggle...though nvidia do seem to fare a bit better than AMD/ATI

That GeForce card seems to be some combination of difficult to find and/or out of my price range, as some sites I checked don't seem to carry it at all, and others are selling it for just over $100.

Not concerned about eliminating the lag from crazy CoC builds, I just suspect my elderly video card is dying and want one that can adequately replace it when it goes, plus there's the power supply wattage issue.

Bollocks, 500 W is more than plenty for such a card. I run a 380W PSU for a more demanding GPU and CPU without trouble. Maybe your 12V output is unstable.

Also, usually at least when toning down ingame graphics options (which you should do on old hardware), the cpu will be bottlenecking a lot more than your GPU. Run some monitoring prog to verify.

Lastly, I guess vendors don't bother selling hardware under a certain price treshold, they just list newer hardware. Hard to get ~3yo graphics cards for next to nothing. Better spend a couple bucks more and get something appropriate mid-end.

Good luck.

A 500w supply is plenty to handle any video card that doesn't require an external power plug. (a yellow/black bunch of cables that runs directly from the card to the power supply) In fact, even any that merely requires a basic 6-pin connector should be fine, so this'd cover most cards that AREN'T the uber-maximum-end type. (read: things where the second numerical digit is a 8 or 9 or maybe 7)

Of course, this depends on the power supply being ANY GOOD... The wattage rating only tells part of the story. Two different makers will rate the same supply differently. So, say, a Corsair 400w will run far better than an off-brand crappy unit labeled as "600w." (the bad ones tend to not actually be able to support their claims) There's a FEW checks, if you know what to look for, that are more hallmarks of better-made units.

Past a certain point, I've found that the video card makes less of a difference to your framerate than the CPU does. I discovered this in going from a Geforce 9800 GT to a GTX 750 Ti; the latter at least an order of magnitude more powerful... But didn't actually improve framerates one bit. The antiquated dual-core CPU that they were paired with was what was holding things back, ESPECIALLY when the screen filled with all those GMP-supported skills etc.

Granted, a 2600 XT is WELL below what a 9800GT is. So I'd probably see about upgrading it. Granted, you won't find any old cards out there... But some of the newer ones that are considered more "mainstream" level are certainly good. While perhaps a bit pricy for old hardware, something like a Geforce 750 Ti or a Radeon R7 260 (those'd be in the $110-130 range) would be good. Or for less, there's a Geforce GT 730 for about half that. Would provide plenty of power for PoE.

As it turns out, my dad the IT guy, who I did not expect to have any useful video cards because neither he nor his employer ever do anything that NEEDS much of a video card, had a spare GT 430. (The site I used to make sure I could run the game in the first place rated my card at about 65-75% of realistic (as opposed to minimum) system requirements, and it ran the game adequately (particularly since it also rated my CPU at about 120% and I have plenty of RAM); the GT 430 it rates at about 110%.) So assuming everything behaves itself, I'm back in business for very free and may even see a small performance upgrade. (Which was never my concern in the first place, it was the fact that my computer TURNED ITSELF OFF mid-game, which is never good.)

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Cidira wrote:

As it turns out, my dad the IT guy, who I did not expect to have any useful video cards because neither he nor his employer ever do anything that NEEDS much of a video card, had a spare GT 430. (The site I used to make sure I could run the game in the first place rated my card at about 65-75% of realistic (as opposed to minimum) system requirements, and it ran the game adequately (particularly since it also rated my CPU at about 120% and I have plenty of RAM); the GT 430 it rates at about 110%.) So assuming everything behaves itself, I'm back in business for very free and may even see a small performance upgrade. (Which was never my concern in the first place, it was the fact that my computer TURNED ITSELF OFF mid-game, which is never good.)

You'd be surprised at the video cards that will be bought by companies to do nothing more than spreadsheets.

But yes, the 430, while old, would mark a distinct improvement over the old card... Not a HUGE one, but an improvement nonetheless. The two cards have nearly identical power draw, so that shouldn't be much of an issue, either. Hopefully it all holds up and you're back to playing!