Looking for a budget upgrade for an older PC

[ShaneSee]

Greetings,

I have an "older gaming" PC I built "a few years" back that honestly is still doing mostly fine. For games I play WoW and SC2. I do a little Adobe Lightroom on my own photos and I do some occasional very minimal video edit, really just clips I shot, edited for time for use in presentations. The system has been a bit more sluggish now when working with video stuff so I'd like to try beefing up the video card just a little bit.

 

My system:

AMD FX-8350

16GB Ram (4x4)

PNY Signature GTX 570 1GB

500GB Crucial SATA SSD

750W power supply

Asus MB: M5A99FX PRO R2.0

Win 10 pro 

2 LG 24" 1080p 60hz monitors

 

Later this year or early next year I'm planning a full system upgrade, but I need something now for GPU. Right now, I can walk into local stores and buy a GTX 1650 or RX 6600 xt cheaper than any used GPU online. Both being around 250$CAD, but I'm pretty sure my PCI-E slots are gen 1, so is 6600xt even realistic?

 

Thanks for your input!

 

[dizmo]

Your slots definitely aren't gen 1. IIRC they're probably gen 3. You'll be fine.

Welcome to the forum.

[steelo]

5 hours ago, ShaneSee said:

Greetings,

I have an "older gaming" PC I built "a few years" back that honestly is still doing mostly fine. For games I play WoW and SC2. I do a little Adobe Lightroom on my own photos and I do some occasional very minimal video edit, really just clips I shot, edited for time for use in presentations. The system has been a bit more sluggish now when working with video stuff so I'd like to try beefing up the video card just a little bit.

 

My system:

AMD FX-8350

16GB Ram (4x4)

PNY Signature GTX 570 1GB

500GB Crucial SATA SSD

750W power supply

Asus MB: M5A99FX PRO R2.0

Win 10 pro 

2 LG 24" 1080p 60hz monitors

 

Later this year or early next year I'm planning a full system upgrade, but I need something now for GPU. Right now, I can walk into local stores and buy a GTX 1650 or RX 6600 xt cheaper than any used GPU online. Both being around 250$CAD, but I'm pretty sure my PCI-E slots are gen 1, so is 6600xt even realistic?

 

Thanks for your input!

 

Your pci-e slots aren't gen 1... Your main issue with upgrading the gpu will be the cpu bottlenecking...especially with 1080p resolutions that are usually highly dependent on the cpu.

 

You COULD upgrade to a rx 6600xt and use it again later on after you build a new system. However, I doubt your gpu will ever hit 100% utilization with that cpu.

[jaslion]

What 750w psu is that? The model not just wattage and efficiency.

 

Other than that your slots are gen 3 the 6600xt will be fine. Of course well held back by your cpu for gaming but it will not have any problems in this system as long as your psu is fine.

[Vorgon]

I recently watched Linus talk about the sff Dell Optiplex computers and upgrading the video card with a zotec gtx 1650 low profile card. And I’ve seen others on you tube say that since this is a 75 watt gpu that it could damage my system. The only card that’s recommended is the msi gt 1030 low profile gpu. I trust Linus but I need to know if the 1650 card would actually damage my system? 
 

Dell Optiplex 7020 sff 

I5 4th gen processor

16gb DDR 3 1600 

120gb solid state drive

2tb sata hard drive

 

[ShaneSee]

On 3/26/2022 at 9:59 PM, steelo said:

Your pci-e slots aren't gen 1... Your main issue with upgrading the gpu will be the cpu bottlenecking...especially with 1080p resolutions that are usually highly dependent on the cpu.

 

You COULD upgrade to a rx 6600xt and use it again later on after you build a new system. However, I doubt your gpu will ever hit 100% utilization with that cpu.

Turns out the PCI slots were actually gen 2 as per spec sheets. Even though I had the space and power since my original GPU used dual 6 pin power connector, I opted for an ASUS Phoenix GTX 1650 4Gb instead of 6500xt. It's small, single fan, required no extra power connector and was on sale for 229$CAD brand new in store and considering the used market wants 250$+ for a 1050... ... it's a good price. I capped it's target FPS at 60 since both my monitors are 60hz and so far it runs cool and super quiet and low power but still a noticeable improvement. It's not maxed out on usage so far in my couple days with it, so I feel anything more would have just been overkill and wasted money in my current system. 

Thanks all for the input!

[ShaneSee]

On 3/27/2022 at 6:30 PM, Vorgon said:

I recently watched Linus talk about the sff Dell Optiplex computers and upgrading the video card with a zotec gtx 1650 low profile card. And I’ve seen others on you tube say that since this is a 75 watt gpu that it could damage my system. The only card that’s recommended is the msi gt 1030 low profile gpu. I trust Linus but I need to know if the 1650 card would actually damage my system? 
 

Dell Optiplex 7020 sff 

I5 4th gen processor

16gb DDR 3 1600 

120gb solid state drive

2tb sata hard drive

 

I don't know about damage, but the 1650 low profile cards all need 300W+ power supply and I believe those Dell SFF's have a 240 or 250 watt PSU? So I'm not sure if it would damage things or just shutdown due to not enough power, either way, I would expect some negative results with the 1650 in that PC.