Looking to upgrade GC

[FMotta7]

Budget (including currency): low (200€-250€) 

Country: Portugal

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: MMORPG's, RPG's, MOBA's

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

Part List

DELL optiplex 3060 Motherboard

Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8500 CPU @ 3.00GHz

2x8 DDR4 RAM

AMD Radeon RX550/550 Series 4gb 

 

Hey guys,

I've had this PC for about 1 year. It's a reconditioned PC that got the graphics card and 1x 8 RAM added to it. It's been treating me well, although I'm a bit upset about the graphics card. I thought it would perform better than it is performing. Sometimes it gives me some issues in different games, where it just crashes, lowers my resolution, and gives me the generic AMD crash pop-up. After that, I have to update my graphics card so it goes back to my normal resolution. I would like help to pick out a GC and if I have to change anything else on my setup.

 

Best regards,

 

 

[Tetras]

Is this the tower, or a compact version?

 

Do you have any graphics power connectors available?

 

If you don't have any power, I think the best available card is the 3050 6GB. They're not great value, but they are way faster than a 550.

 

1650 is another option, though be careful because some do need a power connector.

[Dedayog]

17 minutes ago, FMotta7 said:

Budget (including currency): low (200€-250€) 

Country: Portugal

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: MMORPG's, RPG's, MOBA's

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

Part List

DELL optiplex 3060 Motherboard

Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8500 CPU @ 3.00GHz

2x8 DDR4 RAM

AMD Radeon RX550/550 Series 4gb 

 

Hey guys,

I've had this PC for about 1 year. It's a reconditioned PC that got the graphics card and 1x 8 RAM added to it. It's been treating me well, although I'm a bit upset about the graphics card. I thought it would perform better than it is performing. Sometimes it gives me some issues in different games, where it just crashes, lowers my resolution, and gives me the generic AMD crash pop-up. After that, I have to update my graphics card so it goes back to my normal resolution. I would like help to pick out a GC and if I have to change anything else on my setup.

 

Best regards,

 

 

How much is a used 6650XT for you?

[Ha-Satan]

4 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

How much is a used 6650XT for you?

I don't think that's going to work. While I'm not 100% sure of this (since the manual doesn't say explicitly), I'm reasonably certain that the power supply in OP's Optiplex does not have any PCIe power connectors, so they are limited to only 75W slot-power-only cards.

 

Also, from the breakdown I saw in the manual it looks like it might need to be a half-height card, though I'm less sure about that.

[Dedayog]

6 minutes ago, Ha-Satan said:

I don't think that's going to work. While I'm not 100% sure of this (since the manual doesn't say explicitly), I'm reasonably certain that the power supply in OP's Optiplex does not have any PCIe power connectors, so they are limited to only 75W slot-power-only cards.

 

Also, from the breakdown I saw in the manual it looks like it might need to be a half-height card, though I'm less sure about that.

Ugh, he's needing to upgrade the entire PC soon then.

[jaslion]

7 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

Ugh, he's needing to upgrade the entire PC soon then.

There are adapters to make a normal psu work however it cant fit in the case. Neither can more normal sized gpu's. So its gonna be a frankenrig that is half open splayed on the table with a gpu plugged in via a pcir extender probably.

 

Aka a mess!

 

Save up a couple hundred op and replace the entire rig with a NICE used pc. Or just 350 is enough to get a FULLY better new pc used yes even in portugal

[FMotta7]

Thanks for the anwsers,

 

I really didn’t want to get rid of this setup and get a new one, really wanted to upgrade it since I payed 300€ for it.

So should I just get new Motherboard, case, power supply and GC but keep the ram and the processor or is it better just scraping it and getting a new one ?
 

Best regards 

[Ha-Satan]

15 minutes ago, FMotta7 said:

Thanks for the anwsers,

 

I really didn’t want to get rid of this setup and get a new one, really wanted to upgrade it since I payed 300€ for it.

So should I just get new Motherboard, case, power supply and GC but keep the ram and the processor or is it better just scraping it and getting a new one ?
 

Best regards 

It's not worth it to spend that much upgrading everything else with a CPU this old. If you want to stick with this machine, getting the best GPU you can that doesn't require a dedicated power cable (aka a 3050 6GB) is actually the best option, even if I wouldn't normally recommend buying that.

 

ALL THAT SAID: I think it's possible that there's some kind of fixable problem here (AKA, fixable without spending any money or replacing any hardware). Have you tried doing a total wipe and reinstall of Windows and all drivers? The problems you're having might be software, rather than hardware. One thing I have heard that sometimes works for people with AMD GPUs is to do a minimal install of the drivers, aka just the drivers and not the Adrenalin control software. I haven't tested that myself - I've just heard from other people that it sometimes fixes problems.

[FMotta7]

11 minutes ago, Ha-Satan said:

It's not worth it to spend that much upgrading everything else with a CPU this old. If you want to stick with this machine, getting the best GPU you can that doesn't require a dedicated power cable (aka a 3050 6GB) is actually the best option, even if I wouldn't normally recommend buying that.

 

ALL THAT SAID: I think it's possible that there's some kind of fixable problem here (AKA, fixable without spending any money or replacing any hardware). Have you tried doing a total wipe and reinstall of Windows and all drivers? The problems you're having might be software, rather than hardware. One thing I have heard that sometimes works for people with AMD GPUs is to do a minimal install of the drivers, aka just the drivers and not the Adrenalin control software. I haven't tested that myself - I've just heard from other people that it sometimes fixes problems.

Ok

 

ill try and reinstall the windows and minimal instal in the drivers to see if it gets better.

 

if it fatais the same I’ll look into getting a new setup.

Thank you for your time 

[Tetras]

1 hour ago, FMotta7 said:

So should I just get new Motherboard, case, power supply and GC but keep the ram and the processor or is it better just scraping it and getting a new one ?

You don't need to do that. If you just want more graphics performance just replace the card with one that will work. A 550 is really slow (I should know, I have two of them).

[FMotta7]

I’ve been looking at the 570 and 580 as a replacement, is it any good or just same thing different wrapper ?

[Dedayog]

1 minute ago, FMotta7 said:

I’ve been looking at the 570 and 580 as a replacement, is it any good or just same thing different wrapper ?

They are MUCH better... roughly double card vs card.

 

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=rx580+vs+rx550&mid=0AB2D4528D22DFBFF2700AB2D4528D22DFBFF270&FORM=VIRE

 

[FMotta7]

2 hours ago, Dedayog said:

They are MUCH better... roughly double card vs card.

 

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=rx580+vs+rx550&mid=0AB2D4528D22DFBFF2700AB2D4528D22DFBFF270&FORM=VIRE

 

Nice, would I have to do any major changes in my setup to trade my 550 for a 580 with like 6 or 8g of ram ? 

[Ha-Satan]

4 hours ago, FMotta7 said:

I’ve been looking at the 570 and 580 as a replacement, is it any good or just same thing different wrapper ?

These would require a new power supply, which would in turn require a new mobo and case so it's not worth it. 

[FMotta7]

9 hours ago, Ha-Satan said:

These would require a new power supply, which would in turn require a new mobo and case so it's not worth it. 

Ok, I’ll try and uninstall the AMD Adreneline  mode and see if it gets any better. I’ll report back if it worked for me as a solution.

 

Does the display ratio majorly impact the performance of the GC I have a Samsung UHD display, I always lower it to 1920x1028 but the original ratio is 3840x2160

[Tetras]

On 5/15/2025 at 12:44 PM, FMotta7 said:

Does the display ratio majorly impact the performance of the GC I have a Samsung UHD display, I always lower it to 1920x1028 but the original ratio is 3840x2160

Yes, enormously. 4K requires a very high-end graphics card to play natively in most newer games (e.g. £500+), though a cheaper one can do this in older and non-AAA games.

 

A 550 can barely push playable frame rates at 1080p, let alone 4k.

 

This (changing the resolution) does, however, have a big impact on image quality. if you use upscaling like FSR/DLSS, it can lessen the impact of playing at 4K (both performance and image quality), but the 550 was released before upscaling technology was widespread.

 

On 5/15/2025 at 1:03 AM, FMotta7 said:

would I have to do any major changes in my setup to trade my 550 for a 580 with like 6 or 8g of ram ? 

The reason you were suggested a 3050 6GB or 1650 is because these cards do not require a power connector and will still offer a decent upgrade on the 550.

 

Before you buy ANY graphics card you must check:

1. Do you have a PCIE power connector available from the PSU?
2. Ideally, what wattage is the PSU (though, if there's no power connector available this is not that important)?
3. Does your case fit full-size or low profile cards? From what I can see, there are three (maybe even four) variants of your PC and each is a different size.

If you're afraid of opening the side panel, you're going to have to anyway, so please do it now before you waste your money on something that is not suitable.

[FMotta7]

On 5/16/2025 at 4:28 PM, Tetras said:

Yes, enormously. 4K requires a very high-end graphics card to play natively in most newer games (e.g. £500+), though a cheaper one can do this in older and non-AAA games.

 

A 550 can barely push playable frame rates at 1080p, let alone 4k.

 

This (changing the resolution) does, however, have a big impact on image quality. if you use upscaling like FSR/DLSS, it can lessen the impact of playing at 4K (both performance and image quality), but the 550 was released before upscaling technology was widespread.

 

The reason you were suggested a 3050 6GB or 1650 is because these cards do not require a power connector and will still offer a decent upgrade on the 550.

 

Before you buy ANY graphics card you must check:

1. Do you have a PCIE power connector available from the PSU?
2. Ideally, what wattage is the PSU (though, if there's no power connector available this is not that important)?
3. Does your case fit full-size or low profile cards? From what I can see, there are three (maybe even four) variants of your PC and each is a different size.

If you're afraid of opening the side panel, you're going to have to anyway, so please do it now before you waste your money on something that is not suitable.

Ok, ill try and change my monitor so it doesn't strain my GC

 

I don't see any other connect coming from my psu and the max power of it is 200W, my case is Small form factor (SFF) 

There is also a connector with MGE P3 on it that is disconnected.

[Tetras]

44 minutes ago, FMotta7 said:

I don't see any other connect coming from my psu and the max power of it is 200W, my case is Small form factor (SFF) 

There is also a connector with MGE P3 on it that is disconnected.

So just to be clear, is your RX 550 a low profile model, with a half height bracket?

 

Unfortunately, it looks like the best you can get is a 3050 6GB.

 

Here is some numbers from TPU's GPU database (relative to your 550):

 

1050: +57%
1630: +61%
1650: +146%

 

The models listed are all without power connector, though some 1650 models do have them.

 

The 3050 6GB is the best of the bunch, but obviously costly and I'm afraid, not great value.

 

49 minutes ago, FMotta7 said:

Ok, ill try and change my monitor so it doesn't strain my GC

 If you're happy with playing at a lower resolution and/or using upscaling with DLSS/FSR then a 3050 6GB can get you playable frame rates in older games, but this is really just an entry-level card for newer games and it won't manage 4K.

 

That said, many MMOs use very old engines, in which case, it could possibly handle 4K natively.