Help with picking a GPU for an upgrade

[xfrenki]

Hello!

 

As the title suggest, I'm looking for a GPU upgrade for my current PC. I've been very skeptical about upgrading it though for several reasons, which I'm gonna explain in a second.

Firstly, I'm running an old HP tower that has a GPU slapped to it, namely the HP Tower G1 800 with an i7-4790 (3.6GHz), 16 GB of DDR3 RAM, 320W PSU and a Zotac GTX 1650 with a TDP of 75w.

I struggle finding a GPU that fits this rig, without bottlenecking it too much, and that has a decent enough TDP to be accepted by my PSU, which I'm not willing to swap out.

My current GPU was used for a lot of mining, and its performance was hurt to a level, where I can barely use it for gaming (even games like Minecraft, or Fortnite on the lowest settings struggle a lot and have insane frame drops). I'm willing to buy used, I just need a card that won't require me swapping out any other parts. 

I wouldn't mind a 3060 or even a 2060 so long as it offers a performance boost, but I need it to be within the TDP that my PSU can handle. I'd be willing to make compromises, such as buying a card that exceeds the TDP and capping it (although I wouldn't know how to do that, and I don't even know if it is a good idea). My eventual plan is to buy a whole new rig in about 2 years, so I don't want something too crazy like a 40 series GPU.

What is your suggestion? Should I even consider upgrading? Should I maybe get another 1650 or something in that range and be happy with it? 

 

Thanks a lot in advance for any assistance you're able to give me!

 

P.S.: I have checked and I am 100% sure my current GPU is the problem.

[toasty99]

From what I remember and see online, there was no 6 pin or 8 pin pci-e power on that PSU.

 

For that reason, you'd have to use SATA to 6pin/8pin adapters, which can range from should be alright to literal fire hazard. For that reason, ideally I'd probably stick to a 120-130w card, you could get away with 150w but that's pushing it.

 

I would say the logical upgrade here is a Gtx 1660ti or Rx 6600.

 

The 1660ti costs about $110 on ebay. The 1660 or 1660 super are fine as well, I just don't think they make sense unless you can get them below market value because they don't tend to be much cheaper than the 1660ti and the performance is worse. 

 

The other option is a Rx 6600, which can be picked up used for around $145 on eBay. More money, but easily a better card. If the extra money isn't an issue I'd just get it.  AliExpress is starting their black Friday deals in a few days, and Aliexpress sellers have the quite odd Rx 6600m available that is worth considering. The 6600m is a laptop GPU put onto a desktop GPU, it uses the 6600m drivers, and it performs basically the same as a Rx 6600. It costs about $145 not on sale, which at that point just get a legit card, but if it drops to $120-125 it's definitely worth considering.

 

Check out r/hardwareswap, eBay auctions, and your local markets though, you might be able to get slightly better prices than just buy it now eBay prices if you are willing to do some digging.

 

Link to an example of the adapter you'll need: https://a.aliexpress.com/_mN8v3uu

 

[toasty99]

Also, I should note there is basically no such thing as "hurt from mining". Mining kills memory, if you aren't getting memory crashes, it's not the mining that is the issue. You will see cards with degraded memory, but it leads to crashing more than frame drops/stutters. Plus, the 1650 was an awful mining card so it's unlikely it was ever used for an extended period of time for that.

 

Have you installed gpu-z and monitored your temperatures as well as clocks? It's very possible you need to do a gpu repaste. Paste dries out, if it's never been replaced on your current card it's almost certainly in need of doing.

 

edit: Make sure your current GPU is actually getting the 75w it needs in gpu-z too, it's not entirely uncommon for some prebuilts to not supply the full pci-e power spec of 75w. Worth checking.

[xfrenki]

Thanks a lot for the suggestion! 

I opened my PC up recently, and was looking for the 6/8 pin cable and was weirded out when I didn't find one, but I didn't realize that it was just completely missing, just thought I had lost myself in the ketchup and mustard mess. 

I'm probably going to opt for what you suggested, but seeing how I can run a 130w card, maybe even a 140w, wouldn't it also work well for me to get a 3060, which has better performance, and is more useable for video editing, which I also need quite often, and just capping the wattage, so that it doesn't exceed it? Again I have no clue whether that's a good idea or not (or even if that is an idea but seems feasible)

Quote

 the 1650 was an awful mining card so it's unlikely it was ever used for an extended period of time for that.

I think it's important to state I was the person doing the mining, haha. I was using this app called Salad, which gave you in-app balance and you could then redeem it for other things. I used it for a long time and it was awful but I had to make do with it. My performance when I first got the card and the rig overall (2020) was way better than now, so I thought that the GPU's performance was influenced by the mining, but maybe it was just the years. Add to that, I don't even know whether or not the rig and the GPU were used before that. Of course, could just be the graphical advancements in games that affect my FPS but from what I've observed in the past few weeks, I seriously doubt that's the only reason.

[toasty99]

3 minutes ago, xfrenki said:

Thanks a lot for the suggestion! 

I opened my PC up recently, and was looking for the 6/8 pin cable and was weirded out when I didn't find one, but I didn't realize that it was just completely missing, just thought I had lost myself in the ketchup and mustard mess. 

I'm probably going to opt for what you suggested, but seeing how I can run a 130w card, maybe even a 140w, wouldn't it also work well for me to get a 3060, which has better performance, and is more useable for video editing, which I also need quite often, and just capping the wattage, so that it doesn't exceed it? Again I have no clue whether that's a good idea or not (or even if that is an idea but seems feasible)

I think it's important to state I was the person doing the mining, haha. I was using this app called Salad, which gave you in-app balance and you could then redeem it for other things. I used it for a long time and it was awful but I had to make do with it. My performance when I first got the card and the rig overall (2020) was way better than now, so I thought that the GPU's performance was influenced by the mining, but maybe it was just the years. Add to that, I don't even know whether or not the rig and the GPU were used before that. Of course, could just be the graphical advancements in games that affect my FPS but from what I've observed in the past few weeks, I seriously doubt that's the only reason.

Again, card degradation comes in the form of memory going bad not stutters/frame dropping. I really would suggest figuring out what is wrong with your current system, because it is fixable. 

 

Another thing worth looking into is that it's not even the GPU at fault. The issues you described also can be caused by a virus/background program that is stealing CPU cycles.

[xfrenki]

5 minutes ago, toasty99 said:

Again, card degradation comes in the form of memory going bad not stutters/frame dropping. I really would suggest figuring out what is wrong with your current system, because it is fixable. 

 

Another thing worth looking into is that it's not even the GPU at fault. The issues you described also can be caused by a virus/background program that is stealing CPU cycles.

To be completely honest I haven't extensively researched my GPU, just looked at the usage being at 100% and still struggling to run a game at 40/50 fps which wasn't even an issue before. I know for a fact that there is a very slim chance of it being a software based issue. I do get the feeling that it might have something to do with it, since at times I feel like my PC is doing so much for just a small task, but I do constant refreshes of the OS (full wipes) so didn't ever consider looking into it. Now that I know better, I'll have a closer look at it all, and I'll avoid the purchase. In truth it sounds like a lot of work for what is eventually going to be replaced soon enough. For now I'll just try to maintain my current rig a bit better, clean it a bit more, maybe change the thermal paste as you suggested. Thanks a lot for clearing the situation up!